Royce Gracie Vs Damien Maia

The £85 pillow i bought made my neck **** tons worse after 2 weeks... ah well

 

Yea i agree, Royce is a very mediocre black belt

 

Check this video it just breaks down Maias mma bjj

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Yeah, they had tournaments but Royce's age may have been what kept him out. I don't know anything about his eldest brother, Rorion, ever competing in tournaments. The second oldest, Relson, did compete and won whatever the name of the largest tournament(maybe Copa) in Brazil was at the time for several years in a row. After Relson, Rickson represented the family in the tournament for years, which by then was then sponsored by the Copa Company. Relson and Rickson were both undefeated. Relson was known for never having his guard passed in the competition. Rickson was known for winning every match by submission, and always winning his weight division as well as the absolute division. After Relson and Rickson, Royler also competed in the large tournaments.

I really don't know a lot about Royce's competing in sport BJJ. Royce would've been in California at the age which his brothers had been competing in Brazil. Royce's BJJ game was still legit. He was able to train with Rickson and Royler at the same time. He was involved in numerous unsanctioned fights just like the rest of his family. Here is his first meeting with Jason DeLucia, which took place in the Gracie training facility.

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This is Royce submitting DeLucia at UFC 2:

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This is Royce competing in a sport BJJ match against Wallid Ismail in 1998. My mind was blown when this happened. As an MMA fan, I thought Royce was a sure thing going in. The BJJ world knew differently. Ismail was well known in competition circles and had defeated a smaller Renzo years earlier. Royce was also no longer sharpening his skills against his siblings, and was training primarily at his own school. Ismail choked Royce, who refused to tap, unconscious.

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Thanks for the informative post @rekcutnevets

I think after Maia we may very well never see a BJJ purist enjoy the success he's enjoyed, he could very well be the last of a dying breed. Even Souza had to adapt his game. Apart from Aoki who's even more of a purist than Maia.. His striking is literally zero. Who in the last 10 years has had good success with that style? I'm scratching my head to think of anyone.

 

Let's see how well Mackenzie Dern does in women's mma. Her boyfriend, Augustus Mendes, got knocked out cold by Cody No love

 

I wouldn't go as far as calling him a mediocre blackbelt but he wasn't a top dog in the competitive scene nor ever revered for his technique like some of his relatives.

 

Within the bjj community Royce is only considered an 'average' black belt, as was his older brother Rorion and his cousin Carlos Jr. Rickson, Relson, and Royler were viewed as the top dogs from the Helio branch of the family. People outside of bjj think a black belt is a black belt, but there are layers. You have excellent bbs like the Diaz Brothrs. And then you have world class bbs like Ricardo Arona. And above that you have the guys like Werdum, Jacare, Maia, etc, who dominated the bjj scene and then dominate in mma with their grappling.

While its true Royce was dominant with his bjj in his early career, any of the Carlson Gracie guys would have mopped the floor with Royce at the time, along with a bunch of other guys, i.e. Fabio Gurgel, Renzo, Rickson, Ryan Gracie, etc.

Maia would beat Royce in pure grappling, and would wreck him in mma/no holds barred. I doubt Royce could stop the takedown, but even if he could, Maia would probably pull half-guard and then sweep for top control in a New York minute. And from that point Maia has a whole system for using punches and elbows to set up his guard passes. Its a much more sophisticated compared to Royce, who largely used his striking based on instinct.

 

But he got dominated by Matt frickin Hughes!!

 

What's so bad about Royce losing to Matt Hughes?

Hughes was a collegiate standout in freestyle wrestling, so he had a tremendous grappling base, and he was a sponge in adding in the submissions and positional philosophy of bjj from working with Jeremy Horn and Pat Miletich and he matured into a legit black belt.

An older, more shopworn Hughes managed to submit Ricardo Almeida, who was Renzo Gracie's top black belt and was a regular competitor at the ADCC. Actually, Almeida was clearly a far more accomplished black belt than Royce was.

Hughes also showed his chops by grappling on even terms with Serra (another black belt), he passed and mounted on BJ Penn (world champ black belt), and was the only man to submit GSP.

To me, getting mounted and ezecquiel (sp?) choked by Yoshida is way, way worse than losing to Hughes. As a regular bjj competitor myself, I can say that losing by ezequiel choke is the second most embarrassing way to lose (only losing by von flue choke is worse).

 

Fair enough.