Royce, and I think two fold.. He really gave BJJ the publicity it needed, it was considered a more obscure discipline, behind Judo, TKD, Karate and Kung Fu. It really is considered a superior discipline now on an international scale, where before it was one of those things that was claimed for a long time, but really hard to substantiate due to the difficulty to get the publicity, matches needed. Some people have known for a long time how great BJJ is. He also really gave birth to MMA as a sort of show/sport for the masses. We should really recognize this as fans. Nothing but respect to the Gracie family.
Royce Gracie was the first superstar in mma. Royce Gracie may have been just a player in his family's art, but he introduced that art to the world. Royce won 3 of the first 4 UFC tournaments, demanding respect for his style in the process. The entire mma world borrows pages from bjj, and Royce is a big reason for doing so.
I heard of Ken Shamrock before the rest. If you are talking about high profile names then he has to be up there and maybe Tank Abott for his 'wrestling' days. But if you are talking about a genuine great mma fighter then Gracie is the first.
lidell. gracie was not a 'superstar' lidell broke the mould he was the first truly global star of the sport in the west.
I picked Sakuraba. Those Gracie fights made him a huge star in Japan. He was the hometown hero restoring honour and avenging Takada's loss to Gracie. Pride was built on the back of Sakuraba!!
That's a pretty complete answer. It probably depends which part of the world people are talking about. In USA/Canada it's probably Chuck, but in Japan it certainly isn't.
Chuck was really the first that people who don't follow MMA at all would ask me about; really the only two that have reached "your mother has heard of them" status are Chuck and Lesnar. Randy is probably just outside of that. Royce and other pioneers were rockstars within the MMA world, but you had to be a fan of MMA to know who they were.
The first person i really heard of in MMA was Mirko Cro Cop. I stumbled across is vids and thought he was awesome! In my eyes he was the first superstar.
Err, I remember when I was younger.. Around 18 years old, Royce had already had his success *by now it was around UFC 8-10*.. He was actually already somewhat famous around the world, he was already in magazine adds, modeling some surf clothing including Reef Brazil back in the day. He was a big enough star to advertise for what was a pretty major clothing company back in the day.. I think that sort of speaks for itself.