- Luta Livre
Luta Livre, "Fight Free" or better translated "Free fighting" is a broad term referring to
wrestling in Portuguese. In Brazil, it may also refer to a martial art that resemblescatch wrestling . Luta livre is the most dominant style in IVC (International Vale Tudo Championship)History
With the introduction of the
Ultimate Fighting Championship , where Brazilian fighterRoyce Gracie dominated the first few shows, many English language martial arts publications rushed to find and translate older Brazilian articles regarding the history of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. It was common knowledge that the practice of no-rules freestyle fighting was common in Brazil, so when those translating the articles saw many references to competitions between Gracie-trained fighters and Luta Livre practitioners, it was mistakenly assumed that Luta Livre referred to a specific Brazilian freestyle system.However, Brazil is home to a system of wrestling which incorporates both submissions and strikes which is most properly referred to as
Luta Livre Esportiva and probably what most have in mind when making the aforementioned mistake in semantics. It is striking not only for the efficacy of many of its practitioners in real-world combat (they include mixed martial arts champions such asAlexandre Franca Nogueira ,Ebenezer Fontes Braga , andMarco Ruas ) but also for its similarity tocatch wrestling andshoot wrestling , in spite of being developed almost wholly independently of either.Today luta livre have two aspects :
* Luta Livre esportiva
* Luta Livre vale tudoEntertainment wrestling, where the outcome is predetermined, is known in Brazil but not associated with no-rules freestyle fighting, or what Brazilians call
vale tudo , hence there is no link between the Mexican style oflucha libre and luta livre.ee also
*
Mixed martial arts External links
* [http://www.luta-livre.de/ European Luta Livre Federation]
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