{"id":485453,"date":"2026-06-06T01:34:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T01:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/485453\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T01:34:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T01:34:18","slug":"ufc-wvc-pioneer-to-receive-documentary-about-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/485453\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC, WVC pioneer to receive documentary about career"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the greatest grapplers of our generation and a one-time
\n
\nUltimate Fighting Championship<\/a> fighter is getting the
\nrecognition he deserves.<\/p>\n

Thirty years after the iconic and bloody 30-minute final of the
\n
\nWVC 3 tournament<\/a> in Sao Paulo, Brazil, combatants Fabio Gurgel<\/a>
\nand Mark
\nKerr<\/a> met again. The two came together backstage at the 30th
\nedition of the Jiu-Jitsu World Championship on Saturday in
\nCalifornia. Gurgel spoke to Sherdog about their reunion.<\/p>\n

\u201cMark
\nKerr<\/a> is a very pleasant person; we talked for almost half an
\nhour,\u201d Gurgel explained. \u201cWe talked about his film and, since he is
\nrepresenting a brand of sleep measurement rings, he gave me one as
\na gift. Interestingly, I am launching a corporate bioperformance
\nproduct in Brazil called Impulso +. Exactly with the objective of
\nbringing the culture of jiu-jitsu, to take care of the health of
\nemployees, to large companies. We talked a lot about this
\nsynergy.\u201dRock the doc
\n
\nDuring their conversation, which included talking about the film
\n\u201cThe Smashing Machine\u201d and its similarly named documentary, Gurgel
\nfelt inspired to get the ball rolling on his own video story. It is
\ncurrently in production with involvement from the defunct WVC
\norganization and its direction by Jorge Wolney Atalla of
\n\u201cSequestero\u201d fame.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe film producers tried to buy the rights to the fight from [WVC
\nproducer] Frederico Lapenda, who wasn\u2019t interested in selling. This
\nsparked his desire to tell the other side of the story. Lapenda is
\na great friend and he contacted me, and that\u2019s how the idea for the
\ndocumentary about my career was born,\u201d said Gurgel.<\/p>\n

The focus of the documentary is not on the WVC 3 final itself, with
\nthat match just one point along the timeline that is Gurgel\u2019s life.
\nThe film will also delve into the Alliance Jiu-Jitsu team which
\noperates all around the world, as well as personal aspects like
\nGurgel receiving his BJJ black belt as a 19-year-old from master
\nRomero Cavalcanti.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, that fight is iconic in my career, but the documentary
\nisn\u2019t just about that,\u201d the grappling ace noted. \u201cI was part of the
\n1991 vale tudo fight against luta livre, then I fought in UFC 11,
\n[and] I was a four-time jiu-jitsu world champion. The fact is that
\nmany people have fought and achieved much more than I have in
\njiu-jitsu and vale tudo, and even as a teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 7th degree BJJ coral belt continued, \u201cWhat I think makes my
\nstory interesting is the whole picture. I’ve trained hundreds of
\nchampions, we created the longest-running partnership and the most
\nsuccessful academy, and we\u2019ve even transformed that into a business
\nmodel that impacts millions of people. After all, today we have 300
\nschools in 32 countries and more than 60,000 students. So, if you
\nput it all together, perhaps few people have done what I\u2019ve done.
\nWe are already in the production phase. I’m eager to start
\nfilming.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the greatest grapplers of our generation and a one-time Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter is getting the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1597,93,208781,61,60,270,43],"class_list":["post-485453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-article","tag-entertainment","tag-https-www-sherdog-com-news-news-ufc","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}