Issue 039

July 2008

Whatever your view on the development of mixed martial arts as a sport, one fact remains beyond doubt: if it had not been for the original wave of interest generated in the early 1990s by Rorion Gracie’s brainchild, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, MMA would be nowhere near as popular or widespread as it is today.

In the minds of any fan or practitioner over the age of 30, the Gracie family is synonymous with what was then known as ‘no holds barred’ fighting, a term that achieved notoriety through the infamously blood-thirsty marketing campaigns of the early UFC shows.

But the moment you start talking to Rorion Gracie, it is quite clear that you are not talking to a street thug with a thirst for bloody conflict (as the early VHS box sets may have suggested).  In fact, the truth is quite the opposite.  

Lured to the United States by the chance to attend Jimi Hendrix concerts and numerous other attractions of the time, Rorion first arrived in the country in 1969. Due to the theft of his return airline ticket, a scheduled three-month break stretched to a whole year, in which Gracie received what he describes as a good impression of the USA. From a wealthy upper-middle class family in his native land, he worked several jobs in an attempt to make ends meet and struggled financially in the process.

Once settled in the country and having found work as an extra on television shows such as Starsky and Hutch, Gracie was able to set his mind to the propagation of his family’s style of jiu-jitsu. “I had noticed that there were all kinds of martial arts, but nothing similar to the kind of style that we had been teaching in Brazil.”  

Gracie set up a training area in his garage and began teaching colleagues and acquaintances his art, offering his students free lessons as an incentive to bring their friends to the class. As martial arts folklore will confirm, it was not long before local practitioners began hearing about the lanky Brazilian with a chokehold for every occasion, and challenge matches in his garage dojo became increasingly frequent.

“My pupils would bring their former instructors to come and challenge me in my garage,” Rorion said, without displaying a hint of disdain for what were on occasion quite clueless challengers. “Dozens of times, I had the opportunity to spar against those guys and, not because of me, but because jiu-jitsu is a lot more efficient, I invariably succeeded against every other style of martial arts I had the chance to fight against.” 

His merciful destruction of each challenge began to sow a seed in Rorion’s businesslike mind, and he began to notice that perhaps putting on fights in his garage was not the correct way to go, as swarms of onlookers would gather time and time again.

After 15 years of taking part in these matches, Rorion came up with the concept of the UFC. After securing some investors with deep pockets, his concept became a creation and the now ubiquitously marketed Ultimate Fighting Championship was born.

In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of his family’s techniques in the original UFC tournament, Rorion took the decision not to enter the fearsome family champion, Rickson Gracie, into the tournament, but instead chose Royce, correctly predicting that his younger brother would give a fine demonstration of technique and ability over brute strength. 

Despite selecting his physically less intimidating sibling, Rorion nevertheless remained confident that the youngster would claim victory in the tournament. “I knew Royce was planning to get into a clinch and submit the opponent, like I have done hundreds of times in my garage - it’s the same thing that the whole Gracie family has been doing for 65 years prior to that.”

However, in somewhat of a bittersweet ending to the tale of Gracie’s involvement in mixed martial arts, the 56-year old jiu-jitsu black belt is glad to have severed ties with the UFC and has no love for the modern sport, electing not even to watch it on television. 

Rorion explained in detail that Gracie jiu-jitsu is a method of self-defence, and his family’s style was not developed as a martial art for use in competition. In his view, MMA has veered away from the test of technique that he envisioned. He feels better suited to continuing his quest of spreading interest in his family’s art.

For Gracie, the implementation of restrictive rules, a round system and the mandatory use of gloves has changed the fight beyond all recognition, and he appears frustrated by claims that the modern sport is safer and more acceptable than the ‘brutal’ vale tudo wars of yesteryear. “Now you have the guy who is a professional athlete, fit, can go in there and be explosive for five minutes. If he gets tired after five minutes, it’s no problem because the fight is over. That’s not the way it should be, you should be able to survive, let the big guy get tired and then win the match.”  

It therefore comes as no surprise that the students at his academy in Torrence, California, come from all walks of life, including numerous professionals who attend his classes for grappling instruction. “My students are not the cauliflower eared individuals,” Rorion said, before pointing out that he feels far better placed to pass on his knowledge to physically less capable individuals than his MMA mixed martial arts counterparts. “They can’t help a little guy. I am all about helping the little guy.”  

Regardless of any disappointment caused by the metamorphosis of his original concept for the UFC, Rorion still looks back with a deep sense of pride on what could arguably be described as one of the most influential martial arts careers in modern history. “Everybody who competes in no holds barred events has to know some form, or some variation of Gracie jiu-jitsu, and that is very satisfying to me to accomplish a dream that has affected and positively influenced so many people all over the world.”