A year after Mark Kerr’s victory over Fabio Gurgel in the World Vale Tudo Championship 3 final, the Maksoud Plaza Hotel in Sao Paulo, Brazil, played host to another openweight tournament won by an American wrestler: International Vale Tudo Championship 4.
Fans flooded the hotel to witness another ground-and-pound class on Feb. 7, 1998, this time taught by Mike Van Arsdale. Even though he had never participated in a vale tudo event, Mark Coleman’s stablemate arrived as the favorite, along with fellow Americans Bob Gilstrap—a protégé of Maurice Smith, who had just beaten Coleman in the Ultimate Fighting Championship—and the experienced Jason Godsey.