Fighting to Escape Poverty

I never go to the school. I lost my dad when I was fourteen years old. I start selling drugs, I work with guns.. to make some money for my family. My friend, he say, 'Hey bro, you gonna be shot in the head like how your friends die. What are you going to do about life, your mom needs help.' Next thing I know, I sell the gun, give back the drugs, and I start fighting hard, to help my family.

--Diego Brandao, on how he started fighting.

Though Brazil is the sixth (almost fifth) largest economy in the world (Economist, 2011), there exists a disgusting economic disparity between 'rich' and 'poor' and millions of its citizens must deal with the pressure of poverty. Despite adversity, many Brazilian fighters have managed to become very financially successful through mixed martial arts.

For many young Brazilians, entering the drug trade is a highly risky yet potentially highly lucrative escape from their impoverished backgrounds. Films like 2002's City of God stylize but do not exaggerate the violence that accompanies the drug trade; from 1979 to 2000, 48,000 people were killed by firearms in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro alone (Neate, Platt, 2006).


Rural Brazil is less violent but still ripe with poverty; the Northeast is a land shaped by "drought as well as the fear of drought" (Arons, 2004) and its traditionally agricultural inhabitants struggle to grow food to sell, let alone to sustain themselves.


It is difficult enough to even make a living in such desperate conditions, let alone learn to fight. The fact of the matter is that MMA is basically a rich man's sport. While a sport like soccer can be practiced with a goal, a ball, and some other players (and in-school programs likely exist to support it), MMA requires much more coordinating, equipment, and money. Consider that, if you cannot find a gym dedicated to the sport of MMA, you must learn to wrestle and play Brazilian jiu-jitsu; you must also learn to box and also to use your kicks. This requires at the very least a mouth guard and gloves, but could potentially require shin guards, a gi, and a protective cup on top of the monthly fees of your gyms and the sheer time and effort involved in these pursuits.


That only makes some of these fighters' accomplishments more incredible. Consider the top dog of the featherweight division, Jose Aldo, who grew up poor and trained with kids from Rio's favelas with dreams of making it rich one day ("Fight! life," 2010). Or the story of Rouismar "Toquinho" Palhares, whose background is so haunting that he, a 200lb. destroyer with a penchant for joint locks, started choking back tears during an interview with ESPN (Teague, 2011) when describing a time that he and his family had to eat pig feed in order to survive.


I love the fact that some of these Brazilians are not only incredible fighters, but remarkable human beings who overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to get to where they are. You can see them in the ring, fighting with a fury, an intensity, a hunger that they carry on their backs to remind them of their roots.


Update: The morning after this entry was posted, MMAJunkie released a short article on poor fighters in Brazil. Check it out.


Sources:


Arons, N. (2004). Waiting for rain. (p. 24). University of Arizona Press.


Neate, P., & Platt, D. (2006).Culture is our weapon. (p. 116). New York, New York: Penguin Books.


(2010). Fight! life: José Aldo - the beautiful game. (2010). [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btbsdhDWnOY


Teague, H. (2011, August 22). Palhares still battles to escape past. Retrieved from http://espn.go.com/mma/story/_/id/6881815/poverty-professional-powerful-rousimar-palhares