Despite both men being firmly placed in the masters divisions, it seems like fans may actually get to see a legendary clash between two-time IBJJF world champion Fernando Terere and two-time ADCC world champion Renzo Gracie. While both men competed at the highest levels of the sport around the same time, they never met due to the fact that Renzo competed almost exclusively at ADCC and Terere focused on competing under IBJJF rules.
In fact, Renzo was pretty dominant at the world’s premier no gi grappling competition and entered four times between 1998 and 2001, only losing once across all of his matches and taking home gold twice. In fact, It wasn’t until the appearance of Marcelo Garcia in 2003 that Renzo suffered his first loss in his natural weightclass of 77kg. Now, at the age of 40 Terere has revealed that he’s interested in taking on the 54 year-old Gracie family member:
“If I had a match to do tomorrow with Renzo Gracie, I would do it. Renzo said he would like to fight me, that came in my ear. Give me three months, I fight him. But that the fight is for an audience that knows how to appreciate the fight. Favela Jiu-Jitsu against a Gracie Jiu-Jitsu would be cool.”
“What I say, I do. I won’t be like Wallid (Ismail) sending a message, making fun of the Gracie family… The Gracie family taught me a lot. If it weren’t for them opening the doors, a lot of people would be nobody. Today, I see many boys from the favela speaking two, three languages thanks to Jiu-Jitsu.”
The above comments on a potential match with Renzo Gracie is a rough translation from an interview conducted with Fernando Terere and uploaded to the official YouTube channel for Oss Artistas Marciais (The Martial Artists):
