Here is the announcement of the original invitation.
According to the initial proposal by the sponsors, who are situated in Atlanta but are in no way linked to the Alliance academy where Cobrinha teaches in the state of Georgia, the rules are straightforward: it is to be a gi Jiu-Jitsu match where the one to get the submission wins. The winner takes home a 10-thousand-dollar purse.
Here is the response from Rafa Mendes.
But I find it hilarious to read that I’m “afraid” to fight. I can tell they really don’t know me at all, because I’m extremely confident. If I were afraid to fight or “lose,” I wouldn’t enter the absolute like I did in Abu Dhabi, where I’d face opponents much bigger and just as good as him (Cobrinha), like Bráulio, Rômulo Barral, Demente, Vella, Big Mac. If I were “afraid,” I’d go to a different sport. I started competing when I was 12 years old and I’m nowhere near close to stopping, so all I want to say is that the notion of “challenge” has been with me for a long time and it makes me want to fight a lot more still.
Here is a response from Alliance leader, Fabio Gurgel.
After a group of investors offered to sponsor a fight to submission with no time limit between the champions Rafael Mendes and Rubens “Cobrinha” Charles, there was a small and short-lived upheaval in the world of jiu-jitsu. The rivalry between two high-level athletes stirred the younger practitioners, and the possibility of a return to jiu-jitsu’s origins, when the submission was the only thing that mattered, thrilled the older and more experienced.
And here is the response from Rubens Charles
I still feel 10 thousand dollars is a good purse for this type of match. And, of course, if they pay me more it’ll be even better. But that’s not realistic in the Jiu-Jitsu world yet. For us to be able to demand bigger purses we have to make our contribution, or in other words, we have to start somewhere, otherwise we’re not going to be able to make this sport a professional one. I’m certain that no one is going to pay huge sums of money for a sport that still has so much to grow. I hope one day someone will be able to make a lot of money making matches, but we clearly have to start somewhere so that we may have such progress.
At the end of the day, all I hope for are more jiu jitsu investors and more jiu jitsu superfights.
