Dewey's Diva
05-27-2006, 01:35 PM
http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/5625838
Gracie-Hughes a clash of old school vs. new
Dave Doyle / FOXSports.com
Posted: 13 hours ago
To hear Royce Gracie tell it, he has no business fighting anyone anymore, much less facing Ultimate Fighting Championship welterweight titleholder Matt Hughes.
"I'm an old man," says the fighter who won tournaments in three of the first four UFC events in the mid-1990s. "I can't do this anymore. I don't stand a chance."
The 39-year old mixed martial arts legend, who meets the 32-year old Hughes in the main event of Saturday's UFC 60 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, almost single-handedly popularized Brazilian jiu-jitsu as a self-defense form in the United States.
So it should come as no surprise that Gracie is engaging in a bit of mental jiu-jitsu as he faces one of the biggest challenges of his fighting career in his first UFC bout in 11 years. One potential way for Gracie to get an advantage is to let Hughes, a seemingly unbeatable monster who has dominated his division for years, think he can't compete.
"They say if Jim Brown played football today, he couldn't keep up with today's players," said the Rio de Janeiro native, who now lives in Southern California. "Maybe they're right. But maybe they're wrong. How do they know he wouldn't have been able to adapt to the times?"
Gracie, the most famous of a fighting clan that spans generations and continents, made himself a legend by proving others wrong.
When the UFC was conceived in 1993 as an attempt to show which fighting discipline was strongest, the Gracie family, who had long been issuing open $100,000 challenges to any outsider who could beat a Gracie in a fight, were brought in to represent jiu-jitsu. Royce was chosen among the Gracies in large part because he was smaller than the rest.
"What better way to show that Gracie jiu-jitsu is superior?" he asked. "If I am fighting people larger than me and taking them out, that shows the strength of our style."
The early days of UFC featured tournaments in which the winner had to fight three or four times in one night. There were no weight classes, no time limits and fewer rules than the present product.
Gracie thrived in such an atmosphere, winning at UFCs 1, 2 and 4 (he pulled out of UFC 3 after the second round with an injury), usually sticking to his trademark by staying patient, taking the fight to the ground and waiting for an opening.
"The fighters today don't go through what we went through in the early days," said Gracie. "They don't fight three times a night, they don't fight with no time limits, things are more controlled now."
MMA has evolved at warp speed since the Gracie family split with previous UFC ownership in 1995. Brazilian jiu-jitsu has served as the base from which the modern sport of mixed martial arts evolved, roughly similar to how a football team needs a solid offensive line if it is going to score any points. A fighter can be a strong striker or a good wrestler, if you can't work from the BJJ guard, forget about making main-event paydays.
But Gracie-style jiu-jitsu gave way to an era of dominant freestyle wrestlers in the late 1990s. The implementation of five-minute rounds and judging helped quicken the pace and led to more sophisticated striking. Each generation of fighters become more refined and well-rounded than the one the preceded it.
Few athletes personify the current breed of cross-trained mixed martial artists like Hughes. Hughes owns UFC's welterweight division the way Marvelous Marvin Hagler dominated the middleweight set in boxing in the 1980s.
"When people think of the welterweight division and the welterweight title they think of Matt Hughes," said Hughes. "This is one of the most competitive divisions in the UFC, and that's all the motivation I need to keep going and stay at the top of my game after all this time."
Dating back to his first title victory, in which he defeated Carlos Newton to become the inaugural welterweight champ at UFC 34 on Nov. 11, 2001, Hughes has won 10 of his past 11 fights. He has displayed tremendous versatility in his finishing methods as champion: The Newton victory started a string of four consecutive TKOs, through both punches and slams; he's gone the distance and won decisions twice, and his four submission victories have ranged from chokes to armbars to leglocks.
The Hillsboro, Ill. native was a two-time Division II All-America in wrestling at Eastern Illinois University before breaking into mixed martial arts. Hughes is affiliated with the Davenport, Iowa-based Militech Fighting Systems, a stable which also boasts current UFC heavyweight champion Tim "The Maine-iac" Sylvia and former UFC lightweight champ Jens "Little Evil" Pulver.
"You never stop learning," said Hughes, whose last fight was a first-round submission win over Joe Riggs at UFC 56 in November. "You can't get complacent; you can't think you know everything. You always have to keep working or someone hungrier will come along."
Hughes' one loss over the past five-and-a-half years was precisely the sort of defeat that validates the notion Gracie could win Saturday night's fight. At UFC 46 on Jan. 31, 2004, Hughes lost his championship to B.J. Penn via a first-round rear naked choke. (Penn then left UFC due to a contract dispute, and Hughes regained the vacated title by beating Georges St. Pierre ).
Penn, who like Gracie specializes in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, previously fought in the lightweight division and was fighting up a weight class against Hughes. Few thought the smaller Penn had a chance of taking the belt; Hughes sure didn't.
"B.J. just kicked my ass," said Hughes. "He got me. He beat me. I didn't take him seriously and just saw him as a lightweight, and I paid for it. I don't make excuses when someone kicks my butt. He beat me."
Can Gracie adapt to the current style of fighting? Back in the day, Gracie could simply slow the fight to a crawl and wait ? at UFC 4, for example, Gracie took nearly 16 minutes before cinching a choke onto UFC Hall of Famer Dan Severn before winning.
To win this fight ? a three-round match in which Hughes' title is not on the line ? Gracie will need to prove he can move at a quicker pace.
"Look, I am a grappler," said Gracie, whose two most recent fights, both in Japan, were a quick submission win over former sumo star Akebono and a draw against Hideo Tokoro. "I respect my opponent. He is a good fighter. I am not a striker. I have added striking to my game plan, but I am not going to sit here and say that I can take my opponent out with my strikes. Gracie jiu-jitsu is my strength, and I will win the fight on my strength."
Hughes openly scoffed at the notion. "The Gracie name means nothing to me. He's just another opponent. The Gracies think that Gracie jiu-jitsu is all you need to win, and that's wrong. B.J. Penn could take him; Georges St. Pierre could take him. There's a bunch of people in the welterweight division who could take him. Winning the first two UFCs means nothing."
Indeed, several fighters from the early days of UFC, like Tank Abbott and Kimo, returned in recent years and found the game had passed them by. But Gracie bristles at such talk. "Mixed martial arts is the only sport that doesn't respect its history," he said. "Did people mock Ali when he got older? No. They respected his accomplishments. The NBA, the NFL, all the other sports, they honor the reputations of the people who paved the way. Today they try to pretend that the history of the sport doesn't exist."
Gracie-Hughes a clash of old school vs. new
Dave Doyle / FOXSports.com
Posted: 13 hours ago
To hear Royce Gracie tell it, he has no business fighting anyone anymore, much less facing Ultimate Fighting Championship welterweight titleholder Matt Hughes.
"I'm an old man," says the fighter who won tournaments in three of the first four UFC events in the mid-1990s. "I can't do this anymore. I don't stand a chance."
The 39-year old mixed martial arts legend, who meets the 32-year old Hughes in the main event of Saturday's UFC 60 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, almost single-handedly popularized Brazilian jiu-jitsu as a self-defense form in the United States.
So it should come as no surprise that Gracie is engaging in a bit of mental jiu-jitsu as he faces one of the biggest challenges of his fighting career in his first UFC bout in 11 years. One potential way for Gracie to get an advantage is to let Hughes, a seemingly unbeatable monster who has dominated his division for years, think he can't compete.
"They say if Jim Brown played football today, he couldn't keep up with today's players," said the Rio de Janeiro native, who now lives in Southern California. "Maybe they're right. But maybe they're wrong. How do they know he wouldn't have been able to adapt to the times?"
Gracie, the most famous of a fighting clan that spans generations and continents, made himself a legend by proving others wrong.
When the UFC was conceived in 1993 as an attempt to show which fighting discipline was strongest, the Gracie family, who had long been issuing open $100,000 challenges to any outsider who could beat a Gracie in a fight, were brought in to represent jiu-jitsu. Royce was chosen among the Gracies in large part because he was smaller than the rest.
"What better way to show that Gracie jiu-jitsu is superior?" he asked. "If I am fighting people larger than me and taking them out, that shows the strength of our style."
The early days of UFC featured tournaments in which the winner had to fight three or four times in one night. There were no weight classes, no time limits and fewer rules than the present product.
Gracie thrived in such an atmosphere, winning at UFCs 1, 2 and 4 (he pulled out of UFC 3 after the second round with an injury), usually sticking to his trademark by staying patient, taking the fight to the ground and waiting for an opening.
"The fighters today don't go through what we went through in the early days," said Gracie. "They don't fight three times a night, they don't fight with no time limits, things are more controlled now."
MMA has evolved at warp speed since the Gracie family split with previous UFC ownership in 1995. Brazilian jiu-jitsu has served as the base from which the modern sport of mixed martial arts evolved, roughly similar to how a football team needs a solid offensive line if it is going to score any points. A fighter can be a strong striker or a good wrestler, if you can't work from the BJJ guard, forget about making main-event paydays.
But Gracie-style jiu-jitsu gave way to an era of dominant freestyle wrestlers in the late 1990s. The implementation of five-minute rounds and judging helped quicken the pace and led to more sophisticated striking. Each generation of fighters become more refined and well-rounded than the one the preceded it.
Few athletes personify the current breed of cross-trained mixed martial artists like Hughes. Hughes owns UFC's welterweight division the way Marvelous Marvin Hagler dominated the middleweight set in boxing in the 1980s.
"When people think of the welterweight division and the welterweight title they think of Matt Hughes," said Hughes. "This is one of the most competitive divisions in the UFC, and that's all the motivation I need to keep going and stay at the top of my game after all this time."
Dating back to his first title victory, in which he defeated Carlos Newton to become the inaugural welterweight champ at UFC 34 on Nov. 11, 2001, Hughes has won 10 of his past 11 fights. He has displayed tremendous versatility in his finishing methods as champion: The Newton victory started a string of four consecutive TKOs, through both punches and slams; he's gone the distance and won decisions twice, and his four submission victories have ranged from chokes to armbars to leglocks.
The Hillsboro, Ill. native was a two-time Division II All-America in wrestling at Eastern Illinois University before breaking into mixed martial arts. Hughes is affiliated with the Davenport, Iowa-based Militech Fighting Systems, a stable which also boasts current UFC heavyweight champion Tim "The Maine-iac" Sylvia and former UFC lightweight champ Jens "Little Evil" Pulver.
"You never stop learning," said Hughes, whose last fight was a first-round submission win over Joe Riggs at UFC 56 in November. "You can't get complacent; you can't think you know everything. You always have to keep working or someone hungrier will come along."
Hughes' one loss over the past five-and-a-half years was precisely the sort of defeat that validates the notion Gracie could win Saturday night's fight. At UFC 46 on Jan. 31, 2004, Hughes lost his championship to B.J. Penn via a first-round rear naked choke. (Penn then left UFC due to a contract dispute, and Hughes regained the vacated title by beating Georges St. Pierre ).
Penn, who like Gracie specializes in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, previously fought in the lightweight division and was fighting up a weight class against Hughes. Few thought the smaller Penn had a chance of taking the belt; Hughes sure didn't.
"B.J. just kicked my ass," said Hughes. "He got me. He beat me. I didn't take him seriously and just saw him as a lightweight, and I paid for it. I don't make excuses when someone kicks my butt. He beat me."
Can Gracie adapt to the current style of fighting? Back in the day, Gracie could simply slow the fight to a crawl and wait ? at UFC 4, for example, Gracie took nearly 16 minutes before cinching a choke onto UFC Hall of Famer Dan Severn before winning.
To win this fight ? a three-round match in which Hughes' title is not on the line ? Gracie will need to prove he can move at a quicker pace.
"Look, I am a grappler," said Gracie, whose two most recent fights, both in Japan, were a quick submission win over former sumo star Akebono and a draw against Hideo Tokoro. "I respect my opponent. He is a good fighter. I am not a striker. I have added striking to my game plan, but I am not going to sit here and say that I can take my opponent out with my strikes. Gracie jiu-jitsu is my strength, and I will win the fight on my strength."
Hughes openly scoffed at the notion. "The Gracie name means nothing to me. He's just another opponent. The Gracies think that Gracie jiu-jitsu is all you need to win, and that's wrong. B.J. Penn could take him; Georges St. Pierre could take him. There's a bunch of people in the welterweight division who could take him. Winning the first two UFCs means nothing."
Indeed, several fighters from the early days of UFC, like Tank Abbott and Kimo, returned in recent years and found the game had passed them by. But Gracie bristles at such talk. "Mixed martial arts is the only sport that doesn't respect its history," he said. "Did people mock Ali when he got older? No. They respected his accomplishments. The NBA, the NFL, all the other sports, they honor the reputations of the people who paved the way. Today they try to pretend that the history of the sport doesn't exist."