Was Royce Graice Really That Great ??

ICB · 04-05-2008 01:05 PM

I seen a few of his fights don't really know much about him can anyone shed some light on him ??

**Julius Rain** · 04-05-2008 05:14 PM

Royce can submit guys weighing 100lbs more than himself and he does that multiple times in one night back in the days they had tournaments, if thats not greatness what is?

**:::PSL:::** · 04-05-2008 05:18 PM

Fwock yeah dude! Royce Gracie is my all-time #1 MMA p4p king.

**njackets** · 04-05-2008 07:58 PM

In his day yes!! Calling him the best P4P in MMA ever is sereously overrating the bloke!! I dont even think he was the best in his family,his brother Rickson would have taken him 2 school and I think Renzo was better overall. He was good in the early days of UFC submitting blokes who had no ground game whatsoever,but the Sport has developed so much sinse then that well.....watch Matt Hughes Vs Royce Graice from a few years back.

**VictorCharlie** · 04-08-2008 09:27 PM

Ok lets look at some things during Royce's most dominant stage. First of all no time limits, the Gi was allowed, no stand ups, instead of fighting in pancrase where the best mma fighters were his family created a orginization and invited very few really trained mma fighters and most fighters didn't even know what a triangle choke was. The fact that he beat multiple fighters who all outweighed him in single nights is very impressive and he can be thanked for bringing the sport to where it is today. He was a great submission fighter, tough as nails and a true pioneer of the sport, but I don't think he'd make it in my top 20 best MMA fightes of all time.

**Heavy D** · 04-08-2008 10:00 PM

Yes and no. By today's standards, he'd be like a B or C level fighter.....good, will pull off some subs, but will never make it big unless he adapts his game.

But for his day, he was unstoppable. He was apparently picked by his family because he was one of the smaller and less intimidating Gracies (unlike Rickson, for example). But he was still able to easily submit most fighters. I attribute it more to their lack of submission D than his prowess, but once again, it was a different fight back then. People expected to see blood and death in the ring, but they got some scrawny guy choking people out without throwing a punch.

So: Yes, definately an all time great, but (as his fight with Hughes showed) he can't hold a flame to today's fighters.