"If everybody counted fights like Rickson, I would have over 1 million [victories]" -Helio Gracie, Rickson's own father Basically implied that Rickson would use sparring, practice bouts, and amature fights to largely inflate his fight record
@@bruno7735 Bro at that time was art against art. He fought wrestles at streets and street fighters. It was all to prove bjj efficiency in that type of situation...
I respect him as an early pioneer for MMA,..in my opinion Royce and Renzo are the true warriors ,they took the tougher fights ...fights that I don't think other Family members including Rickson wanted to take .Rickson took fights against ,no bodies,no names ,no records .Look it up on the internet don't take my word 😅.
In the 80’s and early 90’s there wasn’t much to do, no devices to keep you busy. I’m sure 450 is a round about number of all meaningful matches he’s had. If you want to count rolls, that’s in the thousands! He’ll forever be a Legend.
A lot of people who held "80s record" in all sports, even video gaming have been proven to have been lying. When there is no official record they can't be believed. Simple
@@BuJammyno rickson Gracie never lost a fight in 9 years his gang would fight in a tourney vs other gangs n the winner gsng would b able to hangout at the mall in the AC they picked rickson to fight for the gang every Friday night n he didnt lose in 9 years never lost ppl would find out who he was n no they didn't want to fight him they loved him
80s had the best music and best movies. 90s and 2000s had best games it developed it all. Ps1 and n64 games were a lot to do. He wasnt a gamer likely but he was rich, his family went to do surfing, sky diving wing delta, among other stuff.
I went to school in Torrance w Rockson(hocksoon) in like 92-93 and he was a good kid. He was small but always stuck up for his friends. Seen him July 4th in Hermosa the last time I seen him he was cool as f. He never used his family fame to big shot anyone and was always just a cool kid on his rollerblades. All the lies about him are unfounded and I loved the little dude he was like a grade under me but hung w the big kids even tho he was small. Hope his dad is proud n knows his son loved him.
I lived in Rio in the 80's. Everybody back then was afraid or at least respected Gracie. He counts his BJJ matches, Vale-Tudo fights, street fights and Dojo fights. The man is 64 yo,
The DisGracies were just trained thugs that lied and cheated their way to the top. BJJ is a fine sport bay they had to send teams of goons with pipes to end the careers of the catch wrestlers that were defeating them. Then they took the LAPD article “most police arrest go to the ground” and twisted it to most fights… bla bla. An actual study was done and it’s actual more like 30% go to the ground and 10% if your talking about then going to the ground on purpose. They played gait keepers in the early UFC so certain fighters and styles were prohibited from fighting. But the biggest lie is calling their ground judo, jujitsu. Its not and never was. Maeda never took a Jujitsu class in his life. It was called judo long before he set sail to spread judo. He called it jujitsu because he knew he mad an oath not to prize fight or teach foreigners. Which he did and was not allowed to ever get higher rank in the sport ever again. It’s a good thing he turned away from Sakarabe’s challenge. He would of defeated Hoyce and Rickson in the same evening.
You do realize Judo comes from Jiu-Jitsu and was known as Kano Jiu Jitsu right back then right ? Secondly, Royce still defeated guys much stronger than him and even beat wrestlers like Shamrock and Severn.
Nobody denies his skills and strength but look at who he chose to fight when there were guys like Fedor, Don Frye, Sakuraba, Ken Shamrock, Shogun Rua, Frank Shamrock, Antonio Noguiera, Cro Cop, Wanderlei Silva, Mark Coleman etc and you never fought one of them. He never fought one champion, that says a lot.
Maybe his record is an exaggeration or maybe it's informal challenge matches, because this is not about MMA, but regardless, he is one of the greatest modern warrior legends of our time. He and his brother Royce changed everything. His grappling is almost supernatural. Pure perfection and art form.
@@scarred10 I watched the interview, and his father def didn't said Rickson was lying. He said Rickson counts informal challenges in the gym as fights, and if him, Helio, woud count his fights this way, le would have a million fights.
@@marctoleds6259 exactly,he said they were not fights.They were not challenges either,they were sparring matches against his own students mostly,and grappling matches,not vale tudo or any type of fight.Helio is no one to be believed either
If you're 40 and started training at 10 and had some sort of combat once a month for 30 years you'd have 360 fights. If someone has that I would assume the majority of the fights ended quickly.
@@MetalsirenIXI thai fighters will start keeping fight records as young as like eight and treat it in the young days more like high-school sports matches just weeks apart
@@saulghim2661, When my mom passed away, I couldn't play video games anymore, because she used to tell me how I was playing frogger at three years old, and all these other memories, so I went nearly ten years without playing video games, I would buy a new game, and never play it. Most likely his son was always there to root him on, during his fights, and he felt an emptiness, and stopped fighting.
Wow, I guess he forgot all of the rules he insisted upon before the fight....like the ones a lot of his family members require. Starting with Helio and how Kimura could have treated his body like a couple of BBQ sticks.
It doesn't really matter, but why did he keep refusing Sakuraba and Bas Rutten for years? The Gracie family is really good at two things: jiu-jitsu and marketing.
He was planning on fighting Sakuraba but the sudden death of his son caused him to retire. As a father myself, I can't imagine what a loss like that would do to someone.
Because he couldn’t actually win a single fight if he didn’t pay them to take a dive. Gracie family is the biggest cash cow in history and that is worth far more to a lot of people, so his record stands.
There's simply no evidence of him being in that many fights. Is he counting schoolyard brawls and the guy he puked at the mall? Even then it's outlandish.
That Gracie’s don’t lose that BJJ is the greatest martial art… it’s not and it’s not the best art for self defense pull guard on concrete tell me how that goes
@@greywolf850 am a black belt in kick boxing and a purple belt in jiujitsu, if in 2023 you are going to discuss jiujitsu you are doing something wrong. greetings.
@oldgamer umm 🤔 I just it’s BJJ as the greatest martial art is a myth so I’m discussing anything just stating truth about the overrated nature of BJJ it’s a myth
Mario Sperry had 300 fights. That’s just how it was in Brazil through the ‘80s and ‘90s. They had hundreds of Dojo Challenge matches as well as Vale Tudo fights.
Here is a more important consideration: I challenge you to find anyone, anywhere that has fought or rolled with Rickson that didn't admit that they had NO Defense against him and they were easily beaten. That includes MMA fighter, world BJJ and ADCC champions, Olympic judo players, Olympic and NCAA wrestlers, anyone. Find one. I don't think you will.
Yes ...I heard once Henry akins that he had lined up around 30 black belts and told them he was going to catch all of them with this same armbar and he did....that's impressive. I met the dude in Brazil once, the guy oozed confidence and calm that I rarely seen or felt...small guy not impressive physically....
I am reading the comments, and let me say, that the number of fights doesn't matter, what matters is that nobody can say that he beat Rickson in his era, during that time he was the best BJJ fighter, and his still a role model for a lot of people, that you need to respect.
I just finished his book and my personal interpretation of the man’s legacy doesn’t appear to be based on the number of fights or even wins he’s accumulated. His approach to life is beautiful and his respect for martial arts is something many of the modern day entertainers could learn a lot from. Really inspiring guy
All I'm going to say about this topic is that even his own father, Helio, once made a remark about Rickson's record. Helio basically quipped, _"is he counting sparring matches, because if so, then I over a million fights."_ By the way, I remember his record being 400 when he retired after Rockson's death. Where'd these extra 50 matches come from?
Rickson has been an Idol of mine for quite some time, his calmness always inspired me during my JJ matches to keep cool and relaxed, and always try and find a solution to win! I have 2 posters from the first PRIDE event and one with a big picture of Rickson from Vale-Tudo 1995 hanging in my college dorm rn!
Over 400 wins? Idk ,but fights yea it’s very possible one time I spared with this Muay Thai guy who had over 300 fights under his belt with wins and loss..
Watch how great Rickson fights, the level of his opponents, his friends and familys opinion and Ricksons confidence and humility and cautious attitude. There’s no doubting his record. Some people doubt his record simply it’s because of their own personal experience.
Rickson turned down 2 million dollars to fight the Axe Murderer when he was champ of Pride. It would have been by far the biggest payday in history! He knew he would lose.
In the Hulk movie that featured Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, he was hiding out in Brazil. During one scene, Bruce was being taught the breathing methods to lower his heart rate by Rickson. During the sequence, Rickson would unexpectedly slap Bruce from time to time while Bruce would monitor his heart rate to make sure it wouldn't exceed 200 bpm.
Rickson is an enigma of the early days of MMA and certainly no less a pioneer than his brother Royce in that regard. However, he had an irritating tendency to criticize other fighters and tout his own horn, long after he actively competed. He even talked smack about Fedor. As far as MMA goes: Let’s be real, he never faced any other of the early greats and top competitors. Especially as the sport started advancing towards the end of the 90's early 2000's. His best opponents arguably were Yuki Nakai (tough as nails, but also very undersized) and Funaki. All his other MMA wins were against substantially worse fighters (including Takada twice). I respect Rickson Gracie for his contributions and historical significance for the early Japanese MMA scene. But his silly record keeping (which even his father made fun of) and his tendency to talk smack about guys, who he had no intention to fight, gives me the Frank Dux vibes. I wish, he at least would have fought Marco Ruas (because of the Luta Livre rivalry), Sakuraba (for obvious reasons) and either Mark Coleman or Mark Kerr (who’s styles he was very dismissive of). All of these fights would have been interesting. Edit: And as far as this 450 number goes ..... c'mon guys. Back in the day, fabricating records for a sport, that didn't even formally exist and had no oversight whatsoever, was child's play .... and many guys came up with imaginitive records. Rei Zulu (who was a Brazilian pro wrestler BTW) also claimed 270 obscure wins. Meanwhile at Tapology, he rocks a 2-6 record ...... lol.
@@bulldogjoe1804 That would have been like the ultimate style match up. But I think, it might have been a rough outing for Rickson. MMA was fast moving in these early years, and Bas Rutten, Igor Vovchanchyn and Maurice Smith belong on the Mount Rushmore of earliest successful MMA strikers.
@@MightyJabroni I still think that Rickson was supposed to fight in the first UFC but either he was scared or the Cracie's did not think he would be succesful. They made it a great story by saying they chose Royce cause he was smaller and wanted to prove that size did not matter in those fights. Royce was amazing but the opponents in that first UFC were nothing special besides Gordeau. For me Royce is the true legend when it comes to the Gracie's. I also love the stories about Rolls. Rickson was called the baddest man on the planet when Bas openly challenged him twice in Japan but Rickson declined to fight him. Bas said he wanted to know if he could beat the best fighter in the world but I think he just wanted to show everybody that Rickson had a big mouth and no respect for other fighters. Rickson's popularity in Japan dropped like a brick after Bas humiliated him in front of millions of viewers for not accepting the challenge or even coming face to face with Bas in the ring when Rickson was in the audience. Rickson is a legend in BJJ no doubt but in MMA he just is not. His record is based on questionable streetfights and those Gracie challenges that were a farce.
0:10 His own dad (Helio Gracie) is on video tape saying his record is BS, and that he counts training matches as fights! What else needs to be said to shut the believers down... and up?! If you can't get your own family to believe your bull... feel me?! Ask yourself 1 why did Rorion Gracie tell the guy that was in charge of finding 'fighters' for UFC 1 'no wrestlers'?! They could have easily not only got Alexander Karelin for UFC 1, but let's say they couldn't for whatever reason. Go to Russia and challenge him! 2 in all the 'dojo storming' they did in the 90s, the 2 places they never dare go to: the Kodokan in japan, the U of Iowa! Why?! I dare say, they knew some straight monsters were waiting for them.
I don't know about his record, it's not what i consider most significant. He's alleged to have never lost which for someone who has no doubt had many fights is significant. Most people run their mouths about him one way or another but basically nobody ever talks about actually watching him fight. It's very noticeable to me while watching him fight that he has something beyond what the other Gracies have. He never fought what people consider the best modern fighters but one shouldn't forget that he's quite a bit older than those guys. Age is a very big factor in sports but still he fought up until he was almost 50 years old
There is a judo champion from Poland, Paweł Nastula. He won 312 fights in a row (including world championship and Olimpic gold medal) in 3,5 years. So its not hard to believe that Rickson won 450 in whole his life.
Yeah and a lot of these brazilian NHB / Vale Tudo fighters claimed they won in hundred or even thousands of street fights 😂 Some of the Gracie's did this, Marco Ruas also did this and Bas Rutten also, although he wasn't brazilian 😅
For those of you out there claiming that he is including street fights so its possible; nobody could have that many street fights and survive. Somehow they were all one on one so that he can take them to the ground and nobody landed a knockout punch before his takedown attempt, no one pulled a knife while on the ground and stabbed him in the kidneys, or eye gouged him as hard as they could? Come on.
Rickson is a great martial artist and was a great fighter, but this is misleading. He only has that record because he hid from Sakuraba and refused to fight him. After Sakuraba beat Royler Gracie he called out Rickson and Rickson ran back to Brazil and hid under his bed.
If you’ve been around or dealt with Rickson Gracie and watched him roll, you know he’s at the top of Mount Rushmore in the fight world. I watched him literally submit an entire class of very solid blue belts using only his legs. Zero hands.
@@MMABJJChamps Dont get me wrong. He is a legend in BJJ but MMA no. He got saved twice by his father against Ruas with all kinds of extra demands and rules and Bas openly challenged him in Japan at Pancrase when Rickson was in the audience and again in Pride 3.
Rickson claiming 450 is probably a humble, conservative estimate. Fighting since he was 6, you don’t think he’s accumulated 450 wins? How many fights in a tournament? How many tournaments a year? For 50 years? That’s on 6 fights a year. Do the math. I bet its tens of thousands of matches.
Many of his fights occurred before records were kept. For sure the UFC wouldn't qualify many of these wins, but those were the types of fights available in that moment of history. At that point in history it would be possible for him to achieve those numbers since he was greatly ahead of the times. I would say it's not completely reflective of Rickson but also of bjj in that moment of time.
So how were there records of every single fight for his father and all his uncles 50 yrs before him,none of them counted grappling matches and sparring students as fights.
David Levicki 6'3 271 lbs (Modern Heavyweight class, and a BIG heavyweight.) Vs Rickson Gracie 187 lbs (Modern Middleweight) and Rickson destroyed all of these heavyweights. Nuff said.
Levecki was a completely useless man,could not strike could not wrestle,no groundwork training and never had an nhb fight before.He wasnt even a good athlete.
@@MMABJJChampsI saw the list at the time,they were as I said not fights but just training matches and a few untrained clowns that challenged him,almost none were vale tudo
Rickson never said anything about MMA. There was no such thing as MMA. Rickson “prime” was the 1980s. Many were closed door challenge matches defending his family. Think of it like this… Guys like Jack Dempsey had a pro record, but he also fought hundreds of unofficial fights in mining towns that weren’t recorded.
Yes, probably. I want to say first that I think that Ricksons skills were special and his ideas about breathing, meditation and learning to stay calm in very difficult situations can help anyone in there daily life. I have heard him state reasons he never fought Saku. I don’t know if it completely true. All I know is Saku would fight anyone at any weight and any rules the Gracie’s came up with and won. By everyone’s account Rickson was the best best Graci. He may have beat Saku on any given night, it would have been great to see. But anyone who still tells you he has no loses definitely doesn’t take on someone who had the skills and track record of Sakuraba and risk a losing to him. It would have been too devastating to take the chance. That’s why I give him the L
The Gracie family is either a love/hate topic and there's a lot of negative press, but those who have practiced BJJ understand how difficult it is to achieve a black belt. Many mock the belt system claiming that they are hard to obtain because they try to take people's money to keep them coming back for more. I studied BJJ for years and to me it's legit because even a blue belt is very difficult to defeat with or without a gi. Jiu-Jitsu brought a whole new skill set to MMA and everyone adds it to their arsenal now. How would Don Frye in his prime match up with the top UFC fighters today? Hard to say, but MMA has completely changed and fighters have become better overall as a result I feel. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions.
There's no denying that he's a great grappler, but the alleged 450-0 record is obviously just an exaggeration intended for marketing. Whenever someone claims that they've had hundreds of fights and NEVER been defeated, there are only two possibilities: They are either really good at picking their opponents or flat-out lying.
@@MMABJJChamps The thing is most people forget that even masters were once beginners. So I find it highly unlikely that he's never ever lost a fight even back when he was still young and inexperienced.
Doesn't matter how much...he is the best of best...so,when u best of the best...what claim is more than being best of the best?!u proved it in front of millions human being...
He was old school and didn’t video his achievements. This is how they were raise. This new world of recording everything is a sickness. He experienced it. A difference
I started training in 1999 at a Gracie Training association in SoCal. I’m a black belt now but the fact that I accepted a challenge from a wrestler in my high school I was a freshman he was a senior and fought him is how I got my blue belt. There was no time limit, no weight class and the only rules were no biting eye gouging. Groin was legal. I was 15 years old. I choked him out in 19 seconds with a guillotine. I went on in my adult years to compete MMA and Muay Thai and had a very fruitful career. Didn’t make a lot of money but racked up 18 professional fights and 12 in Muay Thai. But even tho my fight at 15 doesn’t count as pro it was still a fight! One I’m proud of and was most memorable for me. Too many people only see UFC as “real” fighting and they are the same ones who will never go fight a mma fight and probably never had a street fight.
@@MMABJJChamps How about the fact that they couldn't come up with one eyewitness who saw Rickson lose a fight? They couldn't even come up with someone who SPOKE to an eyewitness who ever saw Rickson lose a fight. In the beginning of the tape they say, "Some people say this is a lie" or some such thing, but they don't mention who said it was a lie. WHO is questioning it? What are their names? No one on camera saying, "I don't believe Rickson." So, I don't think anyone can prove he ever lost a match. The question is, did he fight that many times? Were ALL those 450 bouts full-on, all-out brawls? Probably not. Still, to go through your whole life as a fighter, and to never have tasted defeat, is pretty remarkable.
He avoided him..with good reason..Sakuraba went on and made somewhat of a mockery of the Gracies and Rickson didn't fight him to protect the family honor either. Sakuraba wiped the floor with Royce.
Thank you for this video. Please note at the time of this writing, Rickson Gracie continues to wear the 8th-degree red and black coral belt. He was honored by his older brother Rorion Gracie to the rank of the 9th-degree red belt; however, Rickson at the time and currently does not meet the age standards for the red belt under the regulations of the Jiu Jitsu Global Federation (JJGF). Therefore, he still wears the coral belt.
Something tells me you do not train and have never done Jiu Jitsu. I could be wrong, but this is a White Belt comment. Thanks for thinking you need to teach us. Anyone who knows anything about Rickson and follows him knows this and watched the same videos you did. Thanks for “helping.”
@@samuraisteve2775 Your comments are misguided and I am 100% correct. Jiu Jitsu Global Federation founders: Rickson Gracie, Carlos Gama and Tony Pacenski.
@@TonyPacenski You are not paying attention. I said your comment was a waste of time for anyone who knows anything about Master Rickson. Pay attention a little better and you’ll get that Blue Belt one day.
All good. You wrote this, "samuraisteve2775 3 months ago Something tells me you do not train and have never done Jiu Jitsu. I could be wrong, but this is a White Belt comment." @@samuraisteve2775 - take the latter part of you comment; You are wrote!
