Over two years after the fact, Flavio Almeida has finally received justice for the assault he suffered at the hands of Ralph Gracie. The event happened back in December 2018 at the IBJJF no gi World Championships and has been a lengthy legal process to get to this stage. Despite the assault being caught on camera by several different sources and from different angles, it still took until October 2020 for the case to progress to the point where a trial date could be set.
The Brazilian news outlet Tatame was the first to report the conclusion of the assault case, where Ralph Gracie was sentenced to a total of six months in prison, three years of probation, a course of anger management classes, and was ordered to pay a $50,000 fine. The incident was the biggest source of controversy in recent years that left a bad taste in the mouths of everyone in attendance at the IBJJF no gi World Championships, and those who witnessed it after the fact.
The assault came about because there was an apparent verbal agreement between Ralph Gracie and the heads of Gracie Barra that they would not open any schools near his. Ralph then got wind of a rumor that a new Gracie Barra school would be opening in San Francisco and he assumed that this would have been Flavio Almeida’s decision, as the Executive Director of Gracie Barra in the US. He then e-mailed Almeida and received no response, so assumed he was ignored and then confronted him at the World Championships. This confrontation then escalated very quickly and resulted in the assault that Ralph Gracie was charged with, and the rumor doesn’t even appear to be true as there is still no Gracie Barra school in San Francisco today.
