Royce Gracie Quotes

The guy’s operation was locked up tighter than a Royce Gracie shoulder hold. This little situation was the Golden Goose taking a big fat dump right in their laps.

To me, vale tudo is different from MMA because there are many more possibilities, both good and bad. Until an opportunity presents itself, one has to fight defensively, as Royce did against Dan Severn in UFC 4. Severn weighed 260 pounds and was on top of my brother for sixteen minutes before Royce caught him in a triangle choke from his back. According to today's rules, Royce could never have own that fight. The ref would have stood them up again after five minutes on the ground. MMA is a game; vale tudo is a war.

Look at Royce's fight with Kimo. You see the pace of that fight and you can watch Royce get drawn in and exhausted. And then you look at Royce's fight against Dan Severn in the next event, and you see a very different Royce. You see a very different approach, in terms of how he dealt with a big, powerful guy who's on top and who's not wearing the gi. You see the classical tactical deployment of patience as a strategy. And that's the thing: that's what Jiu-Jitsu is. That's what it's supposed to be.

There's a story that Royce won the Ultimate Fighting Championship on Friday and was back cleaning the toilets at the Academy in Torrance on Monday... which is an exaggeration, certainly, but it probably isn't far off.