Issue 065

August 2010

When Royce Gracie won the tournament at the first UFC event, he told the people watching live and on cable television that he was going to Disneyland with the prize money. 

It was an appropriate statement. Royce and the Gracie family were living the American Dream, their lives playing out like the script of an epic film written solely to depict the mythic rise of this Brazilian fighting dynasty. 

From being taught how to fight by a powerful, legendary patriarch to standing atop a not-entirely-metaphoric heap of defeated foes as the first UFC tournament champion, Royce’s incredible martial arts career is one of the most beloved stories in the canon of MMA history. 

Although Renzo – Royce’s cousin – is the poet of the family, Royce’s life and career have been no less dramatic. The son of Helio Gracie, one of the founders of Gracie jiu-jitsu (the Gracie-specific brand of Brazilian jiu-jitsu), Royce was born into a family of fighters. His brothers, uncles and his father taught him jiu-jitsu as a game that they would play after school and at weekends. 

Royce was a black belt by 18 and was sent to live with brother Rorion in California. The two of them taught Gracie jiu-jitsu from their garage, sometimes for ten hours a day. Rorion began collecting footage of himself and his brothers fighting other martial artists who had risen to ‘The Gracie Challenge’. These matches proved one thing: The Gracies could fight. They combined real toughness with a clever – and, at the time, revolutionary – use of grappling to destroy one martial artist after another. Rorion, the entrepreneur of the family, sensed an opportunity and developed the Ultimate Fighting Championship in partnership with a number of investors. It was to be a ‘no holds barred’ night of combat to determine the strongest fighting style in the world. 

Although other brothers (such as the muscular and battle-proven Rickson) could have been chosen to carry the Gracie name into the tournament, Rorion chose Royce, figuring that his brother’s slight frame and unimposing build would do more for promoting the benefits of using Gracie jiu-jitsu to defeat larger opponents.  

He did not disappoint. Royce defeated three tough fighters from a number of disciplines who came with every intention of stopping the Gracie train in its tracks. He forced all of his opponents in the first UFC to give up, showing the world of martial arts the meaning of a ‘tap out’. He came back four months later and submitted four opponents in one night to become the UFC 2 champion. In UFC 3, after beating Kimo Leopoldo, Royce retired suffering from exhaustion and injury. The poker-faced Gracie returned at UFC 4 and sent three opponents packing in the same night to become the UFC tournament champion for a third time. His last opponent that night was the fearsome Dan Severn, a gigantic wrestler, who Royce triangle choked into submission after 15 grueling minutes.  

The technicalities of what Royce did at those tournaments – while impressive – fall by the wayside to the revolution that he had become a figurehead for. Royce categorically proved that a fighter could no longer compete against other fighters without having a working knowledge of grappling and submissions, and he heralded a return to the basic elements of martial arts – namely the ability and willingness to actually fight. “Grappling arts were not respected at all,” he says. “They were not considered to be martial arts. If you opened up a magazine over 15 years ago, there was no judo, no wrestling, no grappling, no jiu-jitsu – nothing!” Royce changed all that. 

As the UFC moved towards attaining legitimacy as a sport, adding rules and regulations along the way, Rorion and his family felt that it was moving away from its roots as no holds barred competition and distanced themselves from it. No sooner had they created a revolution than it had passed them by and spawned a revolution of its own – the modern-day sport of MMA. 

Royce continued to fight away from the UFC, drawing on the legacy of the Gracie name and headlining a number of events in Japan. He fought and submitted popular sumo wrestler Akebono, who outweighed him by over 100kg, in K-1’s 2004 New Year’s Eve spectacular. He fought Kazushi Sakuraba in 2000 in the longest official MMA bout on record at 90 minutes.  

Returning to the UFC to headline UFC 60, Royce faced Matt Hughes (the dominant welterweight champion) in a non-title fight. Royce was soundly beaten by the strength, conditioning and modern skill-set of Hughes, but his legacy remains untarnished. “There wouldn’t be a legacy. The UFC wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for my father’s efforts to prove that Gracie jiu-jitsu is the most effective martial art in the world.” Royce may credit his father, but it was he who helped kickstart the movement outside of Brazil. 

His passion for the martial art of his family remains the driving force in his life. “Everything that I am is jiu-jitsu, and I’ll take care of my family’s name with sweat, affection and love.” Royce is not just an icon; he is the icon. 

CAREER SNAPSHOT

1993

Wins the inaugural UFC, held in front of 2,800 people in Denver, Colorado. 

1994

Wins 16-man tournament at UFC 2. 

1995

Fights Ken Shamrock to a 36-minute draw in a superfight at UFC 5.

2000

Fights Kazushi Sakuraba in the longest MMA match in modern history (90 minutes). 

2004

Beats popular sumo wrestler Akebono at K-1 in Japan. 

2007

Rematches and beats Kazushi Sakuraba via decision at K-1 USA.