Choque: The Untold Story of Jiu-Jitsu in Brazil 1856-1949 (Volume 1) (8 page)

.

Chapter 5 Notes

Chapter 6

1915

On Thursday March 11, 1915. Empresa Paschoal Segreto announced the imminent arrival
in Rio of a troupe of jiu-jitsu lutadores, currently in São Paulo.
1

The troupe members were identified as
:

.

Conde Koma (world champion)

Satake (champion of
New York)

Okura (
champion of Chile)

Matsura (champion of
Peru)

Hara (champion of Tokio)

Akiyama (champion of North America)

When the lutadores arrived on April 4, they visited the editorial offices of
A Epoca
and
Correia da Manhã
.
2

The composition of the group had changed. It now consisted of:

Conde Koma (world champion)

Satake (1913 champion of
New York)

Okura (1914 champion of
Chile)

Shimizu
(1913 champion of Peru)

Raku (1913 champion of
Mexico)

.

These were the fighters whose fight results were reported the next several weeks during their engagement. Matsura and Hara had vanished. Akiyama had gone to Argentina.
3
He did not take part in any reported fights in Rio, and when on Tuesday August 3, the troupe boarded the Itapama bound for Recife and points beyond, Akiyama was not among them.
4
Thus, as in São Paulo, the troupe consisted of five fighters. Koma, Satake, and Okura remained from the São Paulo contingent. Shimizu and Raku replaced Matsura and Akiyama.

The troupe was scheduled to debut the second week of April. In the meantime, they were spending the week giving seminars, schmoozing with the press, and engaging in other promotional activities (some of which will be described in more detail below). However they did not actually make their forma
l stage appearance until May 1.

Gazeta de Noticias
reported that they would perform at one of four theaters operated by Paschoal Segreto (Theatro S. Jose, Theatro S. Pedro, Cinema-Theatro Carlos Gomes, and Cinema Rio in Nichteroy [Niteroi].
5
As it turned out, they appeared at the Carlos Gomes, and occasionally Cinema Rio.

Conde Koma offered 5,000 francs to anyone who could beat him and 500 francs to any amateur who could survive more than 15 minutes” [“
offerece 5,000 francos a quem o vencer e 500 francs ao amador que lhe resistir mais de quinze minutos
”].
6

It was an offer than was repeated many times. A few bold men took up the challenge. With nothing to lose except possibly their self-esteem, it is surprising that not more men accepted the challenge.

Articles, short news items, and ads appeared every day in one or more newspapers plugging the upcoming jiu-jitsu campeonato along with results of the already in progress luta romana tournament and the days’ match-ups. March 29 was the Youssouf versus Kormandy match.

Seventeen years later, Youssouf would challenge jiu-jitsu champion Geo Omori to a luta livre or jiu-jitsu match and get choked out for his trouble.

The
regras
[rules] of jiu-jitsu for the 2
nd
campeonato of jiu-jitsu to be held at Theatro Carlos Gomes were published Tuesday March 30, 1915 in
O Imparcial
and Friday April 12, 1915 in
Gazeta de Noticias.
As described in chapter 5, the jiu-jitsu challenges were not “anything goes,” but rather contests of “submission grappling”.

Koma and his troupe visited the editorial office of
Correio de Manhã
Saturday evening April 3, 1915. They planned to spend the final week before their debut at Theatro Carlos Gomes giving demonstration lessons [“
classe academica
”] and visiting the press.

According to the report of the visit, Conde Koma fought in
England in 1914 and became a professor to the English police, subsequently doing the same in Russia, North America, Havana, Mexico, and San Salvador. With him were Satake (New York champion in 1913), Shimizu (Peru champion), Okura (Chile champion in 1914), and Raku (Mexico champion in 1913). Conde Koma’s standing offer was repeated: 5,000 francs to anyone who could beat him and 500 francs to any amateur who could last 15 minutes without tapping.
7

The next day, Koma,
Shimizu, Okura, and Raku visited
A Epoca
offices. The
A Epoca
report added the details that Koma was the wearer of the “belt of gold” [
ceinture d’or
] after winning a tournament in London in 1914.

Before the beginning of the 2
nd
campeonato of “the terrible Japanese Game” [
o terrivel jogo nipponico
], Koma offered a special session for doctors and representatives of the press in which he explained in minute detail the effects of the “terrible techniques of attack and defense”.
8

On Wednesday April 7, the Japanese minister attended a performance of the Koma troupe at the Carlos Gomes, returning the visit that Koma had paid to him earlier.
9

The jiu-jitsu tournament did not begin until May 1 but Koma and the troupe generated interest in their forthcoming “jiu-jitsu”
campeonato
by giving demonstrations during intermissions of the luta romana tournament.

Luta
romana was popular, judging by the media attention. Results of matches were reported in some detail, using French, without translation, to describe the winning techniques, which indicates that fans were familiar with them.

On April 7 Gallant defeated Umberto by
ceinture á rebours en tourbillon
, Pampuri from Italy easily subjugated Goldbach of Austria with a
prise de hanches en tête
, and Schultz defeated Matuchevich by
ceinture en souplesse
. Matches scheduled for Wednesday April 8 were Chevalier versus La Pelada, and Pampuri versus Kormandy and a tie-breaker between the 128 kilo Turk Youssouf and 142 kilo German Lobmeyer.
10

On Sunday April 4, local champion João Baldi expressed interest in participating in the 6
th
campeonato
. Paschoal Segreto reluctantly agreed.

According to
Gazeta de Noticias,
in a few days Baldi would be demonstrating his vast knowledge of the sport of Greco-romana and commented that Baldi appeared to be in excellent shape and that it was a shame that other fighters didn’t emulate him.
11

On Saturday April 24, the luta Greco-romana campeonato moved to the Cinema-Rio in Nictheroy. Some wrestlers made the short 14 kilometer (8.7 miles) ferry trip across the Baia da Guanabara [
Guanabara Bay]. The other wrestlers stayed in Rio and continued their nightly battles at the Carlos Gomes.
12

Finally, the day came. On Friday April 30, it was announced in
A Noite
that the jiu-jitsu championship that everyone had been kept anxiously waiting for was going to begin the next day, Saturday May, 1915. Conde Koma and his troupe of skillful Japanese fighters would take part.
13

The
Saturday May 1, 1915 editions of
O Paiz
,
O Seculo
,
Gazeta de Noticias
,
A Epoca
, and
O Imparcial
made sure that no would be fail to know about it.
Gazeta de Noticias
reiterated Koma’s standing offer of 5,000 francos to anyone who could beat him and additionally announced that the first match would pit Satake (champion of New York) against Raku (champion of Mexico).

Challengers

The troupe’s advance work had not been wasted. Four amateurs had already signed up to challenge Koma. They were Paulo Jeolas, Joaquim Guadencio Alves, Edmundo Esteves de Assumpção, and Antonio Dias Guimaraes.

There would also be luta romana matches, and the comic acrobats Les Fredonis would also be on stage.
14

That night,
Koma performed an exhibition. Satake fought Raku. The next day
Gazeta de Noticias
mistakenly reported that Satake defeated Okura by knee bar in the fifth round [
Okura foi vencido por uma chave de perna
]. Such misreporting was not the norm, but it was not rare. It may have been an editorial slip, or it may have been that the writer did not really see the fight.

O Paiz
reported that it would not attempt to write the Japanese name of the “
truque
” [trick, technique] that Satake defeated Raku with, to avoid confusing readers [
não escrevemos em japonez, para não atrapalhar os nossos leitores
] but the technique was called “
chave de pernas
” in Portuguese.
Chave de pernas
is “leglock”.
15

The next match was Okura versus Schimizu, scheduled for
May 2, 1915, 10:30 p.m.
16

Meanwhile luta romana continued to attract fans. With 12 rather than five fighters, each from a different national or cultural group, they could offer more variety and appeal to multiple fan bases. Instead of one match per day, the luta romana fighters typically presented three. For example, the May 2 matches were Schulz from
Germany versus Gallant from Russia; Goldbach from Austria versus Le Boucher from France; and Yusuf [Youssouf] from Syria versus Umberto from Italy.
17
Thus there were six fighters representing six different countries (or regions).

The jiu-jitsu fighters needed to recruit amateur challengers to round out their show. They could of course perform self-defense demonstrations but fans quickly grew bored and wanted to see real fights or at least fake but convincing fights, with exciting action. Unfortunately, the amateurs seldom put up a good fight. As one observer commented “they don’t make a good impression, the amateurs of jiu-jitsu who show up to try for the prize offered by Conde Koma, who easily nullified their attacks”
.
18

Jiu-jitsu fights seemed generally to be less compelling. They were reported in less detail. Perhaps fans and writers were less familiar with the techniques, which were less intuitively comprehensible than the luta romana techniques. Anyone could understand luta romana. People who hadn’t experienced arm bars and chokes and what was required to set them up were less able to appreciate the drama in a jiu-jitsu match.

For example, on Monday May 3, Satake and Shimizu faced off for the first of three times in seven days. One newspaper reported only that the five-round fight ended in a draw [
terminou por um empate
].
19

According to another report, Referee Cesareo was unfamiliar with the rules of jiu-jitsu and failed to keep one of the fighters under control, which accounted for the inconclusive result.
20

Another problem was the fact that the jiu-jitsu masters were all obviously friends and colleagues. They all learned their secrets in the same school.
21
They were too constrained by racial stereotypes to be able to enact the stock characters of professional wrestling. They may have tried. According to the review of one fight, “Satake was the youngest member of the troupe, and was so nervous that he became violent at times”.
22

This was unusual however, as it clashed with the fans’ image of what a Japanese jiu-jitsu expert should be. They were all equally mysterious, calm, polite, and scientific. In other words, they were the Japanese stereotype, with science added. Unlike the luta romana and luta livre wrestlers, Conde Koma and the troupe couldn’t convincingly pretend to be enemies in order to artificially enhance dramatic interest. They lacked the elements to pose as rivals. Theatrical jiu-jitsu was packaged to be entertaining, with enormous brutes being flipped through the air with effortless flicks of the wrist. But staged demonstrations were too predictable after a while to sustain public interest. Fans wanted fights, preferably with heroes to root for and villains and rivals to root against.

Amateur challengers provided this to a degree. The problem, as observers pointed out, was that they lacked the technical knowledge and skills that could make the outcome of a match uncertain, hence interesting. For a master to fight a novice would be not much more appealing than watching a demonstration.

A secondary problem might have been that local challengers blurred the line between heroes and villains. It was obvious who was better at jiu-jitsu, but who was the “good guy”
, the “hero”, the “champion”, that the local fans wanted to identify with? No one doubted Koma’s greatness, but he and his fighters were outsiders, just passing through. The matches lacked an ingredient that all commercially successful spectacles and series need, and that is rivalry. Rivalry is a relationship between personalities, or aggregates of them. Rivalry implies a general equality of forces. There must be a possibility of defeat. That is what creates the drama that people will pay to see.