For some reason, these stories always leave out that UFC 1 was organized by a Gracie with pretty much the goal of showcasing Gracie JJ. UFC 2 (I think? or was it 1 already?) even had a half-time 'ceremony' where Rickson gave Helio a 'lifetime award' of some sort - while booed by the audience; and rightfully - that was clear self-promotion and put a shadow over the objectiveness of the whole event. In that light, the line-up for the first couple of UFC's is rather suspect. Kevin Rosier? Who came back from retirement especially for it? All of them except Ken Shamrock being strikers? Objectively speaking, inviting some Pancrase people (again, besides Ken Shamrock) would have made more sense. Of course it was framed as 'style vs style', but still...
Of course Gracie JJ is very effective, but the truth is that early-days UFC was a marketing scheme for the Gracies to export their JJ. It took very little time for what was promoted as 'the perfected style, honed over 60 years' to become just one aspect of a well-rounded fighter's skills. Look at the training DVD's Carlos and Rickson made in the mid-1990's - they were laughable just 5 years later.
Not sure I'm working towards one overarching point here; maybe it's that the Gracie's real legacy is just as much in marketing as it is fighting.
> For some reason, these stories always leave out that UFC 1 was organized by a Gracie with pretty much the goal of showcasing Gracie JJ
Second paragraph:
In 1993, Rórion Gracie founded the Ultimate Fighting Championship as a way to spread Gracie jiu-jitsu to North America, inspiring the rise of mixed martial arts.
You're saying this in a time when every good mma athlete has a very respectable BJJ game. Before that, people stuck to their art. It was either BJJ guys winning, or big wrestlers. Then people started to get more well-rounded. But I remember watching fights in Brazil where there was almost ten different styles represented, including judo and wrestling. BJJ would win. When the others started learning BJJ it changed a lot, and the BJJ people had to suck it up and begin to strike/stand-up.
Actually, I still think it is the achilles heel of brazilian MMA fighters. There's still this 'BJJ' is king attitude here, which leaves a hole in many athletes' wrestling game. Look at the USA: there are now a ton of great bjj black-belts teaching there. How many top-level wrestlers teach in Brazil? Two? Three? Only top MMA guys in Brazil train wrestling specifically, whereas in the US the wrestling kids can learn very good BJJ and striking.
'BJJ', yes (although e.g. Pancrase which started around the time of UFC1 had skilled grapplers - if there had been a few more (besides Ken) Pancrase fighters 'seeded' in the early tournaments, history would've looked different), but not 'Gracie JJ'. There are still very good grapplers with the last name Gracie of course, but the whole 'worship us for we brought the light' (e.g. the 'Rickson is 400-0' spiel, 'we perfected JJ for 60 years' (yeah and then it took 2 years to break it, so what?) ) is undeserved. Even in UFC5 Royce had a hard time with Ken, Royce was broken after 36 mins but Ken came out smiling.
The thing with Americans is (saying this as a European, and as as someone who's generally abhorred by the low kickboxing skills in the US) that they're so pragmatic, and that that is much more to credit for the amazing development of MMA than the basics the Gracies brought in the 1990's (although it cannot be assigned to one person of course, so it's much more difficult to build a Hero story around it). Look at how much the techniques, the training, the professionalism, everything has improved since the early 2000's, when people like Tank Abbott or Kimo actually were top level fighters. As soon as MMA took off in the US, it was all about 'what wins the fights'. Whereas in Japan, and here in Europe as well, things were (are?) much more about 'bushido' and 'following what we've alway done' and all that nonsense which keeps people from improving. As late as 2007 or 2009, there were many 'MMA fights' (which were usually just sideshows during kickboxing events...) where any blue belt BJJ player could step into the ring and win pretty much any fight in <30 seconds, because nobody had a clue about takedown defenses. The same way I submitted a judo black belt once in < 30s with a straight ankle lock because judo players don't generally even know about leg locks. (Of course after I got him once, he didn't fall for the same setup any more, and went on to destroy me in 50 different ways - not saying I'm such a great fighter here).
Again not sure where I'm going with this and my comment reads like a Sherdog post of the type that made me leave that site years ago, so I'll just stop :)
Even here in Brazil the Gracies are respected, but their outrageous claims are not taken seriously anymore. Every BJJ practioner laughs at Rickson's 400 win crap, and if you go on local forums, nobody claims BJJ is more than one aspect of MMA, as important as the others. Hell, my BJJ lineage is from Fadda, who never learned if form a Gracie.
Of course Gracie JJ is very effective, but the truth is that early-days UFC was a marketing scheme for the Gracies to export their JJ. It took very little time for what was promoted as 'the perfected style, honed over 60 years' to become just one aspect of a well-rounded fighter's skills. Look at the training DVD's Carlos and Rickson made in the mid-1990's - they were laughable just 5 years later.
Not sure I'm working towards one overarching point here; maybe it's that the Gracie's real legacy is just as much in marketing as it is fighting.