Gracie: Brazilian fighters lack strategy
Royce Gracie: “A fighter does jiu-jitsu, boxing or kickboxing his whole life, and then he wants to do something else in the ring…”
In a press conference last week, Anderson Silva said he felt like Brazilian fighters were losing championships because of their inability to evolve. Recently Royce Gracie spoke to MMAFighting.com and addressed the same topic, but his take was a little different:
“It’s a strategy game. You can’t just be tough and talented,” Gracie told MMAFighting.com. “People outside (of Brazil) knows how to work with strategy really well. You have to know your opponent and take him out of his game. It might look easy at the end, but he trained really hard to make you do this, make this wrong step, and then knock you out in 30 seconds. That’s strategy. I think (Brazilian fighters) are lacking that.”
Gracie built an 11-1-1 record under the UFC banner, winning three one-night tournaments in the early 1990’s, using his jiu-jitsu only. It’s crazy to think that a fighter would be able to dominate his entire division using only one martial art today, and Gracie recognizes that. However, he criticizes fighters who walk away from their background when making a transition to MMA.
“A fighter does jiu-jitsu, boxing or kickboxing his whole life, and then he wants to do something else in the ring,” he said. “If you trained jiu-jitsu his whole life, why would you trade punches on fight night against a striker?”
