Royce Gracie is underrated by hardcore fans.

Great topic as I'm currently watching stuff from 97 and on (basically any significant fights from any promotion in chronological order as most is either on ufc fight pass or youtube/dailymotion). I know those times quite well already but watching this like I would watch an old series makes me really get deep into "who was what" at a certain point in time. I also discovered the "wayback" part of the website "the internet archive" where you can go on a website as it was at a certain point in time. I tried the few Sherdog entries for 1999 (some parts can't work as the internet archive doesn't have the database but just hyperlinked screenshots").

Anyway, to answer that question, I have to say I don't really know how he actually is "rated" by fans. I have said several times that Royce is among the most overated fighters of all time for these two reasons:
1- because there were a lot of BJJ black belts who could have done the same in the UFC (check out the desafio night in which Bustamante, Gurgel and Ismail dominated the Luta Livre guys in 1991 to get an idea).
2- he went off before tougher competition arrived as he basically fought for a little more than a year (nov 93 to apr 95). Now to be honest, I don't think the first 4-5 UFC featured many top talents and I doubt Royce would have done well in '96, just check out what Don Frye did to Bitteti (a legit top bjj black belt at the time) that year.

I wanted to point out my point of view before assessing your points.

Now, to be fair, he beat Ken Shamrock, Kimo and Severn before they were really into mma. (as far as Pat Smith, he has never been anything, so I would have pointed Remco Pardoel as Royce's 4th best win). So to me, this just like saying Corey Nelson is underated because he beat Volkanovski in 2013. It doesn't mean anything because they were basically learning something Royce already knew thanks to what his family among other Brasilians have done over the last 60 years at that point. So, I would say Royce was good, nothing crazy or unique though in terms of skills, basically, he, as well as a lot of other guys, were way in advance compared to most north american fighters

I'm more into your second point about what Royce has been able to do against nice competition in the early 2000. Now, to be fair, 2000 was just 5 years after he went out of the UFC. So I would not call this "past his prime" in terms of abilities, it's just past his greatest accomplishments.
The second thing about that is that mma maths don't work. A can beat B, B beats C and C beats A. That's why we say "styles make fights" as if you pick the right opponents, you may find your way out of potential loss. I don't think he would have done well against a guy who would decide to stay on his fet and had the wrestling to do so. Fair enough he lasted long and did pretty good at first against Saku and Yoshida, but then again, nothing utterly impressive to me.

I guess, the whole thing comes down to the fact that he has been praised so much in a very UFC marketing/Gracie biased way that some fans may want to counterbalance it and say he was "average" at best. I think Royce was good, I mean, he was among the top bjj guys, and he fought mma (or no hold barred should I say) back when a strong bjj background was enough. But as I can name a lot of equal or better fighters from those years, some who didn't have the opportunity because they were not "Gracies", along with the fact that his great years only lasted a year and a half against beginners mostly... I mean, I can't say "his performance were impressive", I mean, it was, but from ignorance. Put Any of Carlson's top pupils at that time and they would have done as good as Royce if not better.
 
D0GMeAT said:
He's a legend for sure, but I'm just mad at him for juicing to the max in his rematch against old battle-worn Sakuraba.
Click to expand...

As dishonorable as it gets. Royce owed that dude, particularly that dude, the respect to show up and back up decades long statements of "skill above all else". I know so many fighters have geared up, I do, but this somehow felt different.

The Gracie family earned their place in history but this one act by Royce needs a large red asterisk. Royce is human and as such subject to mistakes but I hate this one.
 
ArnaudRygg said:
Great topic as I'm currently watching stuff from 97 and on (basically any significant fights from any promotion in chronological order as most is either on ufc fight pass or youtube/dailymotion). I know those times quite well already but watching this like I would watch an old series makes me really get deep into "who was what" at a certain point in time. I also discovered the "wayback" part of the website "the internet archive" where you can go on a website as it was at a certain point in time. I tried the few Sherdog entries for 1999 (some parts can't work as the internet archive doesn't have the database but just hyperlinked screenshots").

Anyway, to answer that question, I have to say I don't really know how he actually is "rated" by fans. I have said several times that Royce is among the most overated fighters of all time for these two reasons:
1- because there were a lot of BJJ black belts who could have done the same in the UFC (check out the desafio night in which Bustamante, Gurgel and Ismail dominated the Luta Livre guys in 1991 to get an idea).
2- he went off before tougher competition arrived as he basically fought for a little more than a year (nov 93 to apr 95). Now to be honest, I don't think the first 4-5 UFC featured many top talents and I doubt Royce would have done well in '96, just check out what Don Frye did to Bitteti (a legit top bjj black belt at the time) that year.

I wanted to point out my point of view before assessing your points.

Now, to be fair, he beat Ken Shamrock, Kimo and Severn before they were really into mma. (as far as Pat Smith, he has never been anything, so I would have pointed Remco Pardoel as Royce's 4th best win). So to me, this just like saying Corey Nelson is underated because he beat Volkanovski in 2013. It doesn't mean anything because they were basically learning something Royce already knew thanks to what his family among other Brasilians have done over the last 60 years at that point. So, I would say Royce was good, nothing crazy or unique though in terms of skills, basically, he, as well as a lot of other guys, were way in advance compared to most north american fighters

I'm more into your second point about what Royce has been able to do against nice competition in the early 2000. Now, to be fair, 2000 was just 5 years after he went out of the UFC. So I would not call this "past his prime" in terms of abilities, it's just past his greatest accomplishments.
The second thing about that is that mma maths don't work. A can beat B, B beats C and C beats A. That's why we say "styles make fights" as if you pick the right opponents, you may find your way out of potential loss. I don't think he would have done well against a guy who would decide to stay on his fet and had the wrestling to do so. Fair enough he lasted long and did pretty good at first against Saku and Yoshida, but then again, nothing utterly impressive to me.

I guess, the whole thing comes down to the fact that he has been praised so much in a very UFC marketing/Gracie biased way that some fans may want to counterbalance it and say he was "average" at best. I think Royce was good, I mean, he was among the top bjj guys, and he fought mma (or no hold barred should I say) back when a strong bjj background was enough. But as I can name a lot of equal or better fighters from those years, some who didn't have the opportunity because they were not "Gracies", along with the fact that his great years only lasted a year and a half against beginners mostly... I mean, I can't say "his performance were impressive", I mean, it was, but from ignorance. Put Any of Carlson's top pupils at that time and they would have done as good as Royce if not better.
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Very thoughtful post, I agree.

For sure, I guess it comes down to semantics and what you think is impressive.

Do consider though that Severn, Shamrock, Kimo and Smith all weighed between 95kg to 110kg, and some of those guys were very good athletes for MMA (relative to that time).

Yes Royce had the jiujitsu advantage, but he was a fairly small and quite un-athletic.

I guess I'm making the thread because the mention of his name often gets trashed in many threads these days (maybe just my perception). I'm not even really a massive fan of his tbh.
 
When people talks about old GOAT's they say competition wasn't that good and fighters wasn't that good back then. But those great fighters are from that era too, it's not like they were from this era but traveled back in time to beat those fighters
 
NoStoneUnturned said:
As dishonorable as it gets. Royce owed that dude, particularly that dude, the respect to show up and back up decades long statements of "skill above all else". I know so many fighters have geared up, I do, but this somehow felt different.

The Gracie family earned their place in history but this one act by Royce needs a large red asterisk. Royce is human and as such subject to mistakes but I hate this one.
Click to expand...

F@#king AMEN to that, sir.
 
wildchild88 said:
Basically because of the fact that the Gracie's are widely hated in the mma fan community (another topic all together) I don't think that Royce actually gets the credit he deserves as a fighter from hardcore fans.

He gets talked about like he's a scrub, but for his time, his wins / performances were impressive.

Beating Ken Shamrock, Dan Severn, Patrick Smith and Kimo as the smaller / lighter guy during that time was very impressive, also the fact that he was able to go for 1.5 hours with Sakuraba (who went on to beat Randleman, Rampage, Newton), and dominating the second fight with Yoshida (who went the distance with Wanderlei, and beat Hunt and some other impressive pride MW's and LHW's) was also impressive.

Yes by today's standards he's terrible, but I think that his capabilities are slightly underrated by the average hardcore fan . There's a taint of bias there because many hardcore fans dislike the Gracies for their own reasons.

Also, PRIDE is undefeated, check out this epic entrance, and the projection of Helio above the ring as Royce enters:
Click to expand...


This is a good post, kind of a blast from the past.

One thing about Royce, is that he was a legit game fighter.
His boxing may have been atrocious, but his heart was not.

Even with critically-deficient striking, he was always a danger and he was always looking to finish.

Ultimately, though, their dedication to "pure Gracie Jujitsu" became a downfall.

The truth is, striking matters.

As a boxer, I immediately saw holes in their game, even though I also saw the strengths in their game.

I wanted to learn how to fight on the ground, and I learned from them, but one of the first things I realized is how easy the Gracie's would be to knock-out, with a little anti-grappling.

If I were young now, I would probably look for a combat Sambo base, along with boxing and Muay Thai.

One of the things about Royce/Rorion/Helio jujitsu, is the entire "from the back" style was designed by a weakling (Helio), to allow him to survive a bigger stronger man. This created too much reliance "fighting from the guard," which worked in early MMA, but it's considered a losing position.

Yes, it remains important, but the idea is to get up from the guard, now, rather than just rely on it.

Most combat athletes are going to be on top, so wrestling/combat Sambo/Shooto type grappling styles are going to have an advantage in MMA over "pure Gracie jujitsu" these days

Still, Royce's efforts are part of MMA history, and he fought fiercely in every effort. Fun times!
 
What he did in the first UFC events is almost legendary, but his legacy is tarnished by his mafia-like family and his roid use.
 
He fought Sakuraba for and hour and a half , think about the calibre of fighters that got submitted by Sakuraba in 1/6 of that amount of time
 
Is he?? Seems pretty overhyped to me. People literally place him in the Mount Rushmore of MMA when he has maybe two significant wins on his resume, competed during by far the most talent devoid time period in MMA, and got absolutely decimated when he faced a next generation MMA fighter.
 
Control the distance control the damage. Brilliant motto.
Talented, sure, but hair-pulling on Kimo showed off IMHO a cowardly tactic.
 
I'm a Gracie family defender and I respect their contribution to mma all bs aside as well as royce but he got caught cheating and was on roids so that tarnished his rep in my eyes
 
D0GMeAT said:
He's a legend for sure, but I'm just mad at him for juicing to the max in his rematch against old battle-worn Sakuraba.

images
Click to expand...

Saku easily won that fight too.

It was a completely bullshit decision.
 
wildchild88 said:
Very thoughtful post, I agree.

For sure, I guess it comes down to semantics and what you think is impressive.

Do consider though that Severn, Shamrock, Kimo and Smith all weighed between 95kg to 110kg, and some of those guys were very good athletes for MMA (relative to that time).

Yes Royce had the jiujitsu advantage, but he was a fairly small and quite un-athletic.

I guess I'm making the thread because the mention of his name often gets trashed in many threads these days (maybe just my perception). I'm not even really a massive fan of his tbh.
Click to expand...

Well, I guess it's fair to say that the more we get forward into the history of the sport the more weight classes made sense. In other words, back in 1993 it was not as important to be the heavyest guy than it was in 2003, and now in 2023, people are putting themselves in danger to cut a couple of pounds more. Now, with that in mind, Dan Henderson won the Rings' King of Kings in 2000 beating Yvel (+14kg), Nogueira (+15kg) and Babalu (+18kg) on the same night. And there are several examples like that, even 5+ years after Royce's accomplishment against heavier guys. My point is, if Dan (among other examples) could do it against top fighter in 2000, it's actually reasonable to think a skilled welterweight could do it against uneducated heavyweights in '94. (btw, you could tell it was true to a certain point when you watch Royce vs Kimo).

There's something else I would like to point, is that I don't feel the need to balance things out as far as "how good Royce was" because I think he's a legend anyway. However, there are some amazing fighter that would deserve such a topic (though it would be less appealing than Royce) as they are forgotten to a large portion of mma fans. The first name that comes to my mind is José Landi, he doesn't even have a wikipedia page in english! And to go back to your point, he went 30min with Liddell in 98, with two knockdowns weighing some 15kg less.

(sorry for the kg, I don't use Lbs often, and that's how I remember things, so all you have to do is convert those).
 
Flower2dPeople said:
Morais fought 5x in one night to win a russian tournament.
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True. Mikhail Ilyukhin as well with a total fight duration of like 6 minutes, lol. Those russian 32 man tournaments were cool.

wildchild88 said:
Yes Royce had the jiujitsu advantage, but he was a fairly small and quite un-athletic.
Click to expand...
When you say small you mean lean, right? Because Gracie wasn't really short compared to Shamrock and Severn.

royce_shamrock_2_aftermath.jpg


f8995-1532960562-800.jpg
 
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Underrated by some, but no doubt overrated by some. For his time, dude was amazing...and also terribly boring. Obviously the sport evolved and he just wasn't able to keep up, but honestly most fighters from back then didn't evolve.
 
I've been watching since the 90s. And I love Royce Gracie.
 
Royce was a legend for his time, I take nothing away from him, but his style of fighting with jiu jitsu alone for MMA has passed. Royce was on a different level of BJJ than his early fights showed...he didn't need to use anything above blue belt techniques to beat unbelted grapplers, and I think a lot of people underestimate his ability because he wasn't doing flying armbars or x-guard or any of the other fancy shit that has risen in popularity...he just showed grit and his mastery of basic techniques...and that was enough.

I still love BJJ, and I still believe it to be the single most effective martial art for self defense. My son (5 years old) just started training at a 10th Planet affiliate, and as he ages we will add wrestling classes and eventually striking.
 
Great for his time. But at the same time the Gracie’s organized the first ufcs and omitted certain guys to be invited who could threaten them trying to promote BJJ. So have to take those tournament wins with a grain of salt. There were guys in pancrase who could have threatened him that weren’t invited. They were purposely trying to Organize single style vs single style. Also the family is a crummy bunch of people who bullied folk as a group to get their way on a bunch of occasions.

Dosent change his importance to the sports initial burst of growth in that period though.
 
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