Wallid Ismail

Wallid Farid Ismail (, born February 23, 1968) is a Brazilian mixed martial artist and promoter.

Ismail holds a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) under Carlson Gracie, and is an IVC mixed martial arts world champion and BJJ Champion. Ismail is considered one of the first professional fighters in BJJ because of his specially dedicated training, as he had many sponsors and did not have to teach or have another job, unlike most of the other competitors in the country at the time. In mixed martial arts, Ismail is also considered a pioneer, having his first official fight in the Vale Tudo event Desafio - Jiu Jitsu vs. Luta Livre in 1991, also having competed for the UFC, and PRIDE, most of his wins in MMA came by way of submission.

After his career, he became heavily involved in the business side of MMA. He is the founder and promoter of Jungle Fight, Brazil's largest MMA promotion, and also manager of multiple fighters.

Background Of Palestinian Brazilian heritage, Ismail started training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu in 1980 in his home state of Amazonas in Brazil under Ary Almeida, and then, in 1984, he moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and started training under his master, the late Carlson Gracie, who described Ismail as a "hairy and chubby guy," but had a desire to succeed, as he would be known for later in his career and stayed by the side of his master until the day Carlson died in 2006. Gracie had allowed Ismail to train with his camp even though Ismail had no money to afford the teaching." Wallid then started to compete in jiu-jitsu tournaments, becoming champion several times, and defeating four members of the famous Gracie family in competition.

Victories over the Gracie family Ismail was willing to face the Gracie family's main branch due to their enmity with their relative Carlson. Ismail had also expressed: "I always felt belittled for not being born with the Gracie name. Some of the Gracies never trained at all, but they got all this attention. Other people trained just as hard, but no one paid them the least bit of attention." who would have been training for two years for revenge. a move that has been associated with Wallid ever since. The bout had a significant international repercussion due to Royce's previous career in Ultimate Fighting Championship, to the point Keith Vargo from the Black Belt magazine stated, "One thing is certain: Royce Gracie is no longer the messiah of unarmed combat he once was."

After the match, Ismail challenged Rickson again, but the latter was declared inactive in the sport.

Wallid was also famous for his personal enmity with Ryan Gracie. Ryan agreed to fight Wallid at mixed martial arts match at World Extreme Cagefighting in January 2000; however, Ryan dropped out of the event, and instead proposed fighting in April 2001, but he had to drop again after being arrested for fighting in a bar.

Feud with Edson Carvalho In 1996, Wallid was involved in a violent incident with Edson Carvalho, a judo black belt and fellow Carlson Gracie trainee. The matter took place in Georges Mehdi's judo school, which both Ismail and Carvalho were attending at the time. After heated words among the two, a sparring turned into an all-out fight when Ismail and Carvalho attacked each other. Mehdi intervened to break up the brawl and expel them out of the academy, but the two fighters resumed fighting as soon as they were in the street. Seeing the situation, Mehdi opted for calling the police, but it arrived too late and didn't compromise to break up the violence, and meanwhile Wallid was brutally beaten down and left unconscious and profusely bleeding. After the incident was finally over, Ismail had to be attended by Mehdi himself and spent a week in an ICU, with 20 stitches in his head, both orbital bones broken and many other facial injuries.

The incident had deep repercussions. Carvalho's coach, Antônio Lacerda a.k.a. Mestre da Morte, declared himself prideful of his trainee's act and actually paraded through the city with the bloody gi jacket of Ismail. but Mehdi himself dismissed this version and assured that the fight was fair.

Mixed martial arts

Early career at Vale Tudo In 1991, Wallid Ismail, at the time a brown belt, caused controversy for publishing incendiary and provocative articles in newspaper O Dia where he declared Luta Livre—whose practitioners had a rivalry with jiu-jitsu—was nothing more than a cheap copy of BJJ and its fighters were inferior, challenging Luta Livre fighters for a fight. In response, a few days later a group of Luta Livre invaded the Copa Nastra jiu-jitsu tournament, which Ismail was competing, in order to fight him. The situation was descalated by Carlson Gracie who instead offered to the Luta Livre fighters to instead organize a public challenge between the two martial arts. Robson Gracie, who became the promoter of the event, convinced Rede Globo, Brazil's largest media network, to broadcast the event live on television. He first pitched to the network as a pure submission grappling event, but changed the rules to be a no-holds-barred Vale Tudo event. Ismail was escalated to represent BJJ and fight Luta Livre representative Eugenio Tadeu. The match saw both fighters extensively exchanging strikes, Ismail used his aggressive jiu-jitsu to takedown Tadeu and apply an early form of Ground-and-Pound, punishing him with headbutts and by throwing him outside the ring multiple times. After 16 minutes of fighting, Ismail threw him outside the ring one last time and the tired and injured Tadeu wasn't able to come back in, giving the victory to Ismail by TKO.

Ismail returned at PRIDE 15 with a win by arm triangle over Shungo Oyama. His next fight in PRIDE was a decision loss in a technical ground fight to Alex Stiebling at Pride 19. Ismail won the last two fights of his career in 2002 in Japan.

Post fight career In 2003, Ismail did several special appearances for Japanese professional wrestling promotion New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Siding with Antonio Inoki and his faction of fighters opposed to NJPW, he was expected to debut as an active wrestler in August, teaming up with Kazuyuki Fujita and his allies. However, for unknown reasons, this never came to fruition, and he eventually remained in a non-wrestling role. and was often in the corner of Paulo Thiago and Erick Silva in their UFC fights.

He became manager of multiple MMA fighters from Brazil, many which pass through Jungle Fight. He most notably manages former UFC Flyweight Champion Deiveson Figueiredo, and middleweight Paulo Costa. He also acts as an interpreter for the fighters who can't speak English that he manages, although his translations have caused controversy as he has made inaccurate translations or added his own thoughts and opinions on them.

In a May 2021 interview with Sherdog.com, Ismail said that UFC Middleweight Champion Israel Adesanya "has homosexual instincts and he should be studied by science". Adesanya had earlier caused controversy by simulating anal sex on a prone Paulo Costa, one of Ismail's fighters, after defeating Costa at UFC 253 in September 2020.

Mixed martial arts record Win

Yasuhito Namekawa Decision (unanimous) Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye 2002

Saitama, Japan Win

Kazunari Murakami TKO (punches) UFO - Legend

Tokyo, Japan Loss

Alex Stiebling Decision (unanimous) PRIDE 19 - Bad Blood

Saitama, Japan Win

Shungo Oyama Technical Submission (arm triangle choke) PRIDE 15 - Raging Rumble

Saitama, Japan Loss

Akira Shoji TKO (punches) Pride 4

Tokyo, Japan Win

Gary Myers Decision (unanimous) IVC 5 - The Warriors

Brazil Win

Johil de Oliveira Submission (punches) IVC 3 - The War Continues

Brazil Loss

Kazuo Takahashi Decision UFC 12 - Judgement Day

Dothan, Alabama, United States Win

Katsumi Usuta Submission (rear-naked choke) U - Japan

Japan Win

Katsumi Usuta Submission (rear-naked choke) UVF 2 - Universal Vale Tudo Fighting 2

Brazil Win

Dennis Kefalinos Submission (rear-naked choke) UVF 1 - Universal Vale Tudo Fighting 1

Japan Win

Eugenio Tadeu TKO (injury) Desafio - Jiu Jitsu vs. Luta Livre

Grajaú, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Submission grappling record (incomplete) Result Opponent Method Event Date Round Time