Erberth Santos owns up, explains tumult at BJJ Stars Black Belt Edition

Erberth Santos. Carlos Arthur Jr.

One half of the main event of BJJ Stars Black Belt Edition, Erberth Santos has now broken the silence after starring in the commotion that ended the event prematurely on Feb. 23 in São Paulo.

At that time, Erberth left the mat and confronted a member of the audience as other spectators also rushed the athlete — all of which caused the main fight to end without a conclusion.

After issuing a post to clear things up on Instagram, Erberth posted a video where he talks about the subject.

After doing something he claims he didn’t know existed inside him, he said that all the federations have already taken due measures. “And they’re not wrong — they’re 100% right,” he says 1:58 into the video. “I have to be punished for what happened to serve as an example to all other athletes who follow me, so that this doesn’t happen. Today, for the world we live in, it’s wrong. I went to get answers from a person and I got punched, so I lost it and I wanted to get that person who punched me.”

“Since the start, I was being called names,” he says at 2:43. “At one point I was taking pictures with the guys and I got punched.”

He says at first he thought the animosity was just going to be contained to a healthy Instagram marketing sphere. And indeed, he says, there were 5,000 people there wanting to see how the fight would play out, as well as over 200,000 watching on pay-per-view.  “I want to apologize to all of this audience that was there,” he adds at 3:15, going on to say his knee got injured for real, and that his doctor would later see the extent of the injury.

“The day you get called names you never imagined you’be be called just meters away from you, you tell me whether you wouldn’t react the same way,” he tells the audience at 4:00. “That is not right. The image I passed to people there is not in line with the image of BJJ, which has evolved a lot to get to where it is today.”