MMA Fans: How much do we really know about Rickson Gracie?

The Game Room
1

So Rickson’s back in MMA headlines again after giving an interview to a newspaper in Rio De Janeiro. This time he’s claiming he could easily beat Brock Lesnar and Fedor Emelianenko. It seems like every couple of years when a new star emerges we get one of these interviews, and it’s really starting to become tiresome. (Though I did like the linked article referring to him as a “mythical submission specialist.”)

Rickson claims to have a record somewhere north of 400 wins and no losses, but his commonly cited professional record is only 11-0. Though his Wiki page has a link to an interview conducted in the late 90’s where he admits to losing a match in a Sambo tournament a few years earlier, but he claims the rules weren’t explained to him properly. I’m skeptical to say the least.

At one point Rickson’s father Helio, one of the co-founders of BJJ, was interviewed and asked about his son’s 400-0 record and said flatly that it was pretty much bullshit. Rickson uses sparring and practice bouts to inflate his claims and there have never been any sanctioned fights that aren’t known about or already been reported on. There used to be a clip up on Youtube with this question and answer but it appears have been removed. The direct quote appears on Rickson and Helio’s Wiki page.

I really had thought that this “Rickson Gracie is secretly the greatest MMA fighter of all time” meme had finally been quashed but it still pops up from time to time, largely because Rickson himself wants to perpetuate it, and there appears to be a small percentage of fans and press who don’t want to let it go.

So I figured I’d throw this out to the other MMA fans on the board. Is he truly the greatest fighter out there, even now? At fifty years old and nine years removed from his last fight? Or is he simply cashing in on the Gracie name and trying to inflate his own legacy? What are your opinions of Rickson Gracie? Or even the Gracie legacy in general?

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Could he use a few million dollars? The easy way? Beating Lesnar and Emelianenko would do that for him.

3

Who couldn’t use a few million dollars? :smiley:

Honestly, I know this might be an attempt at publicity and a big payday, and if I thought there was some non 0% chance of this happening I would probably be less annoyed. But Rickson hasn’t fought in over nine years! And he wasn’t exactly a prolific fighter even before that. He makes these kind of claims constantly but he never gets in the ring. I would submit that there’s no chance that these bouts are ever going to happen.

To be fair, he did say last year that if the pay was right he’d be willing to fight again but we haven’t heard anything else on that since.

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Rickson is a legitimate badass, no question, considered by a few to be the best of all the Gracie clan. As far as him being the best in the world and able to defeat Fedor and Lesnar at age 50…well, to put it politely, that would certainly be something to see. Rickson’s a colorful guy, and if he makes a colorful claim and gets the Gracie name in the papers, it’s just free publicity as far as he’s concerned.

I’m sure Rickson means (to the extent he isn’t pulling our legs) that he could take out Fedor and Lesnar in an old school match rather than a UFC style MMA fight. BJJ guys pooh-pooh the modern MMA rules for doing things like standing up fighters, limiting round times, and banning gis, because it gives the advantage to strikers and takes grapplers out of their game all so fans can watch a more “exciting” show. It’s a legitimate point, but even with rules that favor submission grapplers Rickson is giving up a pretty significant numbers in age and weight. It’s not terribly likely.

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I forgot to include this, but it’s traditional on internet discussions of Rickson, so here goes:

Rickson v. Lesnar: Rickson by armbar
Rickson v. Fedor: Rickson by armbar
Rickson v. Fedor and Lesnar simultaneously: Rickson by double armbar

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It’s weird. Name any past or present world-class fighter in any discipline you care to name. Muhammed Ali, Mike Tyson, Oscar De La Hoya, Arturo Gatti, Alexander Karelin, Dan Severn, Fedor Emilianko, Ken Shamrock, Ryoko Tani, Chiyonofujui, Takanohana, Asashoryu. The reason we know how great they are is because there is ACTUAL REVIEWABLE FOOTAGE of their exploits. Even the pre-television-and-Internet greats like Jack Dempsey and John L. Sullivan have reliable written accounts.

What has Rickson Gracie ever done that anyone has legitimately seen, written, or gossiped about? The only thing I’ve ever seen was the documentary Choke, where he beat three opponents in an eight-man field to win the championship (which he later made the format for UFC). He looked good, but not overwhelmingly dominant, certainly nothing that could sniff Tyson at his peak. If anything, he was employing the tried-and-true Gracie strategy for tough opponents: Stay calm, slow the pace down, don’t get hit by anything big, and just plain don’t give him any chances to win, then when he gets tired or frustrated and leaves an opening, go for the kill.

Ultimately, I think his reputation was the very albatross that kept him from ever doing much. He HAS to be the strongest Gracie, so he HAS to dominate every opponent and he HAS to be invincible and he CANNOT ever screw up or show weakness. Naturally, a fighter that has to dominate each and every match he’s or be disgraced isn’t going to have very many options when it comes to opponents. (I call this “Bunta Syndrome”.) Upsets, Rocky turns, lousy decisions, and lucky punches happen all the time in this sport; a fighter that can’t live with that isn’t going to have much of a career.

Now, of course, he’s old, so it looks like he’ll always be a mystery champion.

Ironically, the very thing that made brother Royce the perfect “underdog” for UFC…Ooh, he’s so small! He’s giving up a hundred pounds! (Funny how everyone always forgets his incredible quickness, his incredible flexibility, his superhuman pain tolerance, his skill)…and that it wasn’t really a big deal if he lost, allowed him to get far more actual fight time against far more big name opponents, and made him vastly better known and distinguished as a result.

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First of all, thank you DKW for resurrecting this thread. This guy really chaps my hide for incomprehensible reasons. I understand where pravnik was coming from and I don’t disagree with any of his points in the particulars, but I really wish he, (speaking of Rickson, not pravnik, of course :D) would just SHUT UP! (The changes that MMA has went through since the first UFC show would be a fascinating subject, but that should be for another thread…)

I’ve never seen “Choke”, but I am aware of it. (Is it available on DVD? I should really track that down…) But I agree with you on this. For boxing greats like Dempsey and Jack Johnson there’s even footage out there of them plying their trade in the early 20th century, they were marvelous in their day. Dempsey’s one of my faves of all time and I think Severn and, (and Don Frye), are vastly underrated by today’s MMA fans.

And I think this is truly is what should determine Rickson’s legacy. If he was truly the greatest of his era why didn’t step up and test himself against the greatest the world had to offer after the UFC, (a product of his own families devising), made it big in '93? And if he did where is the footage? Why didn’t he ever take a spot in any of the subsequent UFC tournaments? At the time, this is where the money, and more importantly, where the eyes were at. I understand he may have not wanted to challenge Royce’s legitimacy but he still had plenty of opportunities to prove himself. In the UFC or elsewhere.

I want to be clear that I have no issues with Royce Gracie. I know he was the smaller of the two and that’s why he was chosen to display BJJ in the original UFC tournament. But there’s ample footage of Royce out there doing his thing and I think his place in history can be accurately judged, for better or for worse. (He could be boring yes, but he was VERY good at what he did.) Rickson’s trading on his name and what he was supposed to be. Not on what he actually was. (Because we have little evidence on what he actually was.) That bothers me.

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You’re welcome! It was kinda by chance, actually; I started writing about UFC in that “off the script” thread I started, and just then I remembered someone starting a thread about Rickson.

Anyway, from what I was able to find out about him, it seems that he’s simply happier as a mythical invincible destroyer than a highly visible champion with a Hall of Fame career (the anti-Severn, if you will). He may have been caught off guard by how incredibly rapidly the sport, and UFC in particular, evolved. Time limits, in particular, were a huge sore spot, preventing him from ever having anything to do with UFC again (this reportedly was also the last straw for Royce). Having any sort of fighting career means dealing with rules; having any length to said career means losing at some point. After Vale Tudo Japan '95 (the event Choke is based on), he had a total of three MMA matches in the next five years. Even if UFC was off limits, Pride was huge at the time (and had at least one big Gracie showcase), and there were a myriad of independet promotions springing up. It’s obvious that simply finding any league and any opponent that fit his laundry list of requirements was a nearly impossibe task.

I don’t care about 400-0. Even if it’s true, over whom? There’s never any shortage of bums and cannon fodder in this world. Hell, Buck Smith made an entire career out of taking out the trash.

He got the mythos going, and he’s sticking with it because that’s all he has left. As long as there are fans deluded enough to go along with it, why change?

BTW, I got Choke on VHS. I don’t think it ever got transferred to DVD.

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Coincidentally, I finally saw The Incredible Hulk this weekend; Rickson has a cameo in it as a martial arts master in Brazil who trains Bruce Banner. At one point Rickson slaps Banner and he almost Hulks out but keeps his cool and doesn’t, denying us of our once in a lifetime chance to see Rickson v. Hulk: Rickson by armbar. :smiley:

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Rickson by armbar.

No, Fedor by armbar.

No, I don’t know a single person who believes this shit. Rickson was undoubtably a great jiu-jitsu player and probably a great fighter, but I doubt he is or ever was a great mixed martial artist in the modern sense. Unified MMA rules are not suited to a guy like him. Someone like Mark Coleman probably would’ve taken him out even 10 years ago. Forget about it now, the guy is in his 50s.

Frank Shamrock tried this invincible-legend-who-never-fights crap, too. We see where it got him when he finally stepped back into the ring. Completely humiliated by a kid from a lower weightclass.

But I will say, depsite not being invincible, Rickson could kick all of your asses as well as the asses of probably 85% of the mixed martial artist out there.

By armbar.