How good were they by todays standards? MMA Grappling and pure submission grappling

[TheMaster]

This is going to get a lot of heat but I want an unbiased, objective opinion on this. Not emotion based but a fair evaluation. Bear in mind some of the 'grappling developments' in my opinion have made the arts less effective from a combat standpoint even if more effective from a pure submission grappling standpoint.

So the question is, how good are they by modern standards?

- pure submission grappling
- MMA (combat) grappling

Royce Gracie
Ken Shamrock
Oleg Taktarov
Marco Ruas
Rickson Gracie
Frank Shamrock
Kazushi Sakuraba

I am focusing only on those old school submission grapplers who fought with no weight classes in the early days of the sport, plus Sakuraba and Frank who regularly fought guys way bigger.

My evaluation is these guys hold up very well in the modern era as far as MMA grappling goes, but perhaps less so in pure sport grappling.

 

[RemyR]

Sparred with Frank 15ish years ago.

We did a 5 min grappling only round and I remember I did really well for the first 4 mins. Then someone called out 1 min left and he stopped fucking around and proceeded to tap me like 5 times in that final min. Any confidence i built in those first 4 mins thinking I was any good was quickly deflated as I learned what "levels to this" meant on that day.

 

[Espurgote]

Besides Rickson who is a grappler god himself, all of the listed above are pretty good MMA grapplers, but pure sub grapplers? Id say average (speaking in terms of the elite).

 

[Bluesbreaker]

This is going to get a lot of heat but I want an unbiased, objective opinion on this. Not emotion based but a fair evaluation. Bear in mind some of the 'grappling developments' in my opinion have made the arts less effective from a combat standpoint even if more effective from a pure submission grappling standpoint.

So the question is, how good are they by modern standards?

- pure submission grappling
- MMA (combat) grappling

Royce Gracie
Ken Shamrock
Oleg Taktarov
Marco Ruas
Rickson Gracie
Frank Shamrock
Kazushi Sakuraba

I am focusing only on those old school submission grapplers who fought with no weight classes in the early days of the sport, plus Sakuraba and Frank who regularly fought guys way bigger.

My evaluation is these guys hold up very well in the modern era as far as MMA grappling goes, but perhaps less so in pure sport grappling.

I'd suggest peak Saku's style is the closest to what we see at the top of no gi BJJ at the moment.

 

[TheMaster]

Besides Rickson who is a grappler god himself, all of the listed above are pretty good MMA grapplers, but pure sub grapplers? Id say average (speaking in terms of the elite).

Theres no way you could not call Frank and Sakuraba elite pure submission grapplers either by any standard today.

 

[zeli_papa]

My former teacher is a super legit multiple world champion , he's a bit older now and used to train with Rickson in the so called "Gracie Garage " around '88 or so , he says that Rickson is an absolute God and things he used to do in training are mind boggling

 

[Espurgote]

Theres no way you could not call Frank and Sakuraba elite pure submission grapplers either by any standard today.

Its cause competitive submission is a different game from mma grappling. They would still be very good and competitive though.

 

[TheMaster]

Its cause competitive submission is a different game from mma grappling. They would still be very good and competitive though.

I have issue with the idea that any of these guys would get steamrolled by someone like Gordon Ryan in pure grappling.
Obviously Ryan is untested and unknown as an MMA grappler. But Saku, Rickson and Frank in particular would hold their own with him in a submission rule set. Ryan does not have the explosiveness of a guy like Frank and technically they are skilled enough not to get outpositioned.

 

[yetanother]

They would just get easily heel hooked on modern submission grappling.
A lot of the modern leg locks are unfairly effective if you don't know the unobvious counter.
Rickson would do the worst out of this guys in modern mma as his get punched in the face approach didn't aged well with strikers with good ko power transitioning over or the BJJ defeating idea that if you can wrestle not going to the ground against a shit striker might make sense

 

[randomg1t]

they'd get destroyed in both, but the comparison is unfair.

back when these guys were in their primes, either being a black belt in bjj or being on that level if you practiced some other art was pretty rare. that means their training partners were rarely high level, simply because there weren't that many people who did the sport at the time.

i imagine frank shamrock had good people around him to train, but i doubt he had a lot of black belts to choose from. you can walk into a good gym in any major city now and have 10 blackbelts, all competitors, all on the same mat. the level of sparring partners the top guys have today, and the number of them to choose from is ridiculous compared to late 90s, early 2000s.

now if we're talking about their talent alone, as in, putting a young frank shamrock with no training into today's AKA and building him up... i am absolutely certain he'd be among the best in the world right now.

 

[biscuitsbrah]

They would all get leg locked or rnc’d by every top 10 grappler in their weight class. Khabib, Islam, and even Charles Oliveira would also tap them in mma. Not fair to compare eras in a super fast growing sport like bjj and mma. So much new metas and strategies since the guys you named have fought. It looks like a completely different sport

 

[Espurgote]

Rickson by armbar

 

[Rob Battisti]

I don’t think there is a man who ever lived who could beat Ryan in submission grappling.

Unfortunately, we will never know how Rickson would do.

 

[randomg1t]

I don’t think there is a man who ever lived who could beat Ryan in submission grappling.

ryan gracie? care to elaborate why? he doesn't really have the credentials to back that up.

 

[TheMaster]

They would all get leg locked or rnc’d by every top 10 grappler in their weight class. Khabib, Islam, and even Charles Oliveira would also tap them in mma. Not fair to compare eras in a super fast growing sport like bjj and mma. So much new metas and strategies since the guys you named have fought. It looks like a completely different sport

This is just pure nonsense, but I'm sure it's the type of self indulgent gratifying talk that goes on in the average bjj class nowadays as they butt scoot and chit chat about how great they are and 'how much they sport has evolved'.

For MMA it's really a difficult question adding strikes to the game. As we know many sport grappling setups are not designed for and open to strikes.

They would just get easily heel hooked on modern submission grappling.
A lot of the modern leg locks are unfairly effective if you don't know the unobvious counter.
Rickson would do the worst out of this guys in modern mma as his get punched in the face approach didn't aged well with strikers with good ko power transitioning over or the BJJ defeating idea that if you can wrestle not going to the ground against a shit striker might make sense

I can't see Ken, Frank and even Oleg getting leg locked by anyone in MMA or sport grappling today, even if they were muscling out of a lot of setups they weren't familiar with.

The idea of Rickson doing the worst in MMA isn't a bad one though he was the least proven in that and I believe only learned about leg looks later from Eric Paulson.

ryan gracie? care to elaborate why? he doesn't really have the credentials to back that up.

Pretty sure he's talking about Gordon Ryan

 

[biscuitsbrah]

This is just pure nonsense, but I'm sure it's the type of self indulgent gratifying talk that goes on in the average bjj class nowadays as they butt scoot and chit chat about how great they are and 'how much they sport has evolved'.

For MMA it's really a difficult question adding strikes to the game. As we know many sport grappling setups are not designed for and open to strikes.

Well I don’t do sport bjj and am only vaguely familiar with the new stuff they are doing with leg locks so that doesn’t apply to me. I’m actually an mma fighter, but I can recognize high level bjj when I see it. These guys today are just different. Backside 50/50 heel hook to a z lock. Or whatever they are doing is just ridiculous. You wouldn’t even hear about these things 20-30 years ago

 

[yetanother]

This is just pure nonsense, but I'm sure it's the type of self indulgent gratifying talk that goes on in the average bjj class nowadays as they butt scoot and chit chat about how great they are and 'how much they sport has evolved'.

For MMA it's really a difficult question adding strikes to the game. As we know many sport grappling setups are not designed for and open to strikes.


I can't see Ken, Frank and even Oleg getting leg locked by anyone in MMA or sport grappling today, even if they were muscling out of a lot of setups they weren't familiar with.

The idea of Rickson doing the worst in MMA isn't a bad one though he was the least proven in that and I believe only learned about leg looks later from Eric Paulson.


Pretty sure he's talking about Gordon Ryan

Ken lost to Royce Gracie going for the most trash leg locks you can even imagine. He would get his knee broker by some heel hooking 16 year old prodigy.
It is super retarded to think the leg locking knowledge hasn't improved.
Maybe someone like prime Mark Kerr would still be a respectable opponent but old school leg locking didn't age welll.

 

[TheMaster]

Ken lost to Royce Gracie going for the most trash leg locks you can even imagine. He would get his knee broker by some heel hooking 16 year old prodigy.
It is super retarded to think the leg locking knowledge hasn't improved.
Maybe someone like prime Mark Kerr would still be a respectable opponent but old school leg locking didn't age welll.

You mean the same Ken Shamrock who not too long ago was convincing Eddie Bravo and thereby the BJJ world that leg looks were in fact a thing, and they should be training them? The same Ken Shamrock who crippled Don Frye's legs for life in an actual, real fight?

How many of these 'leg lock meta' have actually been used successfully in MMA?
As for sport grappling, there's no magic secret technique that is going to have elite submission grapplers suddenly tapping, you buy way too much into the modern hybrid BJJ marketing videos.

 

[philthevoid]

Watch Gordon Ryan vs. Josh Barnett, an "old school" guy who is as strong as any of the dudes mentioned. He got subbed pretty easily. No disrespect to the pioneers, but to think they could avoid getting subbed bc of their "strength" is dumb.

 

[TheMaster]

Watch Gordon Ryan vs. Josh Barnett, an "old school" guy who is as strong as any of the dudes mentioned. He got subbed pretty easily. No disrespect to the pioneers, but to think they could avoid getting subbed bc of their "strength" is dumb.

People can also learn and adjust to the modern game. Barnett and Ryan was pretty even, I'd like to see a rematch one day. That was a slick transition to the triangle but even then, if slams were allowed Ryan could get powerbombed by the bigger guy.

No disrespect to Ryan, but if his grappling was that good he would have at least tested himself in MMA once for a money superfight. He has let himself down by not rising to the challenge that all these legendary old skoool grapplers did.