In a bizarre sequence of events not unlike a bad rip-off of Mortal Kombat, you are told that you must select a champion to fight in a vale tudo tournament on your behalf. Rules are to be UFC 1 standard. 8 man single elimination. The catch: If your champion loses the tournament, you will be executed. And you're only allowed to pick a fighter from the era immediately before UFC 1. So if you pick Ken Shamrock, for example, he has to be the pre-UFC 1, 1993 version of Shamrock. Your opponent will also pick pre-UFC 1, pre-1993 fighters to fill the remaining slots in the 8 man tournament. Neither of you will know which one the other picked, so there's no strategic selection going on. But no duplicates will be allowed (in the event of a duplicate pick, yours will take priority, and the tournament organizers will pick a substitute for the final 8th guy.) Whom do you select, and why?
Top pick. Never even thought of him. I was gonna say my man Igor Vovchanchyn but I see he started in 1995. So if I can't have him I reckon maybe I pick Marco Ruas. He was doing valetudo before UFC and he's a well rounded, powerful fighter.
Rickson is not a bad choice under these circumstances, IMO. A lot of the Gracie smoke and mirrors about his abilities is a mark against him compared to modern fighters, or even fighters a few years beyond UFC 1, but 80s / early 90s Rickson had more no holds barred experience than pretty much anyone else in the world. And he beat better guys under those rules than most other people active at that time, considering the limitations on publicly fighting in anything like MMA.
Man I'm in two minds about Rickson Gracie. One the one hand you can see his jiujitsu skills are totally legit and all the other Gracies say he was the best of them. On the other hand I'm not too impressed with his almost total lack of legitimate MMA opposition and the way he does standup is just ... awkward. He'd be reliant on getting it to the ground asap or I think he might have problems, especially if the other guy has some TDD and striking skills. If he'd fought and beaten Sakuraba and say Rutten I wouldn't have a 'but' to say about him.
I think it's one of those things where you don't have to be faster than the bear chasing you; just the other guy who's also running away. I can't think of many qualified, experienced MMA guys available pre-UFC 1 for Rickson to fight. He took on Zulu in the 80s, and the early crop of pro wrestlers and such afterward. The first 4 UFCs demonstrated that BJJ could beat people unfamiliar with it -- even later champions like Shamrock. Plus, there are the streetfights that they preserved on film, or were documented, against professional fighters (the beach fight, the pro wrestler he pulverized and tossed at the Japanese media cameras.) Not exactly a normal record, but there wasn't really the opportunity for building a normal record back then. It's one of those things where the real question is, who should he have fought before 93? Who was better qualified to fight him *at that time*? The only guy I can think of is Ruas, who's also a good pick above. EDIT: Also, yes, his standup gives me cancer.
Maybe. He did have that one match with the pro wrestler Maeda which was probably a work but he looked really slow and ponderous w/ no striking instincts. Some guys look the part but can’t translate their abilities well to another combat sport. Pure Greco also isn’t a good base for mma.
I’d pick Mike Tyson. His low centre of gravity and athleticism would make it easier to teach him TDD.