It has been a rough couple of months for the Gracie family.
After coming up short against Tim Kennedy in his Octagon debut back in July, Roger Gracie was not offered a new contract from Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Over in World Series of Fighting (WSOF), Rolles Gracie was recently knocked out (wooooo) by Derrick Mehmen while Gregor Gracie came up short on the judges' scorecards against Rich Patishnock.
Even Renzo Gracie was defeated his last time out, a technical knockout loss to Matt Hughes way back at UFC 112.
That's because they were putting too much mixed in their martial arts, according to legendary UFC fighter Royce Gracie, who told MMA Fighting they need to get back into the gym and concentrate on what got them to the game in the first place, instead of trying to be a jack of all trades and master of none.
"Jiu-jitsu is enough. I've trained boxing in the past to learn the distance, trained wrestling to understand how he would take me down, but I won't get there to fight my opponent's game. The (new) guys (from the Gracie) family want to complement their game, like if jiu-jitsu was incomplete. I guess they forgot a little about history. I do jiu-jitsu my whole life, so why would I try to stand and bang with Mike Tyson? I'm going to learn boxing in six months because my opponent is good in boxing? That makes no sense. Roger, like any other member of the family, is trying to learn wrestling, boxing. I believe in pure jiu-jitsu. That's what I've done in the past. You have to go back to your roots and train Gracie jiu-jitsu."
Jiu-jitsu was "enough" in the old days, no doubt about it.
Being able to befuddle his foes helped Gracie win his first 11 fights inside the Octagon. Unfortunately, it was not enough to help him as time wore on, as evidenced by his high-profile losses to Kazushi Sakuraba and Matt Hughes. In addition, the fight game has evolved since Gracie was king of the cage.
But Royce still insists his family should devolve and get back to basics.
Anyone disagree?
Get the latest gear
