How good was Rickson Gracie

He beat Funaki which was a good win and he was over 40 years old at the time.

 

Royce was easily dominated on the ground by Yoshida, a guy never known for his ground skills during his judo career, and choked unconscious. Such an embarrassing defeat never happened to Rickson.

 

Royce is the more accomplished and proven MMA fighter by FAR. Most of the claims about Rickson are are unsubstantiated hearsay.

 

Royce certainly has the better resume in mma, but that doesn't necessarily mean he would've been the more capable fighter. He certainly wasn't on Rickson's level as a grappler, nor was he as good of an athlete. Rickson is a lot older than Royce and had already achieved great renown in the jiujitsu world before MMA existed, when it emerged he was already in his mid 30s so naturally his window for achievement in the sport was a lot smaller than Royce's. MMA is where Royce made his bones. It's really not too dissimilar to the Vitali vs Wlad debate in a way. Like Wlad, Royce had more fights and a superior resume but many still believe the older brother was the better fighter due to skills and intangibles that the former lacked. As far as the legitimacy of claims you're referring to it depends on what it is and who's making them. He's no Frank Dux type if that's what your driving at.

 

He certainly had REAL ability, but he certainly has made some Dux -esque claims, which have been ridiculed even by his old man.

 

I assume you're talking about the 400 wins. He was counting all the matches throughout his life such as Gracie challenges, streetfights, competitions in bjj, sambo, judo etc and his NHB and MMA career. To my knowledge he never claimed those 400 wins were all from pro fights. His father Helio just said in one interview that he didn't consider Rickson's 400 wins as a legit record because they weren't all pro fights, which doesn't really contradict what Rickson said. Nothing close to Dux who made up a phony story about all of his his martial arts experience and military record.

 

This, this, this ^

He has exactly 1 (one) good win, that being an old and somewhat shopworn version of Funaki, under special rules that he demanded. Now, Funaki was a special fighter, so even beating a diminished version of him carries weight imho. Rickson could clearly fight.

But Rickson was not imo, the monster that he was made out to be.

If he was that freaking good, he would have leapt at the chance of facing down Sakuraba and avenging Gracie honour.

He would have leapt at the chance of taking on Bas Rutten when he challenged him, and getting to use his grappling skills against a guy that started as a kickboxer.

It makes no sense to defeat a series of joke opponents and act like the bashful maiden when Saku and Bas want to stomp him.

I can't speak for his BJJ skills. I'm not clued up enough to say whether he was on another level compared to his fellow grapplers. But I can say that his striking sucked balls, and there's footage of him trying to strike with his chin in the air like a target and him looking all stiff legged.

I say he may have been an exceptional grappler but was sadly deficient in other areas which would have made him a less than elite MMA fighter.

 

I dunno, the grappling field was not bad if you consider the elite level wrestlers around at more or less that time. But, it could be that it's a lot deeper now considering the popularity of MMA.

 

They were in contract negotiations to headline a pride card, I believe Pride 12 iirc. During this period Rickson's teenage son was murdered by drug dealers which obviously got the fight scrapped. He was 43 at the time so it's no big lose.