Vitor ‘Shaolin’ Ribeiro and Fernando ‘Terere’ Augusto met each other in an epic match between two BJJ legends in the main event of Polaris 4 on October 29th, 2016. It was a 15-minute gi match under the traditional Polaris ruleset and they pair met at 82kg, over 15 years since they actually last met on the mats. The pair first crossed paths in the middleweight division of the IBJJF World Championship in 2001, where Shaolin actually secured the victory 2-0 on points. In fact, both men had been largely inactive in BJJ competition for about a decade by the time Polaris 4 came around.
Terere had left the competitive side of the sport in 2004 to battle addiction issues and had only had a handful of matches in 2013, while Shaolin left in 2003 in order to focus more on his MMA career. Shaolin took single superfights in 2014 and 2015, but other than that he was competing exclusively in professional MMA for promotions like Cage Rage, DREAM, and StrikeForce. He retired from MMA with a 20-5 record in 2010 and had instead turned most of his attention to a new career as a referee in the sport. The match between these two legends was hotly-anticipated and ended up being one of the final few times that either one of them would step on the mats.
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Vitor ‘Shaolin’ Ribeiro v Fernando ‘Terere’ Augusto
The match between the two BJJ legends started with them cautiously fighting for grips and positioning their hips far back to prevent the takedown. Terere tried a quick drop seio-nage but couldn’t finish it and the pair engaged on the feet again, only for Shaolin to pull guard. He started out working from half-guard but Terere was very strong on top and eventually broke free, pressuring into him to finish the pass. Shaolin fought valiantly to prevent the pass but eventually he had to concede position and turn to turtle instead, slowly trying to work in on one of Terere’s legs.
They both stood back up and continued gripfighting for a while, before Terere burst into another drop seio-nage that he couldn’t quite finish. Terere tried to capitalize and go for an inside-trip, but he ended up forcing Shaolin out of bounds instead and the pair were reset. Shaolin pulled guard again but his opponent immediately forced his way to half-guard and stood up to start knee-slice passing. Terere was doing a great job of keeping up the relentless passing attempts and eventually hit a beautiful longstep that saw him secure side control.
Terere controlled the position for a while before trying to switch to the other side, giving Shaolin just enough space to recover to open guard. Terere stood up and was trying to pass Shaolin’s seated guard for a while, before he eventually dropped to his knees and accepted closed guard. The match slowed at this point as Shaolin was working to break Terere’s posture, but he couldn’t quite get anything going from closed guard. Terere started to stand to break open the guard but he couldn’t quite get it to work before the pair were reset to a standing position.
Shaolin pulled half-guard once again but Terere was much quicker passing this time, forcing Shaolin to turtled and fight his way to standing. Terere took advantage of the forward momentum and hit the drop seio-nage he had been looking for, throwing his opponent clean off the mat. They were reset to standing in the center and Shaolin pulled guard again, immediately working to set up a triangle choke. Terere defended well to prevent him from getting any further before standing up and getting back to passing. Shaolin inverted to retain guard and attacked a loop choke, but his opponent stood up to escape as the pair left the mats once again.
They were reset to standing again and Shaolin used a little collar-drag to get in on a single-leg, but Terere sprawled to defend it. Shaolin pulled guard soon after but he was met with the same heavy pressure that had been causing him trouble throughout the match. Terere almost passed again but was fought off and got caught with another loop choke attempt, although he maintained his pressure as he escaped this one. The time ran out shortly after and Fernando ‘Terere’ Augusto was awarded the unanimous decision win in the Polaris 4 main event.
The full match between Vitor ‘Shaolin’ Ribeiro and Fernando ‘Terere’ Augusto from Polaris 4 was uploaded to the promotion’s official YouTube channel:
