rickson is still viewed by some as "THE" gracie, due to his unbeaten record (11-0 in official fights.......400-0 if you ask him) and just the General mystique about him. personally, i think Renzo is the best gracie, having fought by far the best competion and actually having that "i´ll fight anybody" attitude. sakuraba.....well, what can i say. perhaps the toughest motha that ever lived. perhaps my favorite fighter. so lets say after saku beat royler, rickson would have put his foot down and gone after saku. personally, i think there was a reason rickson didnt. he knew saku would have kept it Standing and take apart ricksons non existent striking game. saku by late tko.
I see no reason to rate Rickson so highly. He's all myth and no substance. Royce for me is the most proven Gracie, followed by Renzo. Sakuraba beat Royce at his own ruleset but ironically lost the first round so maybe without the rule change would never have been the legend he became.. For my money Sakuraba breaks his arms. No doubt Rickson won't tap but he won't be able to defend against Sakurabas attacks either. The Kimura lock takedown Sakuraba landed is the best technical move I've ever seen in MMA.
Rickson Gracie was universally considered to be the most talented competitor in Bjj not just among the gracie clan but the entire world. Also during the gracie challenge era where they would fight luta livre, judoka, karate practitioners etc to prove Gracie dominance Rickson was the top dog. Royce was comparatively a skinny, obscure guy who Rorion Gracie put in the UFC instead of Rickson because he wanted to prove the point that even a relative unaccomplished, non-athletic guy like Royce could dominate the fearsome behemoths with just his Bjj. Had they put Rickson in there it wouldn't have had the same effect because he was physically much stronger than Royce. Those early UFCs were just infomercials for Gracie Jiujitsu in America. Nobody and I mean nobody in the know back then rated Royce above Rickson.
But Rickson is entirely unproven in MMA. Entirely. Would he have had the same success that Royce had? Maybe so but the actual fact is we'll never ever know. We don't know if Rickson could defeat Shamrock, Kimo, Severn. We don't know if he could be a match for Sakuraba. We do know Royce did all of those things.
Well Rickson does have some solid wins, more notably Yuki Nakai who he beat in the 95 Vale tudo japan tournament and Funaki one of the most successful pancrase fighters. Would he have done what Royce did in the early UFCs? I see no reason why he wouldn't, most of the opponents back then didn't even have a basic understanding of submission grappling. Royce's only skills were his bjj and Rickson was far better than Royce in that. The only issue he'd run into would be age because by the time of the Sakuraba fight he'd be about 41 years old.
Nakai is another completely unproven fighter. Funaki has a very questionable record and the fight was fought under special rules. Rickson might well have been the goat in MMA, or atleast in so far as Gracie was considered so for a number of years. But as it was he is an unproven entity. Royce has always said Rickson was the best Gracie, no one is denying that, but he's also one of the least accomplished in MMA. He did a great thing in being part of Pride, he did great things in BJJ according to those inside the fledgling sport but how much credit can we really give him? He had lots of opportunities to fight quality opponents of his era and he turned them down. There isn't even a legit marquee name we can point to him beating. Royce doesn't have a stacked resume but we know what Shamrock and Severn went on to achieve so we have something to work with there. And for a long time it was enough, could Miletich or Sakurai or Newton compete with those names? I say not. Royce is a proven entity in MMA, infact in a p4p sense him and Sakuraba are more proven than most out there as they took part in matches that wouldn't be sanctioned now. I do understand your point of view. Everyone "knows" Rickson was the best Gracie. But we have seen Royce succeed and we haven't seen Rickson do the same.
nakai had just been blinded in one eye and was a far smaller man. the win means next to nothing. Funaki was basically a pro wrestler and mma journeyman. an okay win, but nothing in Terms of mma credentials.
Nakai was a very technically sound shooto based catch wrestler whose grappling skills on film were more advanced than the average of what was in mma at the time. He was just way in over his head vs Rickson. The fight with Funaki had less special rules than what was in some of Royce's fights and the no elbows rule was the standard for most Japanese mma promotions including Pride FC. Rickson was the underdog giving up a decade in age. It was a good win. Pancrase had some funky rules and attire but for the most part could be considered a leading mma promotion in the earlier days of the sport. Funaki was one of the most accomplished fighters in that org, one of the rare Japanese fighters who could consistently beat top level foreigners. Bas Rutten and Ken Shamrock established their careers in Pancrase. If they can be considered legends then so should Funaki.
A lot ppl like to denigrate the old shooto and pancrase fighters like Funaki, I just don't get it. The guy was a beast in his day.
honestly, rickson was better with his mouth than his Actions. rickson was still in the middle of his mma Career when alot of real NHB/MMA starting showing up all over the globe. first the ufc: by 95, rorion and royce were out of the Picture. rickson could have come in and taken over........but he would have had to fight don frye, coleman, Maurice Smith, Randy Couture and Vitor belford. and thats just naming a few. in russia, the absolute fighting Championships came along and produced some extremly scary dudes like vovchanchyn and maxim tarasov, mikhael illoukhine. heck, even at home in brazil there was competion in form of jose Landi jons, who was regarded as the best Vale tudo fighter in around 97. then there was Marco ruas who´s style of Vale tudo made him "king of the streets".........and he was ricksons age. so what does rickson do? he talks **** about coleman, he talks **** about ruas...........but he never fights ANYONE!!! instead he goes to Japan to fight in a tournament which was a joke even by 95 standarts. so basically, even when rickson was Young enough, there was a TON of great fighters around. but instead of fighting them, he just talked and talked and talked. thats cowardly. gym fights dont count. they never have. claiming a 400-0 record that nobody could verify ........ a record even his father laughed at. so ranking him above royce is complete nonsense.
It's not about denigrating the Pancrase guys. It's about being unsure how legit the fights were and how different they'd be without the rope break ruleset and palm strikes.
We are at polar opposites on Nakai as he isn't proven enough for me to consider him a great win. Funaki was a good win, don't get me wrong, but beating him isn't enough evidence for me.
