Interview w/ MMA Legend Royce Gracie (part 2)
Reported By: Boxing Insider - 09.01.2003 11:35 AM
Part II- Boxing Insider Talks With MMA Legend, Royce Gracie
by Chris Colderley ©
BoxingInsider.com: I know you do some advertising in martial arts enterprises, etc, but is most of your popularity and notoriety through word-of-mouth?
Royce Gracie: Yes. I think that’s, from the beginning, what impressed everybody. Like today everyone gets so impressed about the Ultimate Fighting Championship or even Pride because they are all huge. You get a guy who is 300 pounds to beat up everybody. AHH, it’s not impressive. He’s supposed to beat everybody. He’s 300 pounds!
Now you get a guy who is 180 pounds to beat up a 250-260 pound guy, it’s impressive. It’s like, “WOW!” It’s an average sized man competing with much bigger guys. That is technique.
BoxingInsider.com: Having said that, Royce, how do you balance your concerns about rules and time limits with the demands of marketing and television?
Photo: Zuffa LLC/UFC.tv
Royce Gracie: If they approach me: “Royce, I have a fight for you. These are the rules.”
If I don’t like it, I am not going to fight. I am NOT going to fight.
BoxingInsider.com: So, under no circumstances would you fight in the UFC?
Royce Gracie: AH! I can never say, “Never.” I’m always negotiating. I’m willing to give in a little bit, if they’re willing to give in a little bit. We are, actually, always talking. We are always trying.
[They say,] “Hey, what about instead of a five-minute round, we put in a ten minute round?”
I go, “OK. I want a half-an-hour round, but if you give me fifteen, well . . . I don’t know?”
So, we’re always talking. We’re always negotiating.
BoxingInsider.com: Are you currently talking to them about an upcoming show?
Royce Gracie: Yes.
BoxingInsider.com: Is there any chance that you’ll be on the card in November for the tenth anniversary show?
Royce Gracie: I don’t know yet. It’s been . . . [voice fades]
BoxingInsider.com: . . . talked about?
Royce Gracie: Yeah, [laughing]. Yeah [laughing continues]. But, I prefer not to talk anymore on it. Let’s leave it that way. It’s just talking.
Nothing has been confirmed yet. If you look at my schedule on the internet and the stuff is cancelled, there’s something coming. [Currently, Royce Gracie has eight U.S. seminars scheduled in November 2003.] Nothing has been cancelled yet. We are just talking.
Dana White just put a phone call into me. I got to call him back.
BoxingInsider.com: That’s a good deal. When you get off the phone with me, you can call him! [Laughing]
Royce, I wanted to ask you a little bit about the teams that have started to evolve. Gracie Jiu-Jitsu was sort of the first system. Now a lot have emerged, like the Lion’s Den (shortly after you left MMA), Miletich Fighting Systems, the Brazilian Top Team, and the American Top Team. Why is it Gracie Jiu-Jitsu hasn’t been as successful as these other teams currently are in producing champions?
Royce Gracie: WOAH! WOAH! WOAH!
BoxingInsider.com: At least in mixed martial arts.
Royce Gracie: Hold on for a second here. Just two days ago, on Sunday, there was a Pride. You know the guy Nogueira?
BoxingInsider.com: Yes.
Royce Gracie: He’s Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu!
BoxingInsider.com: I know that.
Royce Gracie: He learned from my family. The name of his team is not Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, but what he does is Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. The style of martial arts that he does is Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.
Murilo Bustamante had an awesome fight.
BoxingInsider.com: Yes. Wonderful.
Royce Gracie: He was terrific. Nobody ever got in on Rampage the way he got in. Nobody ever took Rampage down. Murilo took him down a couple of times. Rampage normally picks up everybody and slams them on their head. He picked up [Igor] Vovchanchyn. He picked up [Kazushi] Sakuraba. He picked up everybody and dropped them on their head. He couldn’t do that to the Brazilian guy Murilo.
BoxingInsider.com: Why is there so much confusion then: What I call Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, you call Gracie Jiu-Jitsu?
Royce Gracie: No. It’s a team. Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is the way we teach. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is the art. Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is not the art. The art is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The style is changing, therefore, that’s what the difference is, my family from the others, the way we teach: Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.
For Murilo - total grappler, total Gracie Jiu-Jitsu guy – who grew up . . . I remember him from a kid . . . we grew up together going to my cousin’s school. Nogueira is another one. [He] grew up on Jiu-Jitsu all his life. They just learned boxing and wrestling, but they’re total Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu guys.
Now about the team, I understand, but those guys represent what I represent.
BoxingInsider.com: They represent the same style, sure.
Royce Gracie: Yeah, the same style.
BoxingInsider.com: But, in terms of the team aspect?
Royce Gracie: The style has been very successful.
BoxingInsider.com: Based on what you just said, you don’t think mixed martial arts [competition] is very important?
Royce Gracie: It is. Therefore, I do it. I can sellout the crowd of 91,500 people in the stadium.
BoxingInsider.com: Royce, give me your assessment of the current crop of fighters? Who do you think are the best active fighters?
Royce Gracie: Nogueira. Vanderlei [Silva] is up there. Mirko [Filipovic] Cro Cop. There’s pretty much the top K-1 guy right there.
BoxingInsider.com: I talked to Pat Miletich recently. I guess he was misquoted that he laid out a challenge to you, but I asked about fighting with you. He said I would love to fight Royce Gracie. How do you feel about that?
Royce Gracie: I love it! I love it!
BoxingInsider.com: What about Pat Miletich?
Royce Gracie: What about him?
BoxingInsider.com: Yes. What do you think about him as a fighter?
Royce Gracie: Good fighter! I love it that people still want to fight me. They keep me up there. The day that they say, “Nah, I don’t want to fight Royce,” then I’ll be concerned. If they say, “I want to fight him,” it’s because they’re still thinking I’m number one. [Laughs].
BoxingInsider.com: I understand. They’re doing half the work for you. I know what you mean.
Royce Gracie: Yup! If they say, “I don’t want to fight him anymore,” then I get concerned. Then, I’ll have to start advertising. Then I have to stop [the] complacency.
If they want to fight me – hey! They know what I can do. They know how good I am. For them, it would be a challenge. For me, it would be a challenge too. But, as far as them, I love it when they come out and say, “I’d love to fight Royce Gracie.” It puts you up there.
BoxingInsider.com: It keeps you on the top of the list.
Royce Gracie: That’s my thought.
BoxingInsider.com: Some of the fighters you competed with are still active. I am going to give you a name, just give me your thoughts. Ken Shamrock.
Royce Gracie: Oh, he’s done [laughing]. Sorry, after that beating by Don Frye and Tito Ortiz, I don’t think he’s coming back. He’s done.
BoxingInsider.com: Kimo.
Royce Gracie: Kimo used to be a wild guy – unpredictable. That made him very tough. You didn’t know where he was going to go [or] what side of the ring he was going to jump to. Once he started learning technique, I think he dropped a little bit. He tried to do too much. That wasn’t him. When he was wild, he was much harder.
BoxingInsider.com: Alright. Tank Abbott.
Royce Gracie: Man! Tank Abbott [is] one of the biggest goldfish.
BoxingInsider.com: Goldfish?
Royce Gracie: There’s goldfish and then there’s sharks in the tank [laughing].
BoxingInsider.com: Alright. What about the last fight between Kimo and Tank Abbott? What did you think? You fought Kimo and he has been training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu extensively.
Royce Gracie: Tank Abbott is a brawler. He’s not a martial artist. He’s a tough guy. He’s a guy that will walk into a bar and shut the place down, but he’s not a martial artist. Look at his record. Who hasn’t beaten him? [There are] a few guys who haven’t, but most guys – small, big, it doesn’t matter – went out and took him.
BoxingInsider.com: Royce, could you give me your thoughts on the upcoming Tito Ortiz – Randy Couture match?
Royce Gracie: I didn’t even know that was happening. Tito’s coming back?
BoxingInsider.com: Tito signed. He’s fighting Randy Couture at the upcoming UFC 44 in September.
Royce Gracie: Oh, man! That’s going to be a good fight. I like both of them . . . HOOOOO! [pause]. Randy Couture has a great style. . . HOOOOO! [pause]. I’ll have to go with Tito.
BoxingInsider.com: Did you see Couture’s last fight with Liddell?
Royce Gracie: No, I didn’t have a chance to see that one.
BoxingInsider.com: Watch that one first.
Royce Gracie: If I have a chance, but I like both of them. They’re both great fighters.
BoxingInsider.com: You mentioned the Pride show earlier. What did you think of the Ricco Rodriguez - Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira fight - two very established Jiu-Jitsu fighters with some other skills?
Royce Gracie: I think Nogueira fought a bad fight, but definitely he deserved to win. No wonder he shut out [Rodriguez] three to zero. I think he can fight, but he had a bad day. He can finish Ricco.
BoxingInsider.com: Not many people agreed with the outcome.
Royce Gracie: I think he deserved to win. All Ricco did was lay on top of him, when he was on the ground, and hold him down. He didn’t really outbox him standing-up. Nogueira out-boxed him, out-kicked him. On the ground Nogueira attacked him all night. Ricco, all that he did was score on the takedown. Yeah, he took him down [and] just held him down! Nogueira took him down once. Ricco took him down, what: Four or five times?
Ricco took him down five times, but then Nogueira almost caught him three or four times [in a submission]. In the stand-up, Nogueira stepped up all the time. Ricco was just backing up. Ricco was almost saying he didn’t have anything to finish Nogueira. He didn’t have a punch. He didn’t get a finishing hold. All he did was the takedown and holding him.
Oh man, if I weighed three-hundred pounds, I’d take anybody down too [laughing].
Stay tuned for part 3 of this exciting interview with MMA Legent Royce Gracie on BoxingInsider.com
Chris Colderley is a boxinginsider.com contributor and can be reached at colderley@hotmail.com
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