UFC Unleashed yesterday - Royce Gracie (Gracie vs Hughes coming soon)

[Dallara]

A couple comments:
- UFC 1 had ten minute rounds. I think the Rozier/Frasier fight might have lasted until round 2. None of the others did.
- Royce was probably the second best brother at the time of UFC 1. Rickson was clearly the best. Rorian and Relson were a little too old. Royler was probably better pound for pound than Royce, but much smaller so not as good to fight an open weight tourney. Rolker was, frankly, not that good. I think they planned to keep Rickson in the background in case someone beat Royce. Then they could have Rickson come in and beat that guy. As it turned out, no one beat Royce until Sakaraba ran through Royler, Renzo and Royce years later. By that time Rickson had pretty much retired from fighting.
- Regarding the Gracies picking fighters for the early UFCs, I think the Gracies really thought they could beat anyone and would have fought anybody. They were smart enough to know who would be tough fights (big wrestlers or big judo guys), but it wasn't until modern cross-trained fighters got skilled that there was really anyone who could beat them. A well rounded fighter like Fedor or Sakaraba or Vanderlai Silva just didn't exist until after the first couple UFCs (because nobody besides the Gracies were training that way).

Edited to add - as much as I like Royce, I don't think his chances are great against Hughes. Although Hughes has shown a weakness against good submission guys (Charuto almost subbed him, Hallman tapped him twice, Newton did sub him but lost), I think he'll be more careful against Royce and Royce's subs aren't as slick as those other guys.

[Performify]

Yeah rounds were timed, but I'm pretty sure the fights were unlimited time - meaning the ten minute rounds would keep going as long as it took for someone to get KO'd / surrender. That's what I meant there.

I don't really know that much about which of the Gracies was regarded as the best at the time, but I'm very sure that Royce was chosen primarily because he was the smallest. As you say, they were very confident that any of them could take down just about anyone at the time, and so they chose their smallest (not necessarily weakest, just smallest) fighter to make that much more of an impact. The "holding back Rickson" makes sense though.

[Rotterdaum]

I've seen a lot of Royce Gracie fights and the whole fight vs Sakuraba (90 minutes) twice. That fight was in 1999 or 2000, right? Sakuraba then was a well-rounded top MMA fighter, and the Royce did very decently against him. Sakuraba is also known to be the most capable fighter against Gracies specifically. Royce's gi got abused pretty horribly in that fight and he took a lot of damage because of it. Also he must have had like 100 free punches at Sakuraba's head and had he been only a slightly better striker, or maybe even just approached taking his punches more carefully, Sakuraba could have been knocked out easily at several points in the first 30 minutes. I may be wrong on this... but I think based on this fight, Royce is a good match for today's top MMA fighters and he's probably learned since then. He's more well rounded now than in UFC 1 and 2 days ... he's got a Karate black belt now and has done boxing training.

The fight against Hughes will definitely be a tough one but I think Royce is a fair match. Will be interesting to watch.

[gusmahler]

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I may be wrong on this... but I think based on this fight, Royce is a good match for today's top MMA fighters

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Maybe. But that fight was six years ago, when Royce was the same age as Hughes is now. Most fighters don't peak when they are 39.

[TriangleChoke]

Helio Gracie was taking out people way into his golden years my friend..