tshadowchaser said:
Not to take anything away from the gracie's but I always thought much of the compatition in the early days was "played up" with thitles that may not have exsisted or didn't really mean much. There wher players in varries martial arts that i thought could have put on a better showing
The early challenges had a couple of fronts. There were the ones that actually made it to the Gracies. Some of the more interesting ones (in terms of people who took them) never got taped, or...famous guys with more to lose would do a private challenge match with a Gracie student to see if they could spot the glitches and capitalize on them. I did a couple of these; they were always, always, always unapproved by Rorion or the other brothers, and one risked being booted out of the fold for such participation.
There were more than a few martial arts celebs who tied up with a Gracie or student behind closed doors, later to decide to learn the stuff. We had some pretty good CMA and FMA guys come by (dumog, etc.), and a couple of Pan-Am and Olympic greco-roman and freestyle top-level competitors. Typically, the wrestlers gave the best fights, but didn't have the finishing moves. One of my old bouncing and grappling buddies signed up with a wrestling coach in So. Cal., who was hired to go to the Gracie compound and teach wrestling transitions while Rorion was still a boy. So for the Gracies, they had seen the wrestling before; the wrestlers hadn't seen the judo-type finishing holds the Gracies were using, so they didn't know the strategic liabilities they would place themselves in during various positions & transitions.
We also had some champion kickboxers come through; they were actually among the easiest. Break your face with a jab if you stand there, but that's the whole point. We don't.
One night, we had this huge ex-con come by who had read about the Gracie challenge in prison, and was flaming mad about it. Came by, and Craig Krukuk (sp?) took this guy more than twice his size in less than 10 seconds. The guy was a specimen who knew how to wrestle, but again, lacked finishes. No video; no titles or buildup; no refs or rules (the ex-con was out to hurt someone)...just a visually amazing feat of jits. (shot on the guy, the guy pushed down on Krukuks head & sprawled, Krukuk, went further down than the guy pressed then crawled between the guys legs to get behind him, climbed him like a ladder from behind to put on a mata leon on him while he was still upright and in the sprawl position -- happened so fast, it didn't register yet that Krukuk wasn't there to push on anymore. The guy was tapping while falling backwards towards the ground).
There were those of us who speculated that it would only be a matter of time before the competitive athletic spirit of the Americans, or the technology cloning expertise of the Japanese would produce fighters in each place that would challenge the Gracies more than they had been thus far. Now, with the MMA explosion more than a dozen years in progress, we have seen each come true.
My ultimate conclusion, having done some mat-work in Judo and David German's TAI karate before starting BJJ, was that the Gracies were so successful against other arts because we essentially grew up in a vacuum. Few martial artists had previously seen a grappler of this type, much less tested themselves against one, much less trained hard in a similar discipline. Contrast this to the Gracies who live it from infancy. American martial arts had built a house, but forgot to put in the back wall. We just didn't know it, because (up till the Gracies), folks would walk up and knock on the front door. Then they came along, and shot through the missing wall to everyones shock and surprise.
Now, with "MMA' actually being a style that you can find a school for (15 years after no one heard of it), it's not surprising anymore. The shock value is gone, and current martial artists are either cross-training in grappling, or adding grappling attacks to their "what-if" training. But you gotta remember...when the Gracies first started this, unless you were unfortunate enough to anger Gene LeBelle, pretty much nobody had seen a wrassler fight in this manner. We (as a stand-up fighter) were all sure we could get our shots in before anyone got their hands on us. To boot, I fought with champion wrestlers in high school, and bloodied them well while evading their take-downs...so I was sure I could take one of these Brazilian upstarts.
What else can you say; it was new. We didn't know. With 3 months at the Torrance academy, I wrestled with the LAPD combat wrestling instructor for the academy...a guy who is my senior in kenpo, and a decent wrassler on top of it. Best 2 out of 3. Wait, 3 out of five. Wait...what did you do? He went on to train with the Machado's and leave me in the dirt skills-wise, and now we see mount and guard fighting in LAPD training cirriculum.
In the first UFC, Zane Frazier was slated to fight. A kenpo tournament champ I knew was a buddy of his, and he kept touting how awesome Frazier was, and how he was going to clean up and whoop on Royce. He never made it through his first elimination, and lost to a crappy headlock by a chubby kickboxer with no grappling training...technology nowhere near the same plane as the Gracies stuff. That kenpo guy has gone on to learn grappling, and become a much better ground fighter than I have any business hoping to be. With his commitment to training, I expect to see him rocket to the top real soon. We just didn't know any better then.
Some of the CMA guys I trained with in Laguna Beach & Orange County...we had mini-challenge matches. Guys I know could pepper me like a fool standing up, couldn't figure out what to do to stop anti-rhythem shoots & take-downs. Outstanding artists upright, they couldn't get their heads wrapped around the mount. Things that make sense on paper, don't make as much sense with your back on the cement, legs grapevined, and face & upper arms smeared under a chest. It doesn't take a thing away from who they were, or the strength of their accomplishments. It was just new. It was territory not accounted for in their systems, training history, or technique library. Now, it's a different story. I shoot, I feel sharp blinding pains pop up on my body, and he ain't there to grab where I thought he was. Not new anymore.
Train Hard,
Dave
