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

[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.

[KDawg]

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gus,

I'm quite interested in learning about UFC/Pride fighting, from a spectator's point of view, but I'm having a hard time finding any sort of intelligent discussion on the subject. Sherdog seems to have a bunch of fanbois who love to fight over which organization is better; is there a better board out there?

yasher

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death valley driver's MMA section is actually pretty decent. Most of it though is from a wrestling fan's perspective, so some of what you may be looking for will be from a non pure MMA perspective. Wrestling and MMA has been a cross over for many years that some MMA purists hate with a passion

[ozyman]

Wow, this thread is awesome. Where can I find more info on the pre-UFC days of the Gracies, specifically the $100K challenges?

[TriangleChoke]

He never got mauled in any fight...and in any case, if you can take some damage and then out smart the other guy and submit him, wouldnt that be winning??? if there were no tapouts he would just break the dudes arm, and im pretty sure there wouldnt be much to do after that...oh and no, hes not going to be wearing his Gi...

[TriangleChoke]

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

[TriangleChoke]

The reason they used Royce was because he was smaller and the gracies wanted to show that size didnt matter once you were on the ground.....

[Runkmud]

For those of you interested in purchasing the fights, I purchased UFC 1-53 and almost all the Pride fighting videos for less than $250 total, on the most popular online auction site. (not sure if I'm allowed to mention it)

[[censored]]

runknmud,

it's ok to write 'ebay'