JRE MMA Show #156 with Royce Gracie

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Life is good in my world.

Yeah, life is good in your world. It's always good to see you, man, but it's, you know, I know you're you, and I know, you know, you're just Hoyce Gracie, you're who you are, but for most human beings, you are one of the most unusual people that's ever lived. The original ultimate fighter, the number one, the guy, the reason why this whole thing is so big. You're the fucking man.

It's because of my father. I'm a product of his work.

For sure, for sure. But for most people, our introduction to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was you in UFC 1.. You know, we didn't, you know, I grew up in martial arts, but we didn't know about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu until UFC 1 in 1993..

Yeah, it's a, that one, Rorion had a vision. So back then, we used to teach in the garage, private classes, one student at a time,

The world found out so quick. I've never seen a martial arts spread through the country like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu did in the 1990s.

A lot of people thought the Gracies are arrogant. They were trying to put down the other martial arts, but was not. It was like, put up or shut up.

Yeah.

Karate against Kung Fu. Everybody claims that their style is the best. There's only one way to find out, and we're willing to try to find out. We're not saying that we're the best. We're just like, hey, you say you're the best, I'm the best. There's only one way to find out.

Well, the thing is, you guys had already tried it in dojos. You'd already gone to gyms. You'd already had challenge matches. Gracie, in action videos were an eye-opening video for a lot of martial artists, because they saw all these karate guys who were the guys who thought they were these badass fighters, and they just got taken down and strangled, taken down and strangled, taken down and armbarred.

But again, that was in Brazil. A lot of that would happen in Brazil. When we came to America, it was a different level. It was, okay, this guy is the world champion in karate, the number one boxer, the number one kickboxer. Well, let's see if our stuff works against them. And they're bigger, too.

When you grew up with this, I mean, you started jiu-jitsu when you were very, very young. So when you grew up with this, when was the first time you saw one of those challenge matches?

It was Hickson fighting Zulu. Oh, wow. I was young. I couldn't get into the stadium. So I watched it through a crack on the door. It's, like, outside the stadium, because there was an age to be in there. I think I was, like, 16.. And I was, like, 15, I think, when he fought, or 14 when he fought. So Roeller got in because he did a demonstration, I guess, before. But I had to stay outside, and I was looking through the crack. I could barely see it. Wow. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Even before that, there's a black-and-white video of Rorion, Helson, Horlisch, and some of the students fighting against karate guys on the tile. And that's when I was there. I was present on that day. But I always heard stories of the family fighting. And, yeah, we got to fight this guy on the beach. And the guy show up at the school, and we had to fight. And I always grew up listening to them, the stories of my father fighting, my uncles, and my cousins. So I was, like, I want to be one of them. I want to do this.

So there was always rumors about why you were chosen to be the representative for the first UFC. What's the actual truth behind it? Like, why did they choose you?

Dude, it was going to be on national TV.

Your looks.

Imagine if they put an ugly brother with an ugly. They all could have done the same thing, my cousins. They all could have done the same thing. But, come on, by the looks.

Now, why was that so important to him?

To show the true art of Jiu-Jitsu. If a cousin gets in there and beat the guy up with an elbow across the opponent's face, eh, it would have been impressive. Oh, my God. It would shock everybody, but wouldn't show the technique. And my father in Rorion was concerned about showing the technique of Jiu-Jitsu, what we can do by dominating somebody bigger, stronger, without having to hurt them.

That's so amazing that you guys had so much confidence in Jiu-Jitsu that they wanted you to not hurt someone.

That's the conversation I remember having with my father. It was like, but, Dad, the guys, it's bare knuckle. They're going to hit me. He's like, don't worry. They will never hit you. They're not going to touch you. Don't worry. That's how much confidence he had. Wow. He's not going to, don't take me wrong. My mother's order was totally different. My mother was like, your father doesn't know what he's talking about. I want to see some blood. Send him to the hospital. Mom was a mean one. That's crazy. Dad was like, no, no, don't hurt your opponent. They're not going to touch you. Don't worry. They're not going to, nothing's going to happen. You're going to dominate. Mom was like, I want to see some blood. Send him to the hospital.

Your family, it's so unusual. Because I have always said that your family, your father, Carlos, everyone, the whole family, it's the most important family in the history of martial arts. There's no family in the history of martial arts that's had the same impact that the Gracies have had.

I think that Jiu-Jitsu landed with them for a purpose. They're from the north of Brazil, persistence people, and the vision that they had of having a lot of kids. Uncle Carlos had 21 kids, 11 boys, 10 girls. My father had nine kids, seven boys, two girls. So it could have been all girls. And Jiu-Jitsu wouldn't be what it is today.

It is kind of crazy because your father was so unusual. He had such an unusual mindset. And the fact that he had had those early matches, like the matches with Kimura, all those Santana, all those different early matches that a lot of people don't even know about, that you could see online.

It was a, they want to test themselves. So, Kimura, haven't lost, not just not lost, but nobody lost more than three minutes with him. And my father was like, okay, I want to try. Heavier, younger. Valdemar Santana, heavier, younger. They fought for like three hours and 40 minutes. One round straight.

Wow.

So it's, yeah, they just, they want to put it to the test. That was the main thing. They want to see what they can do. But my father always said it wasn't on. how can he beat the opponents. He always told me, don't walk in to win. Walk in not to lose. If you don't lose, the question is how are you going to beat him? He makes a mistake. But the mentality was always not to lose.

So always be defensively minded.

We're giving the weight advantage to the opponents.

I've, I've heard, uh, Helson described Jiu Jitsu in that way. He said, uh, Jiu Jitsu is, I do this, and then you do that, and then I do this, and then you do that forever.

Until somebody make a mistake.

Until somebody make a mistake.

They say, I couldn't make a mistake too. But if I don't make a mistake, if you don't make a mistake, we're going to play forever. You know how it is. Yes. We're going to play. Yeah. Until somebody gets tired or make a mistake or.

Yeah. Yeah. It was also, it was perfect for you to be in it, because in the first UFC you were, what did you weigh? about 176 pounds?

178..

178.. Crazy. And you were in there against gigantic guys. Like. what did Kimo weigh?

250..

250 roided to the gills.

No testing.

No testing. Carrying a wooden cross into the octagon. That was crazy.

He was a raw, he was probably one of the strongest guy I fought. He was huge. Kimo was raw strength. Yeah. Not the most technical, but he was pure strength. And I messed up on that one cause. I tried to match strength with him. He got me tired.

Hmm.

So I tried, I heard he was very strong and I tried to match strength with him.

Here's him walking in with the cross. I remember everybody's like, what the hell is going on here?

I was like, go ahead and carry that cross. It's heavy. It was solid wood, by the way. That was heavy.

I'm sure. Probably good warmup. And there's you. How old were you then?

That was the third UFC. I was 27..

Wow.

Look at his eyes, man. It's like, yep.

Yeah. I got just jacked full of juice, enormous Jesus tattoo on his stomach.

Bare knuckles. Sometimes I think what my father was thinking and holding on putting me raw. Cause. then I had a fight before.

That was your first fight. It was UFC one.

UFC. one was the first fight. Wow. I had to say, how many fights you had? I said 51.. Those tournament matches. Right. When I was a kid competing tournaments.

Yeah.

Professional fights? Never. On the street? Never.

Wow. That's crazy.

I got jumped on the street once when I was like 14 years old, cause I want to be a fighter like my brothers. Never had a fight. I heard all of them fighting. So I was like 14, 15 years old. I went to a very bad neighborhood. My bike, got my bike stolen, my nose broken. Got jumped like five guys. Daytime, took my bike. But I came home and I was like, okay, I had a fight.

I got my ass kicked.

So I can be one of them. I want to be one of my cousins, one of my brothers, man. I want to be part of them. The Gracie. Never had a fight. It's like, ah.

When you first fought, did you have striking training at all?

Yes. Very little. I had students showing me some stuff.

That's crazy.

More for me to know what's coming at me than for me to use. Right. So it's more for me to know how they move. Yeah. So it wasn't like I'm going to learn striking, to learn boxing, to fight against a boxer. It was more for me to know what's coming, how they're going to move, when they're getting ready to throw a kick, a punch, or for me to understand their movements.

Yeah. Hickson's talked about that the same way. He said he didn't learn kickboxing to be a kickboxer. He just learned kickboxing to understand what they're doing, the distance, the timing.

Distance. That's management, distance management. That's very important. Some guys, you see, plant their feet and just exchange firepower. You can go either way. So I like more of a Uotu style. Hit and don't get hit. Get away.

When you look back on this now and you think, I mean, when you watch these old matches from, like, 1993, what does it feel like to see that?

Crazy.

Well, no one had ever done it before on television, never been. in America at least. It had never been a thing. And then, to all of a sudden, have this.

No time limit, no weight division, no gloves.

No rules.

No rules, everything. No biting, no eye gouging.

Yeah, you could punch the nuts, everything.

But if you do eye gouge or bite, like Gerard Gourdieu, as soon as I took him down, he beat my ear on the first year, on the finals, on the first UFC. But there's no punishment. There's no, okay, you're going to get disqualified. It's like, don't do it again, sir.

It's so crazy. But then, from that moment, from UFC, one, Brazilian jiu-jitsu exploded, across the country. Exploded.

Gracie Academy double size after the first UFC. Wow. After the second UFC, we double again.

Wow. This is in Torrance?

Torrance.

Yeah. I started at Hickson's place, and then I went to Carlson Gracie's place, because I didn't know any better. It was closer. It was closer to me. It was on Hawthorne. That was when Vitor was making his debut in the UFC, back when they were calling him Victor Gracie. Yes. It was UFC 12.. And I remember the feeling of the first class, the feeling of how humiliated you are when you don't know jiu-jitsu and you spar with someone who knows jiu-jitsu. It's like you think you know how to fight, and then you get in there and all of a sudden you're on your back, you don't know what to do, and all of a sudden you're getting choked. You're like, oh, no. This is crazy.

And you've been doing martial arts for a long time already.

I had a completely distorted idea of my ability to fight. Completely distorted. And I remember my first class, I was like, oh, boy. Now I know.

It's like back in the garage days, there was always a student that would bring a family friend or a family member or a coach from different styles of martial arts, and they would come in, and they would come in to fight us. But we, Rory and I, would be like, okay, we're going to control and turn him into a student. So we would take the guy down, mount, and pretty much talk to him, maybe choke, maybe armbar, let it go, not hurting. And the guy would go home and goes, oh, man, can I sign up? Can I learn?

Right. Because of the fact that you didn't hurt them, you could convert them into a student. If you beat the fuck out of them and just broke their face.

They would never come back. Yeah. So we were more concerned about gaining a student than trying to beat them up. But they would come in to fight. We would convert them.

Wow. Was it your father that was the mastermind behind doing it that way?

I think that was Rory, because Rory was like my second father. I came to live with him. I was 17, going on 18.. I came to America to live with Rory.

So Rory was a lawyer, very smart, very calculated.

We were teaching back in the garage days, teaching every day, private classes, half an hour. private classes. Place looked like a crack house. Half an hour. there's a person coming in and leaving, come and go, come and go. Then they was like, what are they doing over there?

It's amazing what started in that garage, if you really think about it. But it's also amazing, like his vision, that he had so much belief in jiu-jitsu that he knew that he just, it wasn't like it had to be developed. It was already there. You just have to show people. They just need to know.

We try advertisements, and so he finally figured out we have to put on TV. Once the American people find out, the whole world will see it. That's what happened. Put on TV, second UFC, people coming from everywhere. There was applications coming from different parts of the world.

It's crazy. There's never been, I mean, other than one thing like Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee movies, people saw Bruce Lee movies. They all wanted to learn martial arts. But other than that, but that was movies, right? So that was like you wanted to do this thing. that wasn't real. Like this guy was fighting 10 people. They were all coming at him, one at a time. But it wasn't real. Watching you in UFC 1, it was like so many people had this light bulb moment.

I thought a lot of people thought it was fixed. It was like, no, there's no way this thing's for real. Even though Taylor Tully lost a tooth by, Geraldo Gordão, got kicked in the face right off the bat, the first fight. It's like, but a lot of people thought, yeah. Second UFC, still people like, yeah. I think the fourth one is when people said, okay, this thing's for real.

Martial artists knew right away.

Yes.

In the martial arts community. right away. I didn't see UFC 1. first. I saw UFC 2.. That was the first one that I saw. Because UFC 1, for whatever reason, I think it was some licensing thing. It wasn't available as a DVD or a VCR tape. Yes. So the VHS tape, when it was released and you could get it in a store, a friend of mine had told me about it. And I had just moved to California. It was 1994.. And I got a hold of UFC 2.. And I watched it in my apartment. I remember going, oh, my goodness. It just changed my mind about fighting. Fighting for me was always stand-up fighting. I mean, I wrestled a little bit in high school. But fighting for me was kickboxing. So when I saw that, I was like, wow. I remember everybody, like all my friends that were into martial arts, everybody was scrambling to try to find a jiu-jitsu school. There had never been a moment like that where one martial art had emerged with such force.

Jiu-jitsu, judo, wrestling. I had a lot of wrestlers and judo guys that came up to me and was like, man, thanks for putting us on the map. Going back to the old Black Bell magazines, inside karate, inside kung fu. Those all stand-up martial arts. Yeah. They wouldn't consider wrestling, judo part of martial art. I know. Isn't that crazy? That's not. It's all stand-up.

We used to share a gym. back when I lived in Boston. There was a guy that I used to work out with. He had a gym that he would share with the judo class. So on one side there was a judo guy and the other side was a kickboxer. I remember thinking, what are these guys doing? What a waste of time practicing, throwing each other around. What's the point? No one knew. It's so interesting that everyone – see, from the time I first got into martial arts when I was a little kid, there was always this thought like, what would happen if a karate guy fought a judo guy? What would happen if a boxer fought a wrestler? And everybody had an opinion. But until UFC 1 came around, no one really knew. It was just theoretical. I always maintain that since 93 to today, martial arts have evolved more over the last 30 years than they have over the last 30,000 years.

Everybody had that, like, what would happen.

Yeah.

But nobody would challenge the other one. Nobody wanted to step on anybody's toes.

Well, nobody was willing to take the chance.

What if I lose? I don't want to bother. I don't want to beat the other guy too, because if I beat him, he's going to feel bad. There was a lot of that. We were like, hey, we're willing to find out. Yeah.

Well, thank God you did that. I mean, thank God it came along, because who knows where martial arts would be today if that hadn't happened.

People thinking the death touch. Yeah. All that shit. I'll touch you right here in the shoulder and a week from now, I'm going to paralyze.

I'll grab your collarbone and you'll go to sleep.

Yeah.

Yeah, there was a lot of that stupid shit. There's still that stupid shit out there. There's still a lot of people out there that believe that stuff. It's crazy, isn't it?

But, hey, UFC came along.

Yeah. Well, most people know now. Most people know now. I mean, now, if you want to fight, you have to know jiu-jitsu. You have to, because there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

If you take jiu-jitsu away, it goes back to the old style. Stand up, karate against kung fu. Mm-hmm. Jiu-jitsu, the bond between the striking arts and the grappling arts, and all of them.

I mean, there's still guys who only understand jiu-jitsu in a rudimentary sense. Like they understand defense, but you have to at least understand defense. You have to at least know what someone's doing. You can't compete without understanding it, because you'll get caught.

You got to know.

Yeah.

Not just on the grappling part, but on the stand up part. You have to know how to defend yourself. It's like, it's not just come up and start to hit the opponent. Right. No, no, no, no. I got to manage distance. I got to know when I'm too close and he's going to hit me. So I got to play defense all around.

What is it like for you, having been there for UFC 1, to see what it is today? To see, like UFC 300, which was just insane. This thing where millions of people are watching it around the world. It's this huge phenomenon. It's like the most exciting sport in the world now. And to know, you were the original. You're number one. There's only going to be one original ultimate fighter. That's you.

I don't look at it that way. I don't look at it that way. I look at it as a, yeah, I was part of it.

You were the part of it. If it wasn't you, like, if you didn't exist, if they had the UFC 1 and there was no representative of jujitsu, some big, strong guy would have won.

Or what if I lost?

Right. What if you lost?

So I said the other day, I said, I'm not part of the history. I am the history.

Yeah, you are the history. Yeah, you were the original representative of jujitsu. And the reason why the UFC became so exciting was not just because you get to see these wild fights inside of a cage. But you see a smaller guy with better technique. beat the bigger, stronger men. Which is what martial arts was always supposed to be. Jujitsu, I always tell people, is the only martial art that delivers as advertised. Because if you're a kickboxer, and you're a small guy, and another guy's a kickboxer, but he's like 250 pounds.

You don't stand a chance.

You're fucked. He's going to hit you. Yeah.

Lightweight boxer against a heavyweight doesn't stand a chance.

Doesn't stand a chance. But, jujitsu, if you are really good and that guy doesn't know what he's doing, you're going to fucking kill him. He doesn't have a chance.

Or even if he knows what he's doing. It's like the lightweight have a chance to survive and play defense and end up choking or armbar the bigger opponent.

Which is why absolutes in jujitsu matches are so interesting. When you watch a small guy beat a big guy.

Win the heavyweight championship. It's crazy. It's a lightweight.

Yeah. No, it's the only martial art that really delivers as advertised. Where technique triumphs over everything.

And that's what my father and uncle Carlos and their brothers always tried to, to show people that you don't have to be the biggest, the strongest, the fastest. You just got to know what you're doing. My father used to say, give me the right leverage and I'll lift the world with one hand. Just got to have the right setup.

Well, that was also the brilliant thing about jujitsu and your father. So your father was, he was a smaller guy. He weighed like 147 pounds or something, right?

About 145, yes.

Crazy. Crazy.

And challenge everybody. Wrestlers that came from, go boxers or go to vacation in Brazil. It would be at the airport waiting for the guy. The old Joe Lewis. Really? Went to Brazil.

Wow.

Horton had a letter that was given to my father saying, Joe Lewis will box against anybody. Boxing against boxing. MMA match. My father was like 145 pounds. Joe Lewis was 220, 200 pounds. The heavyweight champion at the time.

Wow.

The old man was crazy.

Imagine if he took that on. If he was willing to do that. That would have been exciting.

But back then there was no, the internet. Yeah. So a lot of people probably wouldn't find out. Right. It would be very smart and it would be, didn't happen. Yeah.

No one would understand.

There was no tapes.

Right, right, right. Yeah. You'd have to set that up. You'd have to set that up, bring a camera crew and the whole deal. Yeah. What was it about your father that had this mentality, that had this desire to challenge himself and prove jiu-jitsu's effectiveness?

I think he was being smaller, being peak on it. And once he learned, he had that power. He learned jiu-jitsu. He got that power with him. So he want to show others.

Well, that was one of the more interesting things about jiu-jitsu. because of what your father did. Because your father was smaller, he developed much more technique off of his back. Because in these other styles of judo and Japanese jiu-jitsu, it wasn't really emphasizing fighting off of your back.

Yeah, he was playing defense. So he always said, tie your opponent up. And if you have to beat him up from the bar, but if you get on top, there's no reason to beat him up. You want the control. You control the fight. You just subdue him.

It's interesting now.

A mean defense, I would say.

A very mean defense, yeah. But it's interesting now when you see the rules. The rules are set up much more for strikers and for wrestlers. Because I've been talking about this lately. Say if you're a jiu-jitsu guy and you're fighting in the first round and the rounds are five minutes long. And you take the guy down at four minutes and 30 seconds. You only have 30 seconds to work. I feel like a fight should be, even if you're going to make it rounds, the fight is the fight. I don't think someone should be able to get up. I don't think you should stand people up ever. I think once a guy takes you down, the fight is on the ground. If it's boring for the audience, tough shit. If you're on the bottom, get up. And if you can't get up, tough shit. And if the round ends and then the new round begins, I think they should start you right back in the same place.

I think because they're on the same weight division. Back then there was no weight division.

It doesn't favor it, but it gives a distinct advantage. if you let a person stand up that didn't stand up. So if you start the second round. Say if you take me down with four minutes and 30 seconds to go. And you're dominating me and you're closing in on me. And you're about to tap me, but then the round ends. And then we start, but now we start standing up. But I didn't earn that stand up. I just got to stand up because of the time. I feel like the fight should be a fight. So if a fight is five rounds, that's a 25 minute fight. And I think whatever position that you're in at the end of that first round, you should begin in the second round. That's what I think.

I'm in favor of doing one round straight through.

Well, that would be wild too. I think one round and maybe even no time on it.

No time limit is not good for the TV.

No, no, but good for the internet.

One, 15 minute round.

Ooh, yeah.

It's like, that's it. One 15 straight through. Go, straight through, no rounds. Start, 15 minutes later, we'll stop.

They should try that.

And if nobody wins, another five minutes or 10 minutes.

Right, overtime round.

You see, overtime.

Well, I think Pride had good rules. A 10 minute first round was better. I think 10 minutes is better. Especially if someone works really hard. Again, four minutes, 30 seconds, you finally take the guy down. Now you're on top. And now you're trying to set things up, but the bell rings. And then you start standing up again.

Yeah, you start standing up again. But then, yeah, I think, put a 10 minute round, 15 minute, one round straight through, man.

But I think the problem is they've stopped changing the rules. The rules are the rules now. And they've kind of like, solidified them and established them. But I don't think the rules are right. I think if a guy takes you down, you should have to earn a stand up. You have to get back up to your feet. So if the fight ends...

With one mounted on top of the other. Yeah. Or on the back. Yeah.

If that's the end of the round, you start from the same position. I think they should show it up on the screen, what the position was. And then everybody agrees. Okay, so he had an overhook. He had half guard. Go.

Or how about, like they play football. American football. If the five minute finish and the guy's on the mountain position, you got to let it go until they break away. Yeah. So you're going to go and tell somebody to score.

Yeah.

So... I like that. It's like if the position end up on such an advantage position.

Yeah. It's something to think about. If we finish the round. If you want to make things more realistic.

If we finish the round and I'm on your back about to choke you, or with a guillotine or a choke or armbar caught. Okay, the bell doesn't ring until you get away and get up. Then we'll take a break.

Yeah. That's not bad either. I just think that having a fight start. If you start, you start standing up. But I think, round to round, you should resume the position, whatever you were in the previous round. I think that's the only thing that makes sense. Because otherwise you didn't earn a stand up. But if a guy takes you down and mounts you and he's setting up a head and arm choke and he's sinking it in and then the buzzer rings. You should go right back to that spot when round two starts, because you didn't get out of that. So, and now, if the guy's a kickboxer, now, he goes, oh shit, I almost got caught. And now you start that next round standing up. He has an advantage, because now he's standing up. Yeah. But he didn't earn that stand up. You earned the takedown. You got him down. You got in a superior position. You were about to finish him.

I like it.

Yeah, I think it makes more sense.

I like it.

Then no one's going to listen to me, though.

But if it was a switch around, just plain devil's advocate over here.

Okay.

The kickboxer or the stand-up guy hit, almost knock him out. Mm-hmm. Bell rings. Saved by the bell. Right.

Well, you restart it standing. It's still standing. I mean, the round, you have the minute rest, but you're still standing. The kickboxer's still.

I would say let it go. Let it go. Let the clock goes until, hey, either he recover, get in a clinch and whoo.

Yeah. Got away. The right way to do it, then, is one round. One 15-minute round or one 25-minute round in a championship fight. That's the right way to do it.

That would be wild. Or 15, 30 seconds. A 30-second minute round, a minute break. Yeah. And then 10 minutes.

That's not bad. Yeah.

First round, 15..

Yeah. Whoo. That would be crazy.

It would be an early night.

Yeah. I mean, how many finishes would there be? There'd be a lot more finishes.

I think so.

I wonder how different.

People have to work on the endurance too. Oh, yeah. Because a lot of guys, I see they finish the fight, one is fresh, the other one is done for the night. Right. But then the one that's fresh, lost because he doesn't have that quick twitch, that fast twitch muscle. The one that explode, everything on the first round, the second, third round, that's it.

Yeah.

This guy's ready to go for five, six, but his time is over. Right.

That's interesting too. It's a matter of what people don't understand, that just watch it and don't do martial arts. is that it's really just about pacing yourself too, knowing when to hit the gas, when to back up, knowing that you have to fight for five rounds, and knowing when to push. Some fighters, they'll back off in the beginning because they know that a guy's going to come out fast and hard, and they're just going to wait. Okay, he's slowing down now. Now I start to press. Now I start to put on the gas.

And it becomes a mental too. Like Horton used to say, if I drop you off in the middle of the ocean and tell you I'm coming back in an hour, all you got to do is tread water for an hour. But if I drop you off and say goodbye, find your way home, now you got to pick a direction and start swimming.

Yeah.

Most people drown before an hour. Yeah, true.

Right? Mental. Yeah.

It's a lot of mental. There's no round to save you. Yeah.

Yeah. That's. the most interesting thing about the early UFCs, is that it was just no time limit. Just here we go.

There's, like Dan Severn, on top of me for 15 minutes. I beat him on the final 16 minutes. Yeah. But 15 minutes, if it was today, he would have won. Yeah, he would have won the decision. He took me down, got on top, would have won the decision.

I remember that day. I remember when you caught him in that triangle. Most people didn't even know what was going on. They're like, what is he doing? What the hell is happening here? What is going on? Nowadays, everybody would be going, oh, he got the –. the audiences are so educated now.

That was a perfect example of playing defense right there. I totally played defense against him, just frustrate the opponent until he made a mistake. I tried a triangle early on in the fight, but he was able to get out. Then I defend, defend, defend, defend. He couldn't do anything. I can see him getting frustrated. He didn't know how he was going to win. I can feel that. There's no way I'm – I can't beat this guy.

Right, because you were so good defensively.

Just playing defense. He couldn't hit me, couldn't – he tried, but I knew he didn't have any finishing holds. He didn't know any finishing holds. He was just trying to put pressure. Okay. Yeah. I'll take it. No problem.

It was also the gi. The gi was so smart, too, to fight with the gi on, because guys would just grab that gi. When you would close the distance and get a hold of them, they would grab your gi instinctively.

I prefer them to grab. A lot of Brazilians were like, man, but then they grab. They make it harder for you. No, I prefer them to put their hands on me.

Yeah.

Because I know where their hands are. At least if they're not punching me. Yeah. If they have nothing to grab, they're going to be swinging at me. Right. Go ahead. Grab my gi all day long. I don't mind.

Well, guys who weren't even grapplers would grab your gi.

I remember watching that guy. It's human instinct.

Yeah. Human instinct. Yeah. And also you have all that friction. It is so good to hold on to guys when you have the gi.

And I dry them, use the gi to – my father is like, use the gi to dry the guys, because if not, they'll be slippery. Mm-hmm. It's not like today. They put oil on their body.

Oh, yeah. Vaseline. They definitely do. Yeah, they definitely do.

The kickboxers all put vaseline all over. Mm-hmm. That's to warm up. The Tiger Bond to warm up. Mm-hmm. That thing's slippery, man.

Oh, yeah. Guys take baths in baby oil. They would lie down in a bathtub and put water and put baby oil in the water and just soak themselves in baby oil. So even if they're dry, then the moment they start to sweat, they're just like, whoop, like holding on to a salmon. Whoop. They slip right out of your fingers.

It's crazy. Yeah, good old days.

Good old days.

No rules.

And then they slowly started implementing rules. They slowly started implementing weight classes and then mandating gloves and then taking away shoes.

I understand. I understand. It had to be – it became a show, let's say. Yeah. So, in the beginning, it was a style against a style.

Yeah.

Today is more of a – I would look at it more as like an athlete against an athlete. Yes.

Now it's a sport. It's a real sport. And it's still a sport that there's still a lot of rules that I don't agree with. Like, I don't agree with no knees to the head on the ground. I think that's ridiculous. I think that doesn't make sense, because they're very effective. Like, don't be in a position where you get need in the head. Like, don't be in that. Don't stay in a turtle. Like when guys just stay in a turtle and a guy's got a hold of them, man, that's a terrible place to be. In the street? Yeah. Oh, my God. If a guy's got a head and arm on you and he's holding you and you're in the turtle and his knees are free and you're not blocking your head, oh, this fight is over. But in the UFC, you can't even do anything. That seems to me to be crazy.

And they tried to make it, I think, for – to last long, the fights.

Well, I think it's less brutal too. And the idea is that, like you can't defend yourself against knees to the head on the ground. But you can, obviously. Prides did them.

Yeah. I can't elbow the back of the head.

Right, the back of the head from the back, if you have the back mount. Remember when Henzo, when your cousin fought Stryker, that guy, in – was it World Combat League? Oh, my God. Bam. He got his back and just boom, boom, just fucked him up. Like you didn't even need to put the choke in. Like you couldn't do anything. You just flattened out with your face on the mat and the guy's pounding the back of your head. You just tap.

So they're kind of trying to put a little bit of – to protect the fighter. Yes. I understand.

I understand too.

I don't agree with it.

I don't agree with it either. Also, it's weird that you can't hit the back of the head, because the back of the head gets hit a lot. A lot accidentally, especially with head kicks. Like a lot of times, head kicks wrap around the back of your head and it's totally legal. Like if two guys are standing and one guy faints and the guy throws a punch and the guy throws a head kick and the head kick hits him, bang, it wraps right around the back of the head. It's okay. That's okay. And that's a legal KO. Yeah. Which is crazy. But if you get a guy on the ground and you punch him in the back of the head, the referee will take a point away, stand you up. It doesn't make any sense.

Yeah. I would say let it go. Yeah, let it go. That would be good to see.

You've got to protect the back of your head. The back of your head is vulnerable. If you're in a situation where a guy can punch the back of your head, you should be blocking the back of your head. And if now he can punch the front of your head, now you've got to block the front of your head.

Don't turn your face in the opponent.

Don't turn your back. We're talking about the sport of effective fighting. And it's very effective to punch someone in the back of the head. And they say it's more dangerous. But, I mean, we're talking about a very dangerous sport. It's effective to punch the temple. That's okay. That's fucking vulnerable. That's a thin little piece of bone.

How many ounces are the gloves?

Four. Yeah.

They're just to protect your fingers. That's all it does.

Protect your knuckles. So you don't break them. It helps you hit harder. Yep. Yeah. It just protects you from cuts. a little bit. A little bit. You know. But still.

The cast that they put underneath. Mm-hmm. All that taping and the gloves. It's just to protect your hands, so you don't break your hands.

Exactly. Yeah. Do you think that they should be bare knuckle?

I think you should go back to the old ways. Just try out one time. One time, right?

One time would be great.

No time limit. No weight division.

Why doesn't someone do that? Why doesn't someone do that? Someone should do. I mean, I don't know about the weight limit thing. Guys are too good now. The problem is, guys are too good.

But if there's no weight division. Mm-hmm. If there's no weight division, you cannot have time limit. Right. So if you take the weight, you got to take the time.

Right.

Like my father used to say, I'll give you the weight division. You got to give me time.

Right.

So you got some of the light weights over here, man. Mm-hmm. The 170s, 180s. They will fight the heavyweights. Also. With no time limit.

Most of these guys, well, if they're jujitsu guys. But also a lot of these guys are not really. That's. the other thing is the weight cutting. Like Kamaru Usman is a great example. He was the 170-pound champion, one of the greatest ever. Never weighed 170 pounds. He weighed 170 pounds for about five minutes.

Walk around 200..

Yeah, easy, jacked.

All of them.

All of them. Everybody. You can't fight one. I mean, except for BJ Penn. BJ Penn was the last guy who fought at 170.. He probably weighed like 165 when he beat Matt Hughes. You know, and he didn't just didn't cut any weight at all. Yep. He just weighed what he weighed and just went in and went after it. But again, jujitsu guy, you know.

But everybody have to know. jujitsu today. Yeah. Some are more proficient than the others. Yes. But everybody have to know.

Yeah, you have to know what's going on. You have to. Yeah.

Everybody have to know a little bit of wrestling. You have to know striking too. Judo, kickboxing, boxing, the karate. Everybody have to know a little bit of everything.

Yeah. It's a different sport. It's totally different.

But it would be fun to do once. See who can sign up for it.

Yeah. Yeah, no time limit, no weight class, no gloves. Yeah, old school. I think they should take away the cage. I think the cage helps people too, because it helps people stand back up. It helps you. If you get a guy down and you get a guy down in an open room, like, say, a basketball court, like there's nothing to help him get back up.

Okay, hold on. Time out over here. Now you brought some memories over here. Yeah. First UFC, it was John Millers, the producer for Conan the Destroyer, the father of Dirty Harry, Clint Eastwood. He's in charge of creating the cage. But before the cage, they come up with some ideas. They present to me. I was like, wait a minute. Hold on. They're like, how about if we make a round ring with a pit underneath, with a pit. Around it. With sharks.

I was like, hold on.

Imagine if I fight a sumo wrestler and just bump me off and fall off. the sharks will eat you. Yeah, yeah, we should put piranhas because you're from Brazil. What?

Oh, God.

I was like, dude, imagine if I got somebody big and just push me against and hang me on top. Oh, yeah, that's right. Let's make an electrical fence. I was like, really? The ideas they had, man.

That's crazy.

I keep viewing the ideas, man. They had all kinds of crazy ideas.

God, imagine if they went through with those. That's so ridiculous. I've been saying for a while that they should do, look, if you could watch a basketball game, basketball games on this massive court, why can't there be a fight on a basketball court? Just flat mats. No walls. So everyone can see everything that's going on.

Even a basketball, the guys will go to the edge.

Yeah, but you have a warning track. So you have a warning track of like 15 feet on each side.

Let's make that bowl.

Bowl's not a bad idea.

It's a bowl, so the guy cannot climb off. It's like with the wall, the edges.

Have you seen Karate Kombat, how Karate Kombat's doing it?

No.

Karate Kombat is doing it like that where they have a flat surface and it's on the edges. There's mats that go to the edges, like at an angle.

In the angle like people cannot climb out.

They kind of go up against it, but then they get pushed, and then they fall down. They fall down because it's like I think a wall is actually better than the angle, because it's just too easy to fall. Like someone's pushing you up against that thing. It's a slope. It's hard.

Yes.

See the angle?

Shock. Piranhas.

Shock, piranhas, electrical fence.

This is brutal.

And I was telling them, I was like, no, no, no. This is going to be the biggest sport in the world. They're like, get out of your fucking mind. You're crazy. No one's going to like this. This is insanity. You're going to watch people fight in a cage.

And I'm like, that was one of the challenges that Horton had, and a lot of people did not believe in him. He was like, people were like, man, you cannot fight in the streets. How are you going to put this on live TV?

Right.

That was one of the challenges that Horton figured out, pay-per-view.

He must be happy now watching it, right?

Oh, yeah.

Like, look, I was right.

His baby.

Yeah, look at his baby now. His baby's. on ESPN.

Crazy. Crazy. Yeah, on national TV.

When was the last time Horton went to a UFC? I don't know. Does he still watch them?

I think so. I think he does watch. So I talk to him once in a while, and once a month we talk.

It must be crazy for him to see this thing that was his idea just branch off and become this huge.

All over the world.

Is he mad that he didn't get a piece?

No. Because it's sold for billions of dollars. He never talked to me about that.

Boy, they should have cut him in. They should have cut him in. You know, when you think about it, if anybody deserves a piece, that guy deserves a piece.

For the vision that he had.

Yes. If it wasn't for his vision and the way they decided to go about doing it, and also your father, your father's vision. You're like, don't hurt him. Just use jiu-jitsu. Show everybody. Because that's one of the things that made it so appealing. It wasn't that it was just so brutal. It's that the guy who won wasn't brutal. The guy who won was just better. Technical.

And that's why I think the first, second, third UFC, until I didn't finish on the third UFC, and first and second people were like, there's no way. He's the smallest one.

Right.

Beat everybody without hurting them. I don't know. Everybody thought I was like, eh. A lot of people were like, the non-martial artist people.

Yes.

Martial arts. people knew it was like, uh-oh.

Yeah. Martial arts people.

We've got to learn this.

Well, everybody who took jiu-jitsu knew right away. Because it was so eye-opening. Like I said before, my first classes, the ideas that you had in your head of how competent you are versus the reality that you're confronted with. And you saw that in all the Gracie, in action tapes too. These guys, they wanted to do it again. They're like, how did you do that? Let's try it again. No way. And then, whoop, take down again. Whoop, arm bar.

Like Geraldo Gordo, after the first UFC, he went back to Holland and prepared Remco Pardue to beat me. Remco Pardue is a judo player. He did some stand-up. When I beat Remco Pardue, they went back to Holland. They're like, okay, we have to learn this jiu-jitsu thing. We have to learn this.

Remember when Remco Pardue fought Orlando Veet? Yes. And he got him in side control. And he just elbowed him unconscious. And everybody's like, oh, wow.

Lightweight, very good kickboxer. Yeah.

Nasty. Nasty, Muay Thai. And Remco Pardue. just, whoop, took him down.

Elbows, boom, boom, boom.

And then stopped. He stopped. He stopped, yeah.

He's out. He was done.

That's a wrap.

Yep.

Here it is. Here's Remco.

Boom, boom. The first one, he was already out. Remco, is like 260 pounds.

Yeah, he was a big dude. But it was just like no one understood what was going on. No one understood anything.

That's the same takedown that he tried to do to me, but I end up on his back.

Yeah.

I knew he was going to do that. takedown, trap the arm, roll over.

Such a strange time for martial arts, really. If you really stop and think about it, such a strange time. Because all these years, thousands of years of people fighting, thousands of years of people having this idea of how to fight, and then all of it comes together in the UFC, and then we go, oh, okay, now we have new data. Now we have new understanding. Now we have, okay, now we get it. Now we get it. And then you see it evolve to what it is now, where you see these guys, like Alex Paeda, the kickboxer who comes in, and now he's got his style.

I think today is more of a lot of strategy, too. Because both fighters are practicing the stand-up and the grappling. They do jiu-jitsu, they do wrestling, everybody does kickboxing, karate, everybody practices all of them. So it's a question of who has the best strategy. Yeah.

Who has the best strategy, and then there's people like Paeda, who has a unique skill set, like scary kickboxer, dangerous. He just hits you once, you're unconscious. That guy presents a very unique challenge. Like if you don't grab him and you don't get him to the ground, you are fucked. Because if you're standing up with him, at any moment, that guy is going to set you up, move, and boom, like we did with Jamal Hill in that last fight. All it takes is one shot from that guy. So these guys now, everyone has their own unique skill set, and it's so interesting seeing how that skill set matches up with another guy's skill set. Like with Paeda, I want to see what happens if he fights against, like an elite wrestler, who is really good at takedowns, who knows jiu-jitsu. And we haven't seen that yet.

But he trains a lot of grappling, too.

Oh, yeah. He just got his black belt from Glover.

From Glover, yes.

Yeah, which is huge. And Glover is good. And Glover says he's very good on the ground now.

Glover himself is tough as fuck.

People don't know how good Glover is, because Glover could not fight in the U.S. for six years because of visa issues. During his prime, like during his prime, Glover was stuck in Brazil. He couldn't come to America. Because everybody knew about Glover. Glover was the boogeyman. Like everybody talked about Glover. Glover was the guy that, like out of all the elite guys that weren't in the UFC, Glover was the number one guy that everybody talked about. He was so good when he was younger. By the time he got to the UFC, he was already like 36 years old. He won the title, I think he was 41 or 42, when he won the light heavyweight title.

And Alex trains with him, so.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, it's a good combination.

Oh, perfect, perfect, perfect combination, yeah. I mean, it's an amazing, exciting time for the sport, you know. It really is.

And it's good. But there's still a lot of countries, a lot of places that are against. So we still can open up more doors.

What countries are against MMA now?

A lot of European countries are still like.

It's starting to make its way. Like this guy is from France.

Just now, last year, I think, starting in France and Spain.

Well, France has some great guys too now, though. Cyril Ghosn and Cedric Doumbé, who fights for PFL, who's an elite kickboxer.

I don't think just because of their wrestling. I think it's because of their discipline. And I tell a lot of people that those guys don't think about anything else.

Just train.

Yeah. Discipline.

Very religious. Very disciplined. Very focused. Yeah.

There's no girlfriend or wife. They're not thinking about any of that.

No partying.

There's no partying. That's all they do.

Get up. Train. Sleep. Eat.

Train. So, yeah, they don't think about anything else. They're just more, I think they're more disciplined than this side of the world. Yeah.

I was watching this interview with Khabib where he was talking. It was a conversation that he was having with someone who was talking about young people. That it's so important that they maintain focus. Because a young guy who's really talented and is above and better than everybody else when he's 18.. Sometimes they'll slack off. And then they come back to it when they're like 22.. But then by then they're average. And everybody else has gotten much better. And they lost that advantage. And they won't be special. But the guy who's 18, who's above and beyond everybody else in the gym. That guy, if he can maintain that discipline and maintain that focus. Then he can go on to become a champion.

Yeah. I totally believe on that. It's the discipline.

Yeah.

It's not because they're better wrestlers or, nah. Because they're better strikers. You find very good wrestlers everywhere in America. Top wrestlers in the world are over here. Mm-hmm. Olympics. Yeah. But I think the discipline is what's missing in a lot of people. They don't take Sunday offs.

Right, right, right.

Oh, it's Sunday. We're going to rest. No, not for them. Not for those guys.

What was training like for you during UFC 1??

Training.

Just Spartan training. Yeah.

Pretty much. Yeah. And I understand. I was like, okay. I'm a soldier, man. You tell me to do it, I'll do it. There's not a doubt. They say do it, done. So you cannot hang around with the kids and babysit. And the kids are little. They're all grown now. But it's like, nope, okay. I can cut it off. Not a problem. And what a discipline on that. Say goodbye to the family. You got to go train. You got to go spend a month away.

And what was a day's training like? Did you do any strength and conditioning back then? Or was it all just jiu-jitsu training and position training and drills?

It was a lot of. in that order. You have to know what you're doing. That's how I learned from my family. You have to have endurance. Then becomes power. Yes, I did a lot of strength and conditioning, but a lot of endurance. Endurance was before the strength.

Uh-oh, you're in trouble.

So you have to know what you're doing. You have to have endurance to last at least the first round, five minutes. Then becomes power.

And what kind of endurance training would you do?

Endurance, everything from running to swimming to strength coaching. I one time got up and was like, okay. He used to be the strength coach for USC for the Rams. when they were in LA. James, man, went for a 41-mile run.

41 miles?

One day, seven hours later, I told him, stop. My calves are both cramped up, man. I can't take it. I got to stop.

That seems crazy.

Yeah.

Did you train for that, or did you just do it?

I swim about maybe a dozen times.

Just to get ready for that? Yep. Oh, fuck.

It was pretty much just on heart, man.

How long did that take?

All day. All day, left, like 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock in the morning, we started.

Cactus to Clouds, 21 miles. Difficulty class one, two, highly strenuous. 10,400 feet change of elevation. Jesus Christ.

That's nuts. Yeah.

With fighting, if you don't have endurance, you don't have anything.

Sakurabe and I, we fought for an hour and 45.. Was it an hour and 45?? Yeah. It was six rounds of 15 minutes, two-minute rest. I think it was two-minute rest in between rounds. 15 minutes rest for two, 15..

Crazy.

Yeah.

Is that the longest fight you had?

Yes. An hour and 45, that's the second longest fight in history.

What's the longest fight in history?

My father. Oh, wow. 340..

Wow.

342 or something like this. Yep.

Fighting.

But he was one round. Yeah. I was six rounds of 15 minutes.

What was the longest fight in the UFC? that was one round?

I think Dan Saver and I. Oh, wow. No, Ken Shamrock and I. One round of 30 minutes on the UFC 5.. We did one round of 30 minutes.

What about other organizations? Remember when Murillo Bustamante fought Tom Erickson?

Tom Erickson, yes.

That was another one. that was crazy, because Murillo was 185 and Tom Erickson was 300 pounds.

He was fucking huge. Very good wrestler.

Powerful guy, too. People forgot about Tom Erickson.

He was a very good wrestler.

He was a scary motherfucker. Yes. Big. They would call him the big cat because he moved like a cat, but he was 300 pounds.

The wrestlers were taking over and trying to fight against, showing the Brazilians that Jiu-Jitsu was nothing. So they had the heavyweights. It was Tom Erickson, Kerr, Coleman.

Yep.

And all those guys went to Brazil to fight in Brazil. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Kevin Randleman. Mm-hmm.

Randleman, Mark Kerr. Yep.

Tom Erickson.

Chuck Liddell.

They fought. Fabio Gurgel. Mm-hmm.

Chuck Liddell fought. Pele. Yep. Remember when they used to have the ring with the netting underneath the bottom rope so people can't slip out? Yeah. Crazy. It's crazy when you think about it. How much the sport has changed and how many just, I mean, and what's amazing is, you can watch all those matches, too. Like back then, trying to watch a match was very hard to do. You had to find a tape, you know?

Yeah. I remember people saying, yes, man, you fought in America. We had to wait a week or two weeks until somebody bring the tape over. Mm-hmm. The VHS. They had to bring it. Not even send. They had somebody come over here, record it, and then take it back to Brazil and make copies and pass around to people.

Well, it's also like people had to understand where the level was at, too. Because if you didn't watch it, you didn't understand where the level was at. I remember there was a match between Hickson and Higin. There's a jiu-jitsu match between Hickson and Higin. Yes. And at the time, it was like the highest level jiu-jitsu black belt match we had ever seen. And we were watching Hickson and Higin going after him like, oh, my God.

They were both studs. Studs. Higin was not easy, man.

He was so good.

He was a stud.

Oh, my God. And watching those guys go at it in their prime. It's like you get to see that level. And you had to watch a tape if you were going to see that. Yep. Because, you know, we weren't in Brazil. So someone has to film it. They have to get it over to us.

Yeah.

Crazy. How come Hickson never fought in the UFC? Was there ever a moment where he almost came over?

I think because I was fighting there in the UFC. If not, it was tournament back then. So if both of us fought, we end up facing each other. Right. It's like, ah. So I think that's why he decided to go to Japan.

But when you stopped fighting in the UFC, was there ever a moment where they were trying to get Hickson to come over?

I don't know if they approached him. But he was already successful in Japan. Yeah. And they kept him busy over there.

Yeah.

So Hickson was beating up the heavyweights in Japan. Yeah.

He was beating up everybody over there. That's the thing that, unfortunately, in America, people weren't aware of, like, Japan, Vale Tudo and all the different. And then the original Pride, you know, when he fought Takada. And he fought all those guys over there. And Funaki.

The first Vale Tudo.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's fortunately. we have Choke, the documentary. Yes. So people get a chance to see it from that.

Hickson was a beast, man.

Oh, my God. Yeah. Well, that was the crazy thing. when you were winning the UFC. You were telling everybody, hey, my brother's even better than me. And everybody was like, what?

By a hundred times. Not by a little bit.

That's crazy. By a lot. That's crazy. Why was he so much better?

I don't think it was just physique. It was the way he move. Put his weight. The way the position himself.

Just the knowing position.

Knowing.

So he just had a special talent.

Yeah. I would say a special talent, yes.

But that was so confusing for us, because we would hear, like, what? His brother's better than him? Like, how is this possible?

Not by a little bit. By a lot.

It's crazy.

But Hoyler, too. Yeah. And Hoyler was lighter weight than me. But, like you said, Hoyler, sparring with Hoyler is like grabbing a salmon. He's all over the place. It's like, ah. And he's little, man. It's like.

Well, he was the most successful in tournaments, right?

Yes. And he used to win the open weight divisions. And fighting all the heavyweights. And Hoyler was a beast, man. What a family you have.

I mean, what a family.

All of them. A bunch of studs.

All of them. Everyone. Henzo.

Including the girls. Sure. Yeah, look at Kira. Yeah. No.

Sure. Sure.

Look at Kira. Look at even the ones that are not involved in teaching. Dude, they're vicious.

It's just so incredible that this one family produced so many champions. There's never been anything like it in all of combat sports. There's never been anything even remotely close. There's no even second place that you could bring up. You know, there's a few times where two brothers were really good at fighting. You know, but it's never been anything like you guys.

A bunch of brothers and cousins.

Yeah, everybody.

Uncles.

Yeah, everybody. Yep. I mean, when you heard the name Gracie, everyone's like, oh, shit.

It's going to be a problem.

Pretty much. In a lot of ways, yeah. Yeah. I mean, so many. Ian, Henzo. I mean, just so many. So many. It's just really incredible when you really stop and think about it.

And the amount of people that we all created. Mm-hmm. That came, that learned from us at one point.

Yeah. It's extraordinary. It really is. When you watch Jiu-Jitsu. now, you know, do you watch Jiu-Jitsu, like no-gi Jiu-Jitsu? Do you watch these guys?

I'm not big in tournament. Gordon Ryan is awesome, man.

That's his belt up there. That's his Abu Dhabi belt.