1st Royler Gracie 2nd Nino Schembri 3rd Leo Vieira 4th Fabio Gurgel 5th Murilo Bustamante 6th Saulo Ribeiro 7th Amaury Bitetti 8th Roberto Roleta 9th Vitor Shaolin 10th Marcio Feitosa & Ze Mario Sperry (tied) Interesting to see that De La Riva didn't make the list, along with Rolls. Comments, Thoughts, Opinions?
I think that was Gracie Magazine's list for the 1990's only. Rickson was listed by the magazine as the #1 guy for 1980s, and Rolls was #1 in the 1970s. Your thread title is misleading since you failed to mention that it was Gracie magazine's list and related only to competitions in the 1990s.
My mistake, sorry for misleading anybody... I myself thought this was a "Greatest of All Time" article since it said "Royler Replaces Rickson."
No harm! I just wanted to make sure everyone knows where that list came from. I'm glad to see on the list the name of Roberto Roleta, known to many simply as "Roleta", the man that popularized the perplexing "upside down" (or "damn") guard, which Pe de Pano has done so well in more recent times.
I just started a thread on the Pan Ams in the MMA forum like a fool. But have you guys seen the Pan Ams? Unreal!!!! The best ever guard passes, sweeps, submissions...strategies.
i'll assume this is No Gi since you didn't specify, but you did use the term grappler...Anyway, of course Rickson is up there, after that, as far as most technical and dominating regardless of weight class, next in order would be: Marcelo Garcia, Leo Viera, Jacare, Roger Gracie, Royler gracie, JJ machado....in that order.... don't look at what guys like Royler have accomplished necessarily, look at the skill of everybody as a whole... If you look at it that way, you see that Marcelo Garcia is easily ahead of Royler in No Gi grappling, even if both were in their prime. And if you have ever seen Viera and Jacare grapple you would no doubt place them at the top of the list. Far higher than guys like Sperry....All you need to do to judge where Sperry goes on the list is to look at his superfight with Mark Kerr. That was one of the WORST fights i've ever seen. VERY poor job by Sperry, and also realize that Sperry won ADCC when it was in it's infancy and top tier submission competition was hard to come by.
surprising how low Ze Mario is ranked. Isnt bitetti the role model of Matt Lindland in terms of stalling?
To be fair, Royler has done way more in sub grappling and bjj than Bravo. In fact he was dominating Bravo until that beautiful triangle (eddie lost in the next round). Royler is a 4 time adcc champ.
my list or current bjj fighters: 1) Jacare 2) Roger Gracie 3) Marcelo Garcia 4) Margarida 5) Pe De Pano 6) Leo Vieira 7) Saulo Ribiero 8) Terere 9) Xande Ribiero 10) Cafe Dantes 11) Eduardo Telles 12) Dave and Dan Camarillo 13) Parrumpinha 14) Pe De Chumbo 15) Rodrigo Riscado im forgetting some i know but im in a rush to get somewhere.
once again...nobody has specified if we are talking about gi or no gi..... this makes a WORLD of difference in who goes on the list....if it is Gi, then yes, i would put Margarida somewhere in the top of the list.... I don' t know much about sperry and his Gi work, but i certainly wouldn't put him in the top of the No Gi category.....and as far as Bravo goes, well there is NO way that he could be anywhere close to being anywhere on anybody's list. He has hardly competed at all compared to Royler, and in no way deserves to be on the list.
The list is total b.s. It is a list of BJJ'ists, not of "grapplers." Where is Ad Santel, Tahkti, John Smith, Watanabe, Kimura, Sakuraba, Uetaki, etc.?
