Who am I? O' Papagaio!!

As everyone at the club knows, I share a name with the owner of a competitive club here in Sudbury. Yves Charette from Team Shredder.

There has been a bit of an ongoing joke with my friends from OAMA that I'm known as "the real" Yves Charette. Of course, this isn't to disrespect Yves, he's much more accomplished in martial arts than I'll ever be, but moreso just for jokes.

It all started a few years ago when I called OAMA to reserve my spot for a Renzo Gracie Seminar the night before the second Wreck MMA. The guy who took my reservation was a bit thrown off by my name, but took my $100 and said he was looking forward to seeing me after all this time.

Of course, I found that odd, but didn't push the issue any further. I realized shortly after hanging up the phone that he must have thought it was Yves from Team Shredder calling to attend a Renzo seminar at OAMA the day before his fighter Mitch Gagnon was set to take on OAMA's Stephane Bernadel at Wreck.

In addition to that, I threw Pat Cooligan off with a Facebook friend request where my face didn't match my name. I've since gotten to know Pat and all is good. (thank god, because he could kick my ass) haha!

At any rate, Steve has often said we needed to get me a new name but nothing ever really stuck. I don't believe a person can give themselves their own nickname, so a while back, I took a nickname given to me by my good buddy, training partner and former co-worker Kevin Crittenden. When we worked together, he would jokingly complain that I always had a sarcastic comment or something to mock everyone (mainly him)...I was a "f@$king Parrot!" I used to walk by his office and let out a nice little "KaKaw!!" When we were the only ones left at the office, I would let out a "Kakaw!" on the loudspeaker/intercom.

Last year, I played a bit with the nickname to try and make it cooler. In BJJ, many fighters have a nickname that represents a strength in their games "Jacare" means Alligator, "Toquinho" means tree stump for the strength of a guy like Rousimar Palhares. Ricardo Almeida is the BigDog..."Cachorrao". So...for myself, I looked up the Parrot (which is a pretty weak fighting nickname when used in English) and in Portuguese (the language of BJJ), it's "Papagaio". Doesnt that sound badass?!? haha!!

Ok...so I'm trying to make it official. I might even put it on the lapel of my white gi's and begin signing autographs using it. (yes, a high level white belt can sign autographs if he wants to!)

This came up today through a thread on TopMMANews where I post both as Papagaio and PapaG. The secret of my identity is out! Lookout world...Papagaio is coming to choke your kids!!

With love,

Papagaio xo