Mário Sperry
| Mário Sperry | |
|---|---|
| Born |
September 28, 1966 Porto Alegre, Brazil |
| Other names | The Zen Machine |
| Nationality | Brazilian |
| Height | 1.85 m (6 ft 1 in) |
| Weight | 100 kg (220 lb; 16 st) |
| Division | Heavyweight |
| Fighting out of | Boca Raton, Florida |
| Team |
Brazilian Top Team Imperial Athletics |
| Rank |
5th degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt in Judo |
| Mixed martial arts record | |
| Total | 17 |
| Wins | 13 |
| By knockout | 3 |
| By submission | 7 |
| By decision | 3 |
| Losses | 4 |
| By knockout | 3 |
| By decision | 1 |
| Mixed martial arts record from Sherdog | |
José Mário Sperry (born September 28, 1966) is a Brazilian heavyweight mixed martial artist. His specialty is Brazilian jiu-jitsu, grappling and ground fighting. He is also one of the founders of the Brazilian Top Team, where he trained fighters such as Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira, Antônio Rogério Nogueira, Ricardo Arona, and Paulo Filho, among others.
Born in a wealthy family and coming from a military college, where he practised sports like waterpolo, volleyball, soccer and hammer throwing, Sperry started his martial arts career learning judo under master Georges Mehdi. At brown belt level, he expanded his training to Brazilian jiu-jitsu with Carlson Gracie, becoming one of his main apprentices. Mario earned his black belt in this art at the 1995 World BJJ Championships, where he entered to win the heavyweight black belt division, and it was popularly said that until that point he had not lost a single point in his earlier competition career. He gained the nickname "Zé Maquina" ("José Machine") for his relentless performance, which later changed to "Zen Machine" in his introduction to United States.
Having had his mixed martial arts debut in 1995, Sperry debuted in United States as part of the Extreme Fighting event, where he was billed as having a 272-0 fight record. The first round of the tournament saw him face Ecuatorian fighter and Ultimate Fighting Championship runner-up Rudyard Moncayo, whom Sperry defeated by ground and pound, but the second one would see a different outcome against Russian kickboxing and sambo specialist Igor Zinoviev. Though Sperry was able to take him down and assume dominant position in several occasions, Zinoviev kept escaping to his feet every time. After ten minutes, Sperry tried to leap into a rear naked choke while Zinoviev was giving his back and holding the fence, but he slipped and fell in front of the Russian, receiving a kick to the face. Mario took Zinoviev down anyways, but the kick had opened a deep cut, so the match was stopped to give the win to Igor.
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