Fernando “Margarida” Pontes was one of the greatest BJJ competitors. Known for being charismatic on the mats and especially outside of them, he inspired many grapplers including Romulo Barral. Margarida (which means “Daisy” in Portuguese) received his nickname from Fabio Gurgel after he showed up at his academy with colorful dental bands.

My Jiu Jitsu is simple. Simple as rice and beans.

Born in Sao Paulo in a wealthy family of doctors, Fernando decided not to follow his parents path in academics. Instead at the age of 13, he joined local BJJ gym (at that time ran by Fabio Gurgel) where he started to learn the craft of Jiu Jitsu. Couple of years later and Margarida was already winning Worlds at black belt (2001 Worlds) being the youngest person at that time to win both his division and absolute. He was an explosive athlete who made often complex sport- simple. He even said in the one of the interviews “My Jiu Jitsu is simple. Simple as rice and beans“.

Master of Knee Cut Passes

His BJJ style was a straight forward one but extremely effective. Margarida felt safe playing both guard game and the top one. He would often go for a takedown from standing position. If he finished taking opponent down he would instantly go for a Knee Cut (Romulo Barral said his style was heavily influenced by Fernandos way of guard passing and playing “Knee On The Belly” position). Its important to mention that he was one of the first recorded BJJ athletes who used Knee Slice passes and controls.

After the guard passing Margarida would often create scrambles and patiently wait for opponents opening for submission. His favorite submissions were arm locks and Baseball Bat chokes. If Fernando was on bottom, he preferred to play butterfly guard like many other old school BJJ athletes. His goal was to sweep opponent while trying to threaten him with submission attempts.

Life after accident

Unfortunately, while in his prime Margarida suffered motor cycle accident that hold him away from mats for long period of time. From that point things were never the same. Even do he was occasionally coming back on competition scene, momentum was lost. His last major match was against Roger Gracie in 2007. Margarida was going solid but at the end Roger was too much for him.



Some say the accident was the reason for early retirement, some say that hunger for competing vanished after him winning double gold at Mundial 2001. We will never know, but if he was around consistently, today he would be considered as one of the greatest.