Fabricio Silveira Werdum was a regular 21-year-old guy from Porto Alegre, Brazil, when a trip to the beach changed his life forever.
Fabricio Werdum went to the beach with Larissa, his girlfriend at the time, and her family and friends. But when they got there, Marcos, Larissa’s ex-boyfriend, was waiting for them. Werdum knew that "Marquinhos", as they used to call him, still had a crush on Larissa, but wasn’t bothered about it. Marcos had other plans.
Marcos was a jiu-jitsu practitioner, and Werdum had no idea what jiu-jitsu was.
"I guess he wanted to embarrass me in front of her and her entire family," Werdum recalls, "so he challenged me to fight him in a jiu-jitsu match right there at the beach.