How good was Fernando Vasconcelos?

[Ogata]

I remember Karo Parisyan mentioning how this guy was one of the best jujitsu guys out there and he was told that Fernando was bullet proof. Curios to know how good was he during his jujitsu days.

 

[ChickenBrother]

Full disclosure: I'm not as cool as @Stoic1 with his stories of white belts getting epically humbled or having Oleg Taktarov's finger up my ass. I'm a nobody but I have some training history that's relevant here.

I didn't know him but Fernando was 4 years behind me and wrestled for Mira Costa HS, our crosstown rival. I only know this because the year after I graduated, I did one of their wrestling practices to work out with their kid who beat me 4-2 in the wrestling league finals my senior year. There were a few other kids my size including some freshman Fernando who had just started wrestling. The coach told me Fernando was a natural but had only recently started BJJ and wrestling. I went live with him and thought he was good but he had a funk style. Side note: the sweep single leg TD he hits in the OP vid is bread and butter HS wrestling.

Fast forward 4 years to 1997. I was visiting my parents for a few weeks and wanted to train. I was fresh off 4 years competing on a college Judo team and thought I was hot shit. Figured I'd do some drop ins at Rigan Machado's (had trained with some of their guys but had never been to their gym). So I walk in with my baggy ass Judo gi with wizard sleeves and Judo brown belt and I ask Rigan if I can borrow a white belt since I have no rank in jiu jitsu. He's like NP just wear your Judo gi and belt. Fuck. So everyone in the class is eyeing me and even more so after I demolish their white belts and smash pass or tap some of their blue belts with ezekiel chokes from inside their guard using my wizard sleeves. After about 20 minutes of this, Rigan comes out again and is like we want you to have a challenge match with our best blue belt.

Everyone clears off the mat to the sides to watch, and I feel like l'm about to be dim makked at the Kumite but I'm like OK. Some lanky kid comes out in a blue belt (we're both around 170 lbs) and Rigan explains that we have to stay on our knees with no standing up. The kid pulls guard right away and waits for me to engage. I try to smash pass but get stuck in his closed guard. I do the elbows in his thighs thing but no dice. I attempt a can opener but he threatens a double armbar so I bail and get him flat and attempt two ezekiel chokes that he shrugs off. He does an arm drag and starts to take my back but I shake him off and put him back into guard. A few guys are like "Ooooh" like they are impressed by this. But he does it again to the other side and gets back mount. Game over. He's incredibly tight on me with no space and he quickly taps me with a "clock choke" as the cool kids call it. I think I lasted about 2 minutes.

A few days later I came back for another drop in and their purple belt is like you looked good in that challenge match. I'm like nah, that was just a blue belt. He's like that wasn't a regular blue belt, that was Fernando, our best black belt. He was a blue belt until a month ago but he was tapping BBs and Rigan just promoted him.

Epilogue: 19 yo Fernando Vasconcelos took gold at 1997 IBJJF Pans at black Middleweight about a month after this gym "challenge match" with a nobody from Jerkwater, USA.

EDIT: I am in no way comparing myself to Vasconcelos. Dude is an OG of old school grappling and MMA and was phenomenal at what he did. IIRC Shonie Carter said he was his toughest MMA fight.

 

[randomg1t]

Full disclosure: I'm not as cool as @Stoic1 with his stories of white belts getting epically humbled or having Oleg Taktarov's finger up my ass. I'm a nobody but I have some training history that's relevant here.

I didn't know him but Fernando was 4 years behind me and wrestled for Mira Costa HS, our crosstown rival. I only know this because the year after I graduated, I did one of their wrestling practices to work out with their kid who beat me 4-2 in the wrestling league finals my senior year. There were a few other kids my size including some freshman Fernando who had just started wrestling. The coach told me Fernando was a natural but had only recently started BJJ and wrestling. I went live with with him and thought he was good but he had a funk style. Side note: the sweep single leg TD he hits in the OP vid is bread and butter HS wrestling.

Fast forward 4 years to 1997. I was visiting my parents for a few weeks and wanted to train. I was fresh off 4 years competing on a college Judo team and thought I was hot shit. Figured I'd do some drop ins at Rigan Machado's (had trained with some of their guys but had never been to their gym). So I walk in with my baggy ass Judo gi with wizard sleeves and Judo brown belt and I ask Rigan if I can borrow a white belt since I have no rank in jiu jitsu. He's like NP just wear your Judo gi and belt. Fuck. So everyone in the class is eyeing me and even more so after I demolish their white belts and smash pass or tap some of their blue belts with ezekiel chokes from inside their guard using my wizard sleeves. After about 20 minutes of this, Rigan comes out again and is like we want you to have a challenge match with our best blue belt.

Everyone clears off the mat to the sides to watch, and I feel like l'm about to be dim makked at the Kumite but I'm like OK. Some lanky kid comes out in a blue belt (we're both around 170 lbs) and Rigan explains that we have to stay on our knees with no standing up. The kid pulls guard right away and waits for me to engage. I try to smash pass but get stuck in his closed guard. I do the elbows in his thighs thing but no dice. I attempt a can opener but he threatens a double armbar so I bail and get him flat and attempt two ezekiel chokes that he shrugs off. He does an arm drag and starts to take my back but I shake him off and put him back into guard. A few guys are like "Ooooh" like they are impressed by this. But he does it again to the other side and gets back mount. Game over. He's incredibly tight on me with no space and he quickly taps me with a "clock choke" as the cool kids call it. I think I lasted about 2 minutes.

A few days later I came back for another drop in and their purple belt is like you looked good in that challenge match. I'm like nah, that was just a blue belt. He's like that wasn't a regular blue belt, that was Fernando, our best black belt. He was a blue belt until a month ago but he was tapping BBs and Rigan just promoted him.

Epilogue: 19 yo Fernando Vasconcelos took gold at 1997 IBJJF Pans at black Middleweight about a month after this gym "challenge match" with a nobody from Jerkwater, USA.

EDIT: I am in no way comparing myself to Vasconcelos. Dude is an OG of old school grappling and MMA and was phenomenal at what he did. IIRC Shonie Carter said he was his toughest MMA fight.

this story is dope.

the guy must've been quite something if rigan just straight up promoted him from blue belt to black belt and 2 months later he won the fucking pans.

 

[ChickenBrother]

this story is dope.

the guy must've been quite something if rigan just straight up promoted him from blue belt to black belt and 2 months later he won the fucking pans.

From what I recall briefly talking to his HS wrestling coach at the practice, and later some of Rigan's other students, he came from a jiu jitsu family and was a cousin or second cousin to the Machados or something like that. He briefly trained some recreational jiu jitsu as a kid but didn't like it. But he came back to it around the time he started HS and then started training it very seriously. So he would have had around 5 years training as a teen (plus whatever he trained as a kid) when Rigan promoted him to BB at age 19.