Rickson Gracie FAQ

I don't know if this thread is still being minuets
Monitored or not, but I have a Rickson question...

I have read that Erik Paulson trained with Rickson, Royce, and Rorion, in late 80s early 90s, but after Erick lost in the World Combat Championships in 95, Rickson refused to train him anymore and forbade him to teach BJJ anymore. (Afterwards he just started to train with the Machado brothers).

I don't know how true this is or if someone could elaborate on this, or clarify this story at all, but any further information would be great!
 
Not a comprehensive list as it's quite old (in fact my instructor is now a red and black.) I think it's from the old bjj.org pic that listed everyones lineage? Anyway, I have, as Rickson's BB's...

Henry Akins
Leandro Almeida
Octavio de Almeida
Romolo Barros
Marcelo Behring
Luiz Claudio Augusto Goncalves
Mauricio Costa
Wellington "Megaton" Dias
Luis "Limao" Heredia
David Kama
Luiz Palhares
Jorge Pereira
Fabio Santos
Pedro Sauer
Chris Saunders
Leandro Sotero
David Terry
Rodrigo Vaghi
Carlos Valente
Takamasa Watanabe

Of course, since this list, I want to say Rani Yayha and Kron. Others?
Just a sidenote; Octavio de Almeida and Marcelo Behring received their black belts from their fathers though they are often reported as having been promoted by Rickson. They were of an age and though they may have trained with Rickson at one tiime or another it is highly unlikely he was their master. Also, Carlos Valente, Pedro Sauer, Fabio Santos and Luiz Palhares all trained with Carlson and/or Rolls. Many of them including Jacare Cavalcante identified more closely with Rolls as he was nearer their age than Carlson and upon Rolls passing students generally continued their training under either Carlson, Jacare, Carlos Jr., Rickson or Osvaldo Alves. I believe Jorge Pereira was a student of Marcelo Behring, Flavio Behring and Alvaro Barreto and upon Marcelo's passing eventually began to train with Rickson. And some went with other academies but I believe history shows these are the main schools they went with.
 
Not to mention the fact that both Royce and Royler were significantly smaller than Saku and that it was Ryan's second fight vs Saku's 16th.

Renzo was Saku's only really good Gracie win really. Same size and both were experienced.

Saku for sure was bigger than Royler, but Royce and Saku are about the same size from what I can find.

Saku 180 cm & 83 kg (85 kg in rematch)
Royce 183 cm & 80 kg (85 kg in rematch)

Saku was gold. No need to discredit his accomplishments with made up stuff.
Royce only beat Saku after taking steroids and still Sherdog, Rossen, and most fans consider Saku getting ripped off in the 2nd match.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazushi_Sakuraba_vs._Royce_Gracie
 
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Saku for sure was bigger than Royler, but Rayce and Saku are about the same size from what I can find.

Saku 180 cm & 83 kg (85 kg in rematch)
Rayce 183 cm & 80 kg (85 kg in rematch)

Saku was gold. No need to discredit his accomplishments with made up stuff.
Royce only beat Saku after taking steroids and still Sherdog, Rossen, and most fans consider Saku getting ripped off in the 2nd match.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazushi_Sakuraba_vs._Royce_Gracie

Saku the gracie hunter, he beats Royler, Royce, Renzo (he broke his arm with a kimura lock ), I dunno if he fought Ryan Gracie
 
Saku the gracie hunter, he beats Royler, Royce, Renzo (he broke his arm with a kimura lock ), I dunno if he fought Ryan Gracie

Saku fought and beat Ryan by dec back in 2000 at PRIDE 12.
 
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If the Gracies didn't teach it, someone else would have come up with something similar whether it be a more newaza based Judo system, Sambo or adaptation of catch wrestling. Most likely all three if not more systems would have adapted to meet the challenge. The fact is whenever someone sees something working they will either learn it, copy it or adjust to it. Fighting is fighting whether it is one on one or country against country. Innovation is an inevitable and so is adaptation and modification of what works. Especially with nationalistic pride the way it is there would have been adaptation to beat the Gracies if they were winning but not teaching outsiders their system.

Maybe I'm reading too much into what you are saying, but I believe you to be wrong here.
Progress and innovation does not just happen. It’s not an idea problem; it’s a recognition problem. Maybe someone would have brought something similar to the Gracies' and made it as popular, then maybe not. Maybe mma never would have become a big sport if the Gracies' were taken out of the equation.

We wouldn't have the particular innovations we have today without the very specific people that brought them to us. It's not that those things happen no matter what. Consider plenty of the good ideas such as digital cameras (Kodak inventor, Sony made it a thing) or the personal computer (Xerox invented it but Apple made it into what it became). Now imagine all the things that are good, invented but that just never catch on and get passed on into oblivion. For most of human history there was slim to none innovation to speak of.

That being said; I think that even though the Gracies' wouldn't have thought JJ outside of the "clan" but if we had a similar growth of mma globally, in this electronic age we would still have grapplers matching them. That is, if they did introduce it and others recognized it, the evolution could happen indipendent of the Gracies'. Saku did beat most of them and he had no BJJ background, and today with everything being filmed / on video it is easier to evolve independently. It wouldn't be GJJ, but it could still be great grappling. Much like sport BJJ is different from GJJ and has evolved for mma and BJJ tournaments.

End of rant and sorry to steal it away from the great work of DK in bringing us info on Rickson.
If DK is still here, do you know if Rickson regrets not being more involved in mma "fighting-wise" or if he has no regrets regarding that. Did he wish he had gotten to do the early UFC run for example?
He's done more than enough, that's for sure. There is no doubt there.
 
Can someone explain the Rickson Gracie breathing/diaphragm control exercises he has often been shown doing? Any good resources available online to understand the benefits and maybe learn to do it?
 
Yes. Rickson's mother was in fact the maid at their house, and not Margarida. The maid was caled Belinha. Margarida was unable to have children so Helio convinced her to pretend she was pregnant, even by wearing fake foam bellies under her clothes, while the maid had his children. Thus were born Rorion, Relson and Rickson.

The other children, Robin, Royce and Royler, were born of Vera, while he was still married and living with Margarida. Rickson only found out about his brothers and that his father had a parallel family when he was already a teenager.

As it turns out, Helio and Carlos were always outspoken about sex and reproduction as a purely natural act and their desire to form a clan, so within the family it was accepted after a while. Carlos himself had many children from several women, and Carlos Gracie Jr. being born of his best friend's wife is not exactly normal.

Still, in time the brothers considered themselves true brothers, ignoring the fact that they had different mothers. Helio continued loving and being loved by both wives, though Margarida suffered from depression due to her inability to bear children. When she died, Vera moved in with Helio and was with him until he died last year.

Nowadays Rickson's closest brother is Royler, even though they are only half-brothers who didn't know of each other's existence thoughout their childhood.
Here she is.

Kauan Gracie Reveals Photos of Ms. Belinha: The Woman That Changed Martial Arts History
 
I don't know if this thread is still being minuets
Monitored or not, but I have a Rickson question...

I have read that Erik Paulson trained with Rickson, Royce, and Rorion, in late 80s early 90s, but after Erick lost in the World Combat Championships in 95, Rickson refused to train him anymore and forbade him to teach BJJ anymore. (Afterwards he just started to train with the Machado brothers).

I don't know how true this is or if someone could elaborate on this, or clarify this story at all, but any further information would be great!
Paulson taught Rickson leglocks and can be considered one of his Catch instructors, as well as being a student of his in BJJ.
We all know that after Catch guys like Paulson and Ken Shamrock introduced leg locks to modern BJJ fighters like Bravo, they have run with it.
 
Ok but who is the handsome devil in that photo? Carlos?

Also, first Schwarzenegger, then Rickson? A-level maid genetics confirmed.

I'm not sure if you're serious, but it's Rickson, his mom, his first wife Kim, and I assume their daughters.
 
I don't know why I thought that was someone else...

Apparently the kids are Rockson and Kauan
I thought it might be Rockson. I wasn't sure of their age gap.
He went and trained at the place I trained in Japan in the early 2000s. Those were the DAYS. I never met Rockson, he died just a few months before I got there, but I met and trained with Schembri, Daniel Gracie, and Ryan Gracie, RIP. My coach from then, Mario Sergio Yokoyama, was a brown belt under Rickson at the time (got promoted to black from Ryan, one of his few black belts), and was a very close friend of Rockson. Rickson was deeply depressed after Rockson died. He couldn't train for over a year, and ended up going off and spending a lot of time alone in Brazil, just back to nature. That's the true reason the Sakuraba fight never happened.
 
I think he simply wanted to get paid what he felt he was worth. He WAS the king of the hill at the time and greatly admired in Japan. He had already retired before MMA got "big". People talk about a "retired" Funaki. Well, Rickson was basically retired as well. Oh...and Funaki was 10 years YOUNGER than Rickson (41 vs. 31) and 20 pounds HEAVIER (205 vs 185.) He was also very active in '97 and '98 with a couple of fights in '99 to boot. Rickson fought once in '97 and once in '98. If either fighter should have been considered retired it's Rickson. Rickson existed in a world BEFORE MMA. He STARTED Pride. He STARTED the Japan Vale Tudo's. He was also in negotiations to fight Sakuraba when Rockson died at which point he said it wasn't worth it (in late 2000...at the age of 42.) He would have fought Bas in a heartbeat if the money was right but he was already done. What was he supposed to do? Fight every guy that called him out into his 50's? I think people that say Rickson "ducked" fighters are off their freaking rockers.
Funaki might have been reported at 205, but I highly doubt that was his actual weight. He was almost always in the 180's. Japanese MMA was always very strange about weight-reporting back in the day. Basically, they generally didn't care so they'd just go with a number they got from somewhere, sometime.

But I agree about Rickson not ducking guys; Funaki was one of the best of his time and Rickson took a major risk in fighting him, even if it was towards the end of Funaki's long career. And Funaki was a legitimate innovator in grappling; he used the so-called K-guard all the time, for example, not to mention all the fancy leg positions people have a million names for nowadays. Yuki Nakai was using butterfly guard when tons of people didn't even know what it was and he's another guy Rickson fought that he didn't have to. Koichiro Kimura was multiple-time SAW heavyweight champion, i.e., one of the few no-gi grappling champions in the world at the time he fought Rickson, and actually, an MMA champion as well, because he won a SAW tournament that featured open-handed strikes and kicks as well (I believe I have the DVD of it somewhere). Yamamoto never had the best record, but he gave Kiyoshi Tamura all he could handle early in his career and also definitely understood the ground game.

Rickson actually fought an unusual amount of people who were actually educated on ground-fighting during his 10-fight MMA career. He fought a Shooto champion, a Pancrase champion and a SAW champion. And in each case, he fought arguably the cream of each of those crops. Only in the case of Yamamoto did he not fight someone who was inarguably a legend of his promotion.
 
Funaki might have been reported at 205, but I highly doubt that was his actual weight. He was almost always in the 180's. Japanese MMA was always very strange about weight-reporting back in the day. Basically, they generally didn't care so they'd just go with a number they got from somewhere, sometime.

But I agree about Rickson not ducking guys; Funaki was one of the best of his time and Rickson took a major risk in fighting him, even if it was towards the end of Funaki's long career. And Funaki was a legitimate innovator in grappling; he used the so-called K-guard all the time, for example, not to mention all the fancy leg positions people have a million names for nowadays. Yuki Nakai was using butterfly guard when tons of people didn't even know what it was and he's another guy Rickson fought that he didn't have to. Koichiro Kimura was multiple-time SAW heavyweight champion, i.e., one of the few no-gi grappling champions in the world at the time he fought Rickson, and actually, an MMA champion as well, because he won a SAW tournament that featured open-handed strikes and kicks as well (I believe I have the DVD of it somewhere). Yamamoto never had the best record, but he gave Kiyoshi Tamura all he could handle early in his career and also definitely understood the ground game.

Rickson actually fought an unusual amount of people who were actually educated on ground-fighting during his 10-fight MMA career. He fought a Shooto champion, a Pancrase champion and a SAW champion. And in each case, he fought arguably the cream of each of those crops. Only in the case of Yamamoto did he not fight someone who was inarguably a legend of his promotion.
I think Yoshihisa Yamamoto often times gets too little credit for his abilities nowadays, which is kind of a shame. In the same way, Takada should actually get more credit for how surprisingly well he was doing in the second Rickson Gracie fight.

I'm actually more impressed with Rickson Gracie being able to beat Funaki than i would have been with him beating Sakuraba. The only person i have ever heard discredit Funaki was Karl Gotch.
 
I think Yoshihisa Yamamoto often times gets too little credit for his abilities nowadays, which is kind of a shame. In the same way, Takada should actually get more credit for how surprisingly well he was doing in the second Rickson Gracie fight.

I'm actually more impressed with Rickson Gracie being able to beat Funaki than i would have been with him beating Sakuraba. The only person i have ever heard discredit Funaki was Karl Gotch.
You might already know the story, but I guess Gotch and Funaki fell out regarding the direction Funaki was taking Pancrase. He used to show each Pancrase event to Gotch to get his input but apparently Gotch didn't like the striking aspect and also didn't like the use of foreigners. I guess eventually Gotch basically cut Funaki off over it. At least, that was what I got from the translation of the video Funaki posted regarding it.
 
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