Among his various strengths, tolerance did not
rank high for Helio Gracie. Although Waldemar
Santana had previously been a star pupil and
trusted with responsibility, the story of how he
went from friend to rival is recounted in Tradition,
recently released by Bantam Films. Joao Alberto,
a student at the time, remembered that:
“There was a problem at the Gracie Academy
involving Waldemar Santana. Waldemar was
our cleaner and took care of our uniforms. One
day there was a shortage of water at the Gracie
Academy and he left some taps open. The next
day the academy was flooded. So Helio Gracie
was infuriated and said some things to Walde-
mar that he didn’t like. So Waldemar left the Gra-
cie Academy.
“Helio Gracie...there were a lot of people who
loved Helio and others who hated him. One of
them [Haroldo Brito] started preparing Walde-
mar Santana so that he could challenge Helio
Gracie. That’s what happened.”This is not the only version of the story. In With
The Back On The Ground, the reason given is
completely different:“The day after Fadda issued his challenge to the
Gracies, a fight that would have been exciting
was announced. Waldemar Santana of Gracie
Academy would take on Rene Bastos. He intend-
ed to prove that Helio Vigio had been wronged
in fighting to a draw with Bastos, and Waldemar
was going to right that wrong by beating Bastos.
Helio [Gracie] was beside himself. He’d already
forbidden Waldemar from accepting the fight if
it were at the ill-reputed location, but Bastos’s
manager had talked Waldemar into signing the
bout agreement.“Immediately Helio, in one of his temper tan-
trums, booted Waldemar from his academy. It
would have been left at that if months later, in
May, Waldemar hadn’t given an interview where
he criticised the Gracies and challenged Helio to
a bout of jiu-jitsu or vale-tudo. From there on the
sequence of events took on a life of its own.”Carlos’ son, Reyson, picks up the narrative, stat-
ing that after the fight – an arduous marathon
almost four hours in length with no breaks – the
Gracie Academy’s reputation suffered. In the
newspapers, “they started to question the pres-
tige of the Gracie Academy, the Gracie Family.”Born in Bahia, Waldemar grew up poor. His job
as a cleaner provided his route to the normally
exclusive Gracie Academy mats. Santana’s ath-
leticism caught Helio’s eye, leading to a position
as an instructor and five years of close associa-
tion. Waldemar represented the school numer-
ous times in the vale tudo ring.That ended after the incident with Helio and
Santana’s victory over his former employer. Car-
los Gracie immediately challenged Santana,
in order to restore the family pride. Historically,
when Carlos threw out a challenge, it normally
meant he had no intention of actually fighting
himself. Therefore on the 21st July 1956, he sent
one of his sons instead, a certain Carlson Gracie:SANTANA ACADEMY
HISTORY 101: