2 Brazilian politicians settled a dispute over a waterpark-conservation project by fighting each other in a 3-round MMA fight
- Two Brazilian politicians in the country's Amazon region settled a dispute the old fashioned way.
- Erineu da Silva and Simão Peixoto decided to settle their differences with an MMA fight on Sunday.
Two Brazilian politicians settled a dispute over a local waterpark project with their fists over the weekend, taking part in a mixed martial arts (MMA) fight, according to multiple reports.
In September, former councillor Erineu da Silva, 45, publicly challenged Simão Peixoto, the 39-year-old conservative mayor of Amazonian town of Borba, to a fistfight, The Guardian reported.
The two men had been feuding ever since Silva had called Peixoto a "crook" over allegations that he had failed to conserve a waterpark near the Madeira River, which runs through Borba, according to The Guardian.
Peixoto eventually accepted the challenge, but said he would only fight in a proper match because he was "not a street fighter," VICE reported.
"I'm not a street fighter … I'm the mayor of the municipality of Borba," the politician said on his Facebook page last month, according to The Guardian.
"[But] if he really wants to fight … we're ready to fight … I've always been a winner."
The two men eventually settled on an MMA contest, with the fight taking place as part of a longer event in the gymnasium of a local school in Borba. The match took place at around 2:30 a.m. Sunday morning and was live-streamed on the mayor's Facebook account.
You can see the fight below, starting from around 40 minutes into the stream:
Hundreds of spectators paid to watch the event, The Guardian reported.
Video of the event shows the two politicians, in MMA shorts and gloves, aggressively kicking and punching each other, as well as clinching on the ground. The fight lasted a total of 13 minutes, according to VICE.
Peixoto was eventually declared the winner by a referee, although both men appeared in good spirits afterwards, hugging and shaking hands.
It is still unclear how, if at all, the fight will impact the waterpark dispute that instigated the brawl in the first place.