I did a quick translation with the best parts of an interview with Marco Ruas. Source (in portuguese): http://pvtmag.portaldovt.com.br/pt/09/ It´s not complete.....just some of the parts of hte interview. "If nowadays many people are making money with MMA, this is due to Gracie Family." "Those guys that saw me as an enemy one day today they see me as their friend. At one time I became the jiu-jitsu number 1 enemy when after train with them I faced one of them" He talks about his relation with Carlson Gracie, that he was called to the UFC to be a representative fighter of jiu-jitsu, but didn´t accepted it because he thought would be very unfair with other people from Boxing and other martial arts that helped him a lot also... "I thought that wouldn´t be fair......I had trained many martial arts and would represent only jiu-jitsu" Then he explains that the Ruas Vale-Tudo was created because of that....He wanted something like that showing that he was grateful to all the martial arts. "Interviewer: All these problems with jiu-jitsu started in that tough fight against Pinduka in 83 ? MR: Everyone was shitting in his pants because of the Gracies at the time...nobody believed in me at the time....they said that Pinduka was too big, too strong.....a street fighter. I didn´t have a coach or anything. The Gracies acted like that, with psychological intimidation. They intimidated the other in that way because they had a big crew. I realized that the guys I had as idols were actually a bunch of craven, and I realized that thing everytime we met the Gracies. " [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6vMPl53DbE[/ame] [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdEi9TawCoM&feature=relmfu[/ame] "I never get involved with Street fights or those gyms invasions, I didn´t agree with that. I thought what Rickson did with Hugo (Hugo Duarte, brawl video below) was dirty......Also didn´t agree with Hugo when he invaded the Gracie gym as well." [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEUC39Dum20[/ame] Later Marco talks that he said that he would fight with Rickson for free. Without money. He said it to Zé Moraes (I don´t know who is Zé Moraes)... "Interviewer: Before you get to the UFC did you think about quit your career? MR: Defnitely. After the Pinduka fight I did not get anything anymore, for a long time.." He talks about some of his fighters that left him.....like Babalú. "Today I don´t have the anger of before. I put Ximu (Gustavo Ximu) and Babalú to fight in Japan and in the UFC. I said that they were like prostitutes at the time (the time they left him), sold for cash. " That´s it.......my english is not perfect, so I´m sorry if there are mistakes. This content is protected One of my favorite fights ever.....Ruas vs Varelans !! Source (in portuguese): http://pvtmag.portaldovt.com.br/pt/09/
Varelans was a brave fighter. But that was probably the extent of his abilitys. I remember watching him get beat to **** by a prime Mark Kerr. That **** was amazing to watch when i first saw it back in the day. And i mean amazing for the wrong reasons. Id never seen sanctioned violence like that before.
He is a character of the Sport, I like him a lot....and man, I love these stories about gym invasions, Jiu-Jitsu vs Luta-Livre.. Always gold ! Interesting that he is not very kind when talks about Rickson and some Gracies (he recognizes their value though)...even nowadays...
Yep. Varelans was a monster and very tough, that fight against Kerr was in Brazil btw, the old days of WVC and IVC, rough fights:scaredas:...
Those gym invasions must have been wild. And id love to been around during the Luta v Gracie fued It almost makes the 'fued' between Evans & Jones look scripted for Tv ...
There is a story that Rickson invaded Ruas gym....but Ruas says that who ran from the challenge was Rickson....controversial stories.....Rickson says that Marco asked for 3 months to train, which I´m sure is bull**** because Marco was not like that..... He says in the interview that Rickson challenged the Luta-Livre guys in the beach and Ruas was with the Luta-Livre crew at the time.....and Rickson simply said "I don´t want you Marco, you are a good fighter, only them"....and Marco was a luta-livre guy also, I mean, it was not like he was just a guy from outside in there, he was from the crew..... I guess Rickson knew with who he was dealing
Well Im not judging Rickson too harshly on the 400-0 claim as that's just marketing imo But if it comes down to who I believe when it's comes too who ducked the fight, well with Rickson's track record of pricing himself out of matches and the rest of it, Im gonna believe Marco on this one The truth is probably somewhere in between both guys though. Im sure Ruas went to PRIDE to try and tempt Rickson into a fight for big money, it's a shame it didnt happen. Id much rather have seen that than the Takada BS rematch at PRIDE 4
Yeah, no one could pay what Rickson demanded to fight.......When Rickson knew that the opponent was tough and the fight would be hard, he asked absurd money and the fight didn´t happen....:conf
It's a shame really as with retrospect you cant really take his MMA (even though he was probably a NHB fighter) career seriously with that record. I mean Takada was a true Superfight when it happens, but his exploits since have hurt the credibility of the sport and along with it Rickson's NHB/MMA. But he did raise the bar for BJJ in MMA and is obviously one of the GOAT's in that discipline
