royce gracie

Royce Gracie (born December 12, 1966) is a professional Mixed Martial Arts fighter who revolutionized the martial arts world in the early 1990s with a string of quick victories over larger opponents in the UFC. Royce had 11 wins by submission on his way to capturing three tournament titles between November 12, 1993 and December 16, 1994. His results changed attitudes towards traditional martial arts and fueled a movement of fighters towards the grappling arts. Today, a good number of top competitors in the sport have learned at least some of the Gracie family's brand of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Biography

Childhood

Royce is a son of Helio Gracie, originator of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and spent his childhood in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. As a toddler, Royce learned Jiu-Jitsu from his father and his older brothers Rorion, Relson, and Rickson Gracie. Royce began competing at the age of 8. Royce attained the level of blue belt at the age of 16, and a year later was invited by his brother Rorion to help teach Jiu-Jitsu from his garage in America. Despite not knowing English, Royce accepted the offer and moved to California.

The Gracie Challenge

Royce received his black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at the age of 18 and soon began fighting in defense of the famous "Gracie Challenge". This publicity stunt was an open challenge to all martial artists to see if they could defeat a Gracie in a no-rules fight. There were takers of the challenge who instantly became students after they were easily defeated. Royce had never fought professionally, but that would change on November 12, 1993.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship

Brainchild of Rorion Gracie and Art Davie, the Ultimate Fighting Championship was an eight man, single-elimination tournament with very few rules that would award $50,000 to the winner. The basic premise was to find out how different styles of martial arts would fare against each other. Art Davie placed ads in martial arts magazines and sent letters to anyone in any martial arts directory he could find to recruit competitors for the event. Among the takers were kickboxer Patrick Smith, #1 ranked shootfighter Ken Shamrock, and Savate world champion Gerard Gordeau. While Art Davie felt that Royce's older brother Rickson, who was stronger and more skilled than Royce, was the obvious choice as the Jiu-Jitsu representative, Rorion chose Royce to represent the family style. At 175 pounds, Royce ended up being the perfect fighter to demonstrate the claims that Jiu-Jitsu techniques could be employed to overcome a larger opponent. In his first match, Royce quickly defeated his opponent, boxer Art Jimmerson, once a top ten cruiserweight contender for the WBC. He simply tackled him to the ground, obtained a dominant "mounted" position on top, and threw a few slaps and a headbutt. Jimmerson quickly conceded defeat, and seemed completely clueless about how to escape the position. In the semi-finals, Royce looked to be the underdog against 220-pound Ken Shamrock, who showed excellent grappling skill in his first-round submission win over Patrick Smith. Royce immediately rushed Shamrock, who sprawled effectively and got on top of Royce. Shamrock then grabbed Royce's ankle and sat back to attempt the same finishing hold he used to finish his first match, but Royce rolled on top of him and secured a rear choke that forced Shamrock to tap the mat in submission. In the finals, Royce was again outweighed by 40 pounds, but made quick work of Savate World Champion Gerard Gordeau, taking his opponent to the ground and securing a rear choke. With this victory, the face of martial arts would never be the same. The public began to understand that the "flashy" moves seen in movies were not the devastating techniques they were purported to be, especially when up against an opponent who knew how to take the fight to the ground and what to do when it got there. Over the next year, Royce Gracie would continue his domination, notching submission wins over such notable fighters as Patrick Smith, 250-pound European Judo Champion Remco Pardoel, and Kimo Leopoldo. His last and most impressive victory was a 15-minute match (there were no rounds at the time), during which he was continuosly pinned underneath 260-pound wrestler Dan Severn. When it appeared that victory would be impossible, Royce locked his legs in a triangle choke around Severn's neck and forced him to tap the mat in defeat. While this was his greatest victory, and earned Royce his third UFC championship title, the match extended beyond the pay-per-view time-slot and viewers, who missed the end of the fight, demanded their money back. Changes would have to be made, if the sport was to be profitable. Time limits were introduced into the sport in 1995 and Ken Shamrock would become the first fighter to survive Royce Gracie's submission attack and earn a draw. Frustrated by the new rules (such as time limits and the standing-up of fighters if the fight became boring), Rorion sold his share of the UFC and Royce would never again step into the octagon.

Challenge to PRIDE Fighting Championship

With each of his first 11 victories, the martial arts world became more and more educated about the reality of combat and began cross-training in Jiu-Jitsu and wrestling to become more well-rounded and effective styles. Pure Jiu-Jitsu would never again achieve such dominance in the sport, but Royce Gracie had forever changed the landscape of hand-to-hand combat. All of the top fighting styles began to incorporate Jiu-Jitsu in their training regimen. One fighter in particular, Kazushi Sakuraba, a wrestler with excellent submission and adequate but not great kickboxing skills, repeatedly demonstrated the weaknesses of pure Jiu-Jitsu, by effectively nullifying the takedowns and submission attacks, while dominating the stand-up fighting with punches and kicks. Royce Gracie returned to the sport of mixed martial arts in 2000 and entered the biggest fighting tournament yet, the 16-Man Pride Grand Prix. Throwing himself in the mix with dominant heavyweights Mark Coleman, Mark Kerr, and Igor Vovchanchin, along with top middleweight Kazushi Sakuraba, Royce Gracie again showed that fear is not an element of his personality. Royce advanced to the quarterfinals, before finding himself matched up with Sakuraba. The match was to be without a time-limit, and Gracie and Sakuraba battled for an incredible hour and a half. Finally, Sakuraba's leg kicks took their toll and Rorion Gracie threw the towel in before round 7 was to begin, due to Royce's inability to walk on a broken foot. This was Royce Gracie's first defeat*, and would demonstrate that the sport and fighters had indeed evolved in the past five years. Royce returned to Pride in 2003 and showed off new-found striking skills and his ever-dominant ground game against Judo gold-medalist Hidehiko Yoshida. The match went the distance and since there were no judges, it ended in a draw. However, consensus was that Royce's performance was dominant enough to avenge an earlier controversial limited-rules match against Yoshida, in which the referee stopped the match due to Yoshida and the referee's perception that Royce was choked unconscious. To this day, Royce claims that he was not unconscious and was just merely pinned underneath Yoshida. Ironically, Royce actually was choked unconscious once in a Jiu-Jitsu match against Wallid Ismael, and the referee didn't notice until Rorion and others ran onto the mat to stop the match. Royce most recent victory was against the former sumo wrestler Taro Akebono whom he defeated with an armbar just 133 seconds into their fight, although Akebono is a huge opponent, Royce looked well trained for this fight and used his far superior ground skills to win the match. Note: There actually is one other loss on Royce's record to Harold Howard in UFC 3. However, the towel was thrown in due to dehydration and low blood sugar before the match even began.

External links

Gracie, Royce Gracie, Royce

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