Eddie Bravo: Twisted, Stoned and Maybe Legendary

The building worked great as a mechanic’s shop five years ago.  Now the oil-stained concrete has been painted and is layered with squares of wrestling mats entwined and locked like Legos.

Eddie Bravo is centered on the mats, his own legs, hands, arms, and even toes also entwined.

Locked in Eddie’s limbs is a slight man, a fight promoter who runs this building, this mixed martial arts studio, this place where a full-size cage sits in the corner.  The man in Bravo’s self-named “Stoner Control” has sacrificed and advertised to amateur and pro fighters and wanabees because, he, like many in the world of MMA, believes in Bravo.

In a flash—smooth, but not fast—Bravo takes the man’s back and locks in a body triangle.  Bravo is animated as he talks about going for a choke or striking or…”Well, I don’t know, there’s a lot of other stuff I’ve been thinking about trying too.”

That’s Bravo.  A supposed ‘know-it-all’ with as many questions as answers.

The world around Bravo—jiu-jitsu, the musical scale, women, cannibas—is packed full of “what if” and Bravo seems born to shake the gates till answers run free.

It wasn’t always so.  His biological father was replaced with a step, who, according to Bravo, abused him emotionally and beat him physically, lending the Mexican-American youngster a self-image cloaked in fear.

Bravo claims it was marijuana that rescued him.  That it gave him the ‘thumbs up’ to move around and seek out the new and unknown.  And that without it, “I’d probably be married and divorced, still deejaying at the good ol’ local strip club,” he wrote in one of his books.

His critics say he’s nuts.  They say he’s more stoner-musician than ground-fighting guru.  His carpers say he’s a prima donna who waxes his eyebrows too often and hangs out with Joe Rogan because he wants attention.

Bravo has little time for the naysayers, the forum lurkers who type with modem-courage, the new versions of the old step-dad.  Fact is, he has little time for anything extra.

While Eddie is demonstrating the “Stoner Control” and the “Zombie” and a plethora of other  submissions and positions on Gary Hoyd, the fight promoter in the little gym called Elite Martial Arts in downtown Indianapolis, there’s a dozen other places he could be. 

One of those places in Hilo.

“The Penn family invited me out for the weekend,” Bravo said after the four-hour training session.  “Which was really nice.  But I had the Indianapolis seminar, and of course, I couldn’t cancel.”

Not many people get an invitation from the “Penn Family”.  Bravo said the visit came on the heels of a comment he made concerning how Fighters.com’s fourth-ranked lightweight “Prodigy” B.J. Penn (12-4-1), current UFC Champion, used the rubber guard.  

Bravo had said he felt B.J. was one of the few famous fighters beginning to use the rubber guard, but could use some adjustments.

For a man who has been called an attention whore, it’s interesting he turned down the Hawaii adventure because he was obligated to be in the Hoosier state with 30 or so guys who the world doesn’t know.

“Seriously, I think five minutes with B.J. is all I’d need,” Bravo said.  “B.J. and I are friends, no problems between us, we’ve just never traded training.  I’m looking forward to going out [to Hilo], I hope the invitation is still extended.”

Whether or not the invitation stands won’t mean the Twister inventor will have an open slot on his day planner.

His music,and he’s been clear on this several times, is what takes most of his time and passion.  Grappling is what he’s good at and loves to teach and well…it pays the bills.

“I have three albums we’re about to put out.  The music, man, I live for it.”

Perhaps, but after he’s dead he says he wants to be remembered as the guy who coined, “Crackhead Control”.  He says it with a smile, but there’s no joke; it’s likely to happen.

He also likes to teach and train.  He likes watching his students, his “scientists trying out new ideas”.

But fight fans appreciate substance over theory every time and the legitimate question lingers: Will he mix it up again?  Now that fighters and grapplers are growing savvy to the rubber guard, does he have what it takes?

“I have one match left in me,” Bravo admits.  “I would love a rematch with Royler.”

That would be Royler Gracie (5-4-1), who, in 2003, tapped when Bravo slapped on a pretty traditional, “non-rubber guard” triangle, after several set-ups with the actual rubber guard in the 2003 Abu Dhabi Championships in San Paulo.

“The Gracies pretty much pretend I don’t exist.  They would rather my books were never written.  So, the rematch with Royler is about the only thing that would motivate me to change my lifestyle for three months or so to get prepared for that match.”

His lifestyle of eating well, producing tunes, hanging out with TV personalities is a lot to give up.

“I’ve offered to do that match for only a grand,” Bravo says.  “But Royler has said there just isn’t enough money involved to do it.  I think I would win and much easier this time.  I don’t think—I don’t actually know this—but, I don’t think his game has evolved.  And, I know mine has.”

His game, like his life story, has, in fact, evolved.  Into what exactly isn’t crystal yet.

“We just don’t know it all yet.  There’s always room to grow and change,” Bravo admits.

Fifty years from now, the MMA world will look back on the athletic musician with punked-out hair and a marijuana tattoo almost bigger than the forearm on which it was printed and likely remember him for a lot of things.

Remember him for his advocacy of weed or telling everyone the rubber guard would be effective against sixth-ranked “Last Emperor” Fedor Emelianenko (27-1), or, as he continues to put out music, perhaps they will Google him for his compilations.

But the man who’s never fought in an MMA match and admits his chin is weak, will always be somewhere on the landscape of modern MMA.

Teaching, rolling joints, and rolling opponents, writing virtual how-to books on surprising opponents, strumming a guitar, and maybe, just maybe, winning over a few more critics as his theories are put to the test more and more as MMA continues to leak through the dam into mainstream sports.