Fredson Paixao: Little Bark, Plenty of Bite

By Frank Curreri

Halfway across the world in the Amazon jungle, where Fredson Paixao lived for many years and climbed nearby trees to enjoy the freshest Acai berries a tongue will ever taste while also swimming in piranha-infested rivers for pleasure, there was an important protocol that could spell the difference between life and death.

The practice required this: if you ever suffered a snake or spider bite, or a bite from any suspicious creature, it was incumbent upon you, in all your hysteria, pain and head-spinning agony, to show grace under pressure; which is to say, you had to suck up the pain of the bite and immediately set out to kill the doggone rascal that had just pierced your flesh and perhaps threatened your life.

Why? Because you had to literally run and find the nearest doctor. And your chances for surviving a poisonous bite might depend upon how quickly the doctor could identify the species involved and pinpoint the appropriate anti-venom.

Those habits explain why, on a recent afternoon in Las Vegas, Paixao walked around with a plastic water bottle that was empty save for a curious item: a dead scorpion.

“It bit me this morning,” the bulldog-framed fighter said with a smile, proudly holding up the water bottle containing the motionless critter.

The memento was the consequence of a safeguard, not a souvenir. The four-time Brazilian jiu-jitsu world champion had been bitten after an early morning workout. As he sat down and jump started his car, he felt the bite. He quickly jumped to his feet and instantly zeroed in on the culprit.

“He tried to run away,” Paixao said, “but I stepped on him.”

There in the Vegas desert, in a parking lot, Paixao had a decision to make. Go to the hospital as a precaution or carry on with plans to visit his 18-month-old daughter, Emma?

“It’s just a little bite,” he told himself. “I was born in the middle of the jungle and lived with snakes, little monkeys, birds … so how can I be scared of these things? I’d be far more scared of crossing the street here (in Vegas) than playing around in the jungle all day or coming across a snake or something like that.”

He recounted this experience with a great deal of nonchalance, explaining that the absence of swelling on his leg and no sign of sickness shaped his decision to forego a trip to a doctor or emergency room. Paixao had better things to do with his time, like dedicate himself to three-a-day training sessions to prepare for his upcoming opponent, Bryan Caraway. The featherweights will collide on the undercard of WEC 50 in Las Vegas. It is an intriguing matchup between two men who excel at finishing fights on the ground. Paixao (9-3) has submitted five opponents, while Caraway has forced 11 foes to tap.

But make no mistake, Paixao believes he is several leagues above Caraway (14-4) in the grappling realm.

“I put my game on top of him,” Paixao, a native Portuguese speaker, said in his ever-improving English, which is heavily laced with an accent. “I don’t care what he does …”

What Paixao means is that he intends to impose his submission grappling game on Caraway, whom he expects to “try to come in and take me down and ground and pound.”

“Animal” is a compliment in MMA circles and it’s a word Paixao’s training partners often use to describe him. He is the kind of nimble athlete who can make an opponent feel like he is fighting three Fredsons at once. Compounding the problem is that Paixao’s jiu-jitsu IQ often leaves him three or four steps ahead of his foes. He gives much of the credit to his jiu-jitsu instructor, Osvaldo Alves, and also says that chess helps keep his mind fresh, too. Well, sometimes at least.

“When I start beating him, he gets up and leaves,” said Carlos Sanchez, a close friend and training partner of Paixao’s. Important note: Sanchez is referring to beating Paixao at chess, not jiu-jitsu.

The two men are as fanatical about chess as they are about jiu-jitsu. They play on a $250 board. They have played each other almost every single day for the past three years – often completing 20 or more games in a day. Sometimes their chess battles get so heated that tempers flare, causing them to go days without speaking to each other.

“I cannot lose a fight at a jiu-jitsu tournament because he’ll never stop talking,” Sanchez said. “We’ll be talking and I’ll beat him at something and then he’ll say, ‘Remember that guy that scored 12 points on you? I got swept three years ago by some guy that came from California and he still brings it up.”

“Always I’m crazy for playing chess,” Paixao said. “I started playing when I was 25 because people were always saying how jiu-jitsu is like chess. So I went to parks and coffee shops, jumped on the tables and played the older guys in chess.”

Though many, including Caraway, perceive Paixao to be stiff and vulnerable on his feet, the 31-year-old Paixao said his game has been soaring to new heights and he’s eager to showcase his new arsenal.

“Whoever they put in front of me from now on, I’m going to win,” he said. “In my best fights I didn’t think - I go, I do my thing. Then I started thinking, and taking my time in the cage. I need to go back to not thinking and just going. Now, with this fight, I’m going back to the old Fredson.”