Exactly how legit is Rickson Gracie?

Mob69 said:
Thanks, very helpful to see the stats on his grappling career. Much appreciated. I once spent a little while (not long, I admit) fruitlessly searching Google for his BJJ credentials.

As my original post, I'm not questioning at all that he's the best BJJ player ever. Isn't there a story that he lined up about a dozen high-level dudes and subbed them one after the other, while telling them what he was going to tap them with? That's unreal. He would clearly have won UFCs 1-7, or so, if he competed in them.

However, his non-BJJ credentials are, to a large extent, a PR exercise.
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Well, he's appreciated more as a pioneer of BJJ than a mixed martial artist. The respect people have for his MMA skills are largely in part due to the fact that he was a much better BJJ practitioner than his brother Royce who had immense success in the early days of MMA.

There's a back story pertaining to why Royce represented the Gracie clan at the first UFC over Rickson that you should try to educate yourself on. Needless to say, and after his victories in the UFC, Royce was asked about his brother Rickson whom Royce himself admitted is '10x better than me'.

Take from that what you will.
 
I think that even his BJJ record is padded. Any of the top champions (Buchecha, Rodolfo) would destroy him.
 
AllKnowing said:
Well, he's appreciated more as a pioneer of BJJ than a mixed martial artist. The respect people have for his MMA skills are largely in part due to the fact that he was a much better BJJ practitioner than his brother Royce who had immense success in the early days of MMA.

There's a back story pertaining to why Royce represented the Gracie clan at the first UFC over Rickson that you should try to educate yourself on. Needless to say, and after his victories in the UFC, Royce was asked about his brother Rickson whom Royce himself admitted is '10x better than me'.

Take from that what you will.
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Again, thanks for posting in the thread. I was aware of the reason(s) he didn't compete in UFC and certainly don't doubt that he would have dominated the early events. He would, without much question. Would be very interesting to see how he would have fared against the likes of Don Frye (winner of UFC 8) who had solid TDD and good hands - maybe the first proper hybrid fighter in the UFC. Then there's Coleman, who was, of course, massive...
 
FlowWithTheGo23 said:
I think that even his BJJ record is padded. Any of the top champions (Buchecha, Rodolfo) would destroy him.
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Really? Do you think so? That's interesting, I always thought he was seen as the best ever in BJJ.
 
Right after the JRE with Rickson I wanted to make a thread just like you did.
But then I researched all of his fights read a lot more about Rickson, so I decided not to make one, because all of his opponents were bigger than him some by a large amount ( except Yuki, who he did not even punch, because he was already hurt so he just punched him twice with NO power )
That aside, I believe in a real street fight Rickson would have beat any MMA fighter from any era !
nobody that weighted most of his career 175 pounds and not 185 pounds the weightclass he is listed fought that many LHW/HW's , I think there will never be anybody like him again.
 
Malik111 said:
Right after the JRE with Rickson I wanted to make a thread just like you did.
But then I researched all of his fights read a lot more about Rickson, so I decided not to make one, because all of his opponents were bigger than him some by a large amount ( except Yuki, who he did not even punch, because he was already hurt so he just punched him twice with NO power )
That aside, I believe in a real street fight Rickson would have beat any MMA fighter from any era !
nobody that weighted most of his career 175 pounds and not 185 pounds the weightclass he is listed fought that many LHW/HW's , I think there will never be anybody like him again.
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Sakuraba was smaller than Rickson (I think), and also fought a huge number of very large men. As a catch-wrestler, the Sakuraba-Rickson match-up would have been fantastic given Sakuraba's results against the other Gracies.
 
It's impossible to say, of course (which is why these things get so heated). But talk to anyone who has ever rolled with him or even seen him, including very high-level blackbelts, and you'll get overwhelming praise. Here's Dave Camarillo:

From the moment I engaged my guard, till the time I was tapping, I felt as if there was nothing I could have done to better my situation. His basic techniques nullified my game almost immediately.
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You'll see a lot of quotes like that. That said, even the very highest level of BJJ isn't enough anymore for someone to be successful in MMA. Look at Roger Gracie. And Rickson's non-BJJ skills don't look impressive in the footage that's out there. I would say that if he came into MMA when he was young, he probably could have been one of the greatest, but he probably wasn't that great as it was.
 
It has been said that he wanted Royce to fight instead of him because Royce was naive, if Royce won it would make it seem good by having them all market how if Royce could do it then Rickson would do even better but had Royce lost he still could have saved face. To me this is like having one of your friends send you to ask a girl out for him if she says yes, you did the hard work for him but if she says no, they dont have to go through the shame of being rejected. The more you look into Ricksons dealings the more respect you lose for him.
 
All Gracie's are Overrated ...........

Wanna know the last time a member of the Gracie family member won a UFC fight???????

1994
 
he was definitely legit for that time and that's all that really matters. his ground is one of the best ever. he was a physical specimen.

you can judge him by how robotic his stand up looked back in the day, but it didn't hurt him any then. i think he was athletic enough that if he entered MMA in his prime today that he would be able to have a better stand up style. saying that, he wouldn't be undefeated in today's MMA.
 
Pretty much any unrelated top level grappler who had rolled with him seems to agree that his grappling is something else.

And that's pretty much all that can be said.

What he has to tell about grappling and fighting in result is therefore seriously worth listening too, but it costs $$$, naturally. :-D
 
Erik paulson has always been very straight forward and honest with me, even being somewhat negative about some of the people hes trained with

Hes told me on multiple occasions that Rickson is the most talented person hes ever rolled with and if he trained any other discipline he could've been the best in the world at it. I asked if Rickson was as good as he goes around saying, and he told me " twice as good as the Gracie's talk about him." Hes told me the opposite about people he likes, so i believe him

I used to think the same thing as you btw
 
So I'm a huge rickson fan and I know everything there is to know about the guy.

So from a teaching BJJ perspective, he's the best of the best.

At his time, nobody could beat him. He was the family representive.

By today's mma standards, nobody from that time could compete in today's time. The sport has devoloped to new extremes with 1000x more practitioners. But anyone could tell you that.

It's kinda like talking to Bruce Lee fans and telling them Bruce lee in today's time would easily get double legged and TKO'd by one of today's Medicore mma fighters. They refuse to acknowledge logic.

Note: Just look at what Kron Gracie has done in ADCC, there definitely is something very special about the man when his son wins the most prestigious no-gi grappling tourney in the world. Finishing all his opponents with BASIC BJJ. Really phenomenal and unheard of.

And some of the greatest grapplers of our time say things like "I thought I knew BJJ until I heard Rickson Gracie talk"
 
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With no rules, I think Rickson was the best mma fighter in the world up until the mid 90's or slightly later. I personally think he would have more often than not dominated Severn, shamrock, frye, coleman, tank etc and could have conceivably won all or most UFC tournaments/superfights from UFC 1-11 assuming he didn't get injured. I think around 97 when the mma 2.0 guys like Vitor, randy, tito came along they probably would have beaten him (or not). I think around the same time Mark Kerr probably would have too (although Rickson is supremely confident he would have beaten Kerr and said so in the JRE podcast).
So in summary, I think Rickson is the no1 bjj practitioner and without doubt a legit mma fighter that would have ruled the sport until around 1997.
 
Then why don't you just beat him up and prove how weak he is?
 
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