Paredão Royce Gracie

What was worth the 70 year of history of the family, built in Brazil based on blood, sweat and much training, if Royce had taken a knockout of the French champion from Savater, Gerard Gordeau, in the final of UFC 1, in 1993? But, as everyone knows, this wasn’t what happened. Combining the technique of his family with much competence and claw, the Gracie rank eleven opponents in 4 editions of the UFC, consecrating worldwide the name of his family and starting the biggest revolution in the history of the Martial Arts, which eventually culminated in the world popularization of Jiu-Jitsu and the transformation of Vale-Tudo in MMA, now the fastest growing sport in the world. Special guest of the Art of War, held in China, last month, Royce has accepted the invitation to the Paredão of the TATAME. In the chat, which you see next, the Gracie recalled the difficulty for his family to establish the sport in the U.S., spoke of the best moments of his career, praised Lyoto and Anderson and guaranteed that, depending on the proposal, would accepted to return to the rings.

As the main character of the beginning of the popularization of the Vale-Tudo, how do you see the fact that today the MMA is a sport practiced around the world?

That was the intention of my family. The idea always been to spread throughout the world, and now already spread, not only the MMA, as the Jiu-Jitsu as well. And reaching the Jiu-Jitsu, will reach the Vale-Tudo, because people will want to prove, want to see what it is.

How do you compare the Vale-Tudo of that time with the current MMA?

Previously it was a fight style against another, it didn’t have rule, weight, time, it had no glove, it was with the clean hand, it could d everything, just not finger in the eye and biting. Until kicks in the lower parts we could give. Today the idea is another, it has no more confrontation of styles, even because everybody does everything. A perfect example I usually give is the one of the two fights of Kevin Randleman (Wrestler) and Cro Cop (kickboxer), you see a guy that was the best of K-1 taking a knockout of a Wrestler and, at the rematch you see Cro Cop giving a bottleneck in Randleman. That is, at first, the Wrestler knocked out the kickboxer and at second, the kickboxer strangled the Wrestler. When did we thought that this would happen? This is the biggest example that today everyone is practicing everything.