- If I remember right (and I could be misremembering) that fight ended before the grappler wanted it to, with him at a loss. Gracie never fought him.
It was Ken Shamrock in UFC 1. Royce fought him and beat him via RNC.
2. A fight doesn't need to be officially fixed in order for it to be fixed. Let's say I want to challenge someone to a Taekwondo match. That someone is a boxing expert, but has never done Taekwondo before. I've been training for several years, several hours a day, 5 days a week. The referees would score the match fairly. It isn't fixed. But the fact that boxer has never kicked before, nor has he competed in this ruleset before, is going to make a huge difference. This will be the second thing I come back to.
Please explain how UFC's rules benefitted BJJ on the level that TKD competition rules benefit a TKD practitioner.
3. If they knew how to use his gi against him, then yes. But they didn't. This goes back to the point in #3, which I'll expand on in a minute. It was a "liability" in the sense that against another BJJ guy or a Judo guy it would be a liability. But it wasn't against boxers and the like.
A gi would be a liability against a wrestler though, since wrestlers tend to grip and grab. Someone wearing a jacket and pants is easier to hold on to than someone who is shirtless.
: there is no problem with advertising your art. But there needs to be an understanding of the difference between advertising and reality. I've watched a lot of BJJ videos, including the advertisements that the Gracies put out. They make a lot of grand claims in their videos. For example, they claim that BJJ is the only martial art where you try to control your opponent, instead of just trading punches until one of you is KO'd. Well...
- There are many other grappling arts, which also seek to control your opponent
- There are very few striking arts that act the way he says they do. Most striking arts are how to hit your opponent while not getting hit yourself. How many boxers, kickboxers, or TKD fighters go in ready to trade blows? Muay Thai guys cover up and block/check what they can. Maybe Kyokushin? There are some fighters that like to trade blows, but most prefer to dodge/block and then counter, instead of just trading.
Now, that's great for an advertisement. But when other martial artists hear this, the first thought is, "really? So is he lying, or does he just not know what he's talking about."
That's not to say BJJ is bad. BJJ is, in my opinion, equal to many arts at the top of the game. I do believe it is rivalled in groundfighting only by wrestling, and even then I'd say BJJ might have the edge (where wrestling is better in takedowns). But that's only one aspect of fighting. Even though their tagline is that all fights go to the ground...that isn't true. There are plenty of fights that end in a KO, or end before any serious blows are thrown. I've been in fights where after I throw the other person down (and remain standing) they've given up. I was in plenty of fights in middle school, and none of them ever went to the ground. BJJ is great if the fight goes to the ground, or if you want that to be your strategy. But it's not the godsend of martial arts that the Gracies claim it is.
I have no issue stating that Rorion Gracie (where most of that comes from) is a blow hard, and maybe even a con man who is mainly out for personal interest even to the expense of his other family members. I even take some personal delight in the fact that Bjj as a MA has grown beyond his personal desires to control every aspect of it.
However, business 101 says that if you have a great product, you advertise it to the masses, and that's what the Gracies did. If martial artists don't like what they're saying, then they could have accepted their "challenge" and disprove what they were saying. Since they never did that, and just sat in their corners and pouted while the Gracies put their butts on the line to prove their art in a public fashion they deserve all of their rewards.
As for their claim that the majority of fights go to the ground, I don't think that's ever been scientifically proven. However, it stands to reason that a lot of fights do end up on the ground, a lot of women are assaulted on their back, and if you're dealing with someone larger and stronger than yourself, you have a good chance of getting forced on the ground. I happen to watch a lot of those World Star HipHop street fights, and a LOT of those fights end up with people scrambling on the ground.
Now the question is this; When you're on your back and under the weight of someone else, how much control do you want to have? Do you want to have zero control, which puts you completely at their mercy, or do you want control to the point where you actually have an advantage? Saying "I won't get taken down" really isn't a good answer.
Regarding a fight being "fixed" and the skill level of the opponent.
As others mentioned, Gracie was the only one in UFC1 that really had a lot of experience fighting other martial arts.
Yeah that false. Art Jimmerson, the boxer in UFC 1 had over 30 professional boxing matches before he fought in the UFC. Gerard Gordeau fought in over 30 professional kickboxing and Karate tournaments. Ken Shamrock was one of the founders of Shootfighting in Japan, and fought a variety of fighters before the UFC.
The only professional fighting experience Royce had before the first UFC was fighting his brothers, and participating in the Gracie challenge matches in their dojo.
Similarly, if I were to train kicks against punchers and grapplers, and then I were to fight against punchers and grapplers who have no experience doing anything but their art, I should have a big advantage in an MMA situation. If they don't know how to deal with my kicks, I should be able to use them to great effectiveness. So to claim that his gi was a liability...to whom was it a liability?
If they don't know how to deal with aspect of fighting, that is a flaw in their training method and their martial art. I'm old enough to remember what karate and kung fu people used to say about grapplers (I was one of those people btw). They would say if a wrestler gets too close, they'll kick or punch them in the head and knock them out. It was complete BS of course, but it was what we believed because it made sense.
Part of the reason the first UFC changed the world of martial arts is that it eliminated a lot of the BS in the world of martial arts. As much as I'm not a fan of Rorian Gracie's bravado, I'll take his superiority claims over the garbage that was coming out of the martial arts world leading up to that night in 1993.
