Erberth Santos was a BJJ world champion back in 2017 but since then he has been making headlines for all the wrong reasons, including most recently being thrown out of a bar after an aggressive interaction with Brazilian police. While he is a phenomenal Jiu-Jitsu competitor and has proven himself as such over the years by winning both the IBJJF world championship and pan-ams in the same year, and defeating elite opponents like Claudio Calasans, Roberto ‘Cyborg’ Abreu, and Lucas ‘Hulk’ Barbosa.
Despite his grappling talent, Santos is probably best-known for inciting a brawl at the first BJJ Stars event during his match with Felipe Pena. Santos appeared to suffer a knee injury during the match and as medical staff began tending to him on the mats, a heckler from the crowd called out to him. This caught his attention and appeared to infuriate Santos who immediately got to his feet and charged off the mats to attack the heckler. Fights broke out and BJJ Stars banned him from competing at their events forever. Forever wasn’t actually that long in the end however, because he was invited back at BJJ Stars 5 to compete in their heavyweight grand prix, although he lost to Erich Munis in the opening round.
While that altercation was undeniably all down to Erberth Santos, it appears as though his run-in with Brazilian police is not quite as cut and dry. While law enforcement would almost certainly disagree, Santos has claimed that the police officers involved in the video were actually racist and that is what motivated the encounter. The entire interaction was in Brazilian of course and although there doesn’t appear to be a racial component from the footage, it doesn’t mean that he isn’t correct. The full footage of the Erberth Santos getting thrown out of a bar by Brazilian police was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Canal Do Marinho:
