If early UFC events had more diverse competition, mma would look very different.

What difference would it have made for Royce to tap him out? What am I missing?

 

I doubt Royce would have been able to.

 

You do realize that in this time period people had no idea what BJJ was. So Floyd would have been like any other boxer that had absolutely no fucking clue what he was up against.

 

Meh he probably saw Ali fight that wrestler that crawled around on his back the entire time kicking Ali's legs. He probably knew not to let that guy get anywhere close to grabbing him. Royce would have gotten tagged up unless he just crawled around on the ground. I suppose he could have looked like a ass and done that too though.

 

If we accept the premise that the UFC wouldn't have lasted, and assume from that that there'd be no Zuffa running an identical org that established itself as a name brand, and assume that no other org with the same rules established itself, then yes, MMA would look much different.

If, however, we don't accept that premise, then your conclusion doesn't follow. We've seen MMA evolve toward what is more effective by such drastic measures that it doesn't even resemble the early fights just a short 20 years later. It's not like guys wouldn't still learn to grapple and strike, and adapt those skills to the MMA paradigm. The shape MMA ultimately took depended mostly on the rules in place. The guys will adapt to fit that, and it'll look about the same no matter what style won UFC 1.

 

Kimo had a bunch of wrestling experience and was at least three weight divisions bigger than Royce, and yet couldn't even survive more than 5 minutes with him.

And Varelans was a legit giant compared to Moreira. I mean, sure the size difference thing was part of the game in those days, but in the context of this thread I doubt anyone seeing Moreira go to a decision against a 6'7", 300+ lb monster decided BJJ was useless after that fight. As if a boxer or wrestler with the same massive size disadvantage would have done better.

 

Yeah, I'm sure most guys would have eventually rounded themselves out like in real life. But it would have been different if BJJ hadn't been popularized with the surge of the UFC and Royce. Who knows if the Gracies even would have continued with the company if Royce had lost that first event. Then what would have happen? I doubt anybody would have wanted to buy the company at the time.

 

After watching the way he fought Sakuraba he shows he is not above using such tactics and probably would just crawl around on his back. Not really sure how that demonstrates how dominant and effective bjj is for self defense though unless you assume your only ever gonna get jumped in a one on one situation.

 

The examples posted in this thread of very high level wrestlers and kickboxers getting owned by submissions suggest you're wrong.

Besides, if Royce had lost they'd just have put one of the bigger, better Gracies into UFC-2. It's not like Royce was the #1 Gracie on the planet.

 

Which examples? And how many? Kickboxers and wrestlers have defeat bjj practitioners many times.

Also, that ignores many other high level fighters the Gracies could have invited.

They might have, but it's doubtful even Rickson Gracie could win a super tournament packed with all sorts of high level combat athletes.

 

Kimo was the same size as guys like Pardoel, Severn, and wasn`t much bigger than guys like Shamrock at the time, or Pat Smith, Gordeau, etc.,

And Varelans was also a `legit giant`compared to guys like Ruas or Vovchanychyn as well, both who had little difficulty in taking the big man down over time. The chubby Vovchanchyn naturally probably wasn`t all that much bigger than Moreira was at the time and he was primarily a boxer for the most part back in those days. He beat the shit out of Varelans in that fight.

Like you say, weight classes weren`t a thing back then.

 

Its possible some catch wrestlers or Judoka's plus some the the Gracies more contemporary Brazilian cross training rivals could have threatened them early on but pure wrestlers, kickboxers and boxers would not have had much chance without cross training.

I think you point merges nicely into the incorrect view of MMA history a lot of people have as well with the idea that the history of the UFC is at the centre of it. Really though I think much moreso than the UFC the key growth of MMA actually happened in Japan and at that point we very much did get to see fighters with the backgrounds you mentioned coming into MMA fairly cold.

Really the UFC in the mid 90's was a bit of a fad, it came very much out of nowhere and was sold on the bloodsport image before largely vanishing from the mainstream after 3-4 years. In Japan though MMA was really an out growth of pro wrestling that had been building for 20 years and it ended up as a proper mainstream sport as a result, it had its freakshows of course but the attraction for much of the audience was the sport not a just bleed image. US MMA had to work for much longer to achieve that, it started pre Zuffa but really I think there backing it had a lot more to do with looking at the sport in Japan than it did the mid 90's UFC, if that didn't exist at that point I could well have seen them or someone similar backing another or or maybe relaunching the name.

 

That had a lot more to do with McCain, who had already voiced his disdain for NHB by that point, being elected to chair the governing body that oversaw the television industry and then using that influence within the industry to persuade (or threaten in some cases) the PPV providers to discontinue hosting UFC events on their cable systems. Basically all of the major PPV providers back then (Viewer's Choice, Cablevision, TCI, etc.) stopped showing UFC or Extreme Fighting events soon after, with UFC 12 (or 13) being the last one shown to the mass public via PPV I do believe. It was the one where Coleman defeated Severn.

You are 100% correct in how it was marketed back then. No question at all and that's a big reason why the sport was attacked the way it was back then by people like McCain. I just don't think it's fair at all to say it was a "fad" at the time when they had such a giant roadblock in front of them back then in regards to not being able to get the PPV exposure.

 

Not sure how this is this related to the fact that Royce took care of the far larger, wrestling-trained Kimo in under 5 minutes to be honest.

Sure, but Varelans is also a somewhat poor example of what we're talking about in this thread, in that he had 6 fights under his belt by the time he fought Moreira and, like EVERYONE after UFC-1 and UFC-2 had clearly been studying BJJ. He even had a sub win by Americana and was clearly not inexperienced against BJJ guys by the time he fought Moreira.

 

The point in mentioning those other guys was that they all had much more formal training than did Kimo as well as being the same (or near) size as him as well. Save for the Severn fight and the Shamrock rematch, Royce also handled them much, much easier than he did Kimo (Shamrock 1, Pardoel, Smith, Gordeau). If size was as much of a factor as you're claiming then Royce very likely struggles to beat them guys more than he did. Or he even loses to them. He didn't though. And I don't know if you're trying to pass of that as an easy win for Royce by saying things like "under 5 minutes", but you know that was anything but an easy fight for Royce. In fact it isn't inconceivable to think Royce would have lost that fight if it wasn't for Kimo's choice of hairdos. Whether it was 1 minute, 5 minutes, or 15 minutes, Kimo gave Royce all he could handle in that meeting and you know it as well as I. For just one example, it's like saying Hughes had an easy time with Trigg since he "took care of him in under 5 minutes".

Varelans defensive game against BJJ looked like crap the next time he fought against a BJJ fighter. Granted Barreto was significantly bigger than was Moreira, although without having near the BJJ credentials. But Varelans looked utterly clueless against Barreto's BJJ game in the clinch and especially on the ground. Whatever "studying" he did previous to that when it came to BJJ was either thrown out the window, or is being overstated by yourself. He offered little resistence in the clinch and then performed about equal to a combat dummy once they hit the ground.

 

I don't know what else to tell you dude, these aren't robots we're following in this sport, they're human beings. Anyone can have an off night at any time for any number of reasons, illnesses, injuries, emotional baggages.

There are no silver bullets and no guarantees. Sometimes being the better man isn't enough.

 

A high level wrestler with some sub knowledge could beat a Gracie. Somebody from the Vipers Den.

Not some fucking karate, boxing, Kong fu or judo dude.

Royce wasn't even the best Gracie.

 

This was kind of the whole point of my original post. We can't speak in absolutes and say things like "this will happen, that will happen", or whatever when the history of the early NHB days says no, certain things aren't going to happen all the time.

 

Sure but nobody said nothing about anything happening "all the time".

 

Wrestlers don't have submission defence. You are looking at a 1993 topic from a 2016 perspective where Wrestlers who went to mma learned bjj. A pure wrestler always loses to a pure bjj guy.