Vale Tudo Returns to Brazil... Sort Of

Cool news coming out of Brazil: the legendary promotion which birthed fighters like Wanderlei Silva and Renato Sobral, International Vale Tudo Championship, is making a comeback:

Dormant since its Nov. 11, 2001 event in Venezuela, the IVC is ready to try and catch up with the sport it had a heavy influence on. IVC founder Sergio Batarelli informed MMAWeekly.com of his intent to get back to his roots promoting MMA events.

The IVC will return with an event on May 15 in Pelotas, a city in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. Batarelli says the IVC will follow the modern rules of MMA, including the fighters wearing gloves and utilizing three five-minute rounds per bout. One of the holdovers from the early days will be IVC bouts taking place in a boxing ring instead of a cage.
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"If all goes well with this return," said Batarelli, "we will have at least more three events this year and with the old format, 8-man tournament, and with Brazilians and foreign fighters."

While this obviously isn't the bare-knuckle, single 30-minute round IVC of old - I think Rio Heroes was the closest we'll ever come to seeing that again - it's still nice to see the old dog back on the scene, and I'm looking forward to the possible resurrection of the one-night tournament format. (If you've never seen the old tournaments, I'm pretty sure you can get the majority of them at any mall F.Y.E. for relatively cheap money.) For now, the May 15th event will feature single bouts with young fighters from local teams, including Chute Boxe's Cassiano Tytschyo and Shooto Brazil veteran Rodrigo "Pitbull." Here's hoping the IVC can find success in this new MMA landscape and start exposing domestic prospects again, as fellow Brazilian promotions Fury FC and Jungle Fight have in recent years.