You probably couldn’t tell by looking at the 10 submission wins on his MMA record, but Herbeth Sousa didn’t quite take to jiu-jitsu right away. His older brother, Hercules, was the one with the real knack for it. In fact Herbeth probably wouldn’t even have started jiu-jitsu if it wasn’t for Hercules. And who knows if he would have stayed if it weren’t for their mother, Rosa, who used their scarce resources to get them a pair of expensive gis just as a sore Herbeth prepared to quit.



The Sousa brothers lived in Sao Sebastiao, one of the administrative regions of Brazil’s Federal District — a territory comprised of the country’s capital, Brasilia, and what are commonly referred to as satellite cities. Like many of these cities, which came to hold a lot of the workers involved in the construction of the wealthier capital, Sao Sebastiao is a poor area. The type of area, their mother knew, that could make it easy for boys to stray. So...