Marco Ruas regrets: He has a few

Pat Miletich was the first fighter with skills in wrestling, submissions, and striking sufficient to hang with nationally rated experts. As such, he wrote the blueprint for modern mixed martial arts. He was preceded by Marco Ruas, who was the first fighter highly skilled in submission and striking.

The King of the Streets (the name is a play on his surname, which means streets in Brazilian Portuguese, appeared recently on MMAjunkie Radio and reflected. It turns out he really was the king of street fighting, too.

In the streets, I’m undefeated, said Ruas as translated by MMAjunkie. Nobody beat me. … “a lot more [than 100].”

He guessed it was maybe around 300-1,000 or so. Ruas also famously took his skills into the Vale Tudo rings, and the Octagon.

At that time, nobody believed in striking, only jiu-jitsu, said Ruas. In Brazil, it was hard for me to gain my space because everybody was jiu-jitsu. The media, sponsors, they said jiu-jitsu was complete, the best martial art. I said no, jiu-jitsu is only ground. No striking. I want to prove that striking is important in MMA.

His manager wanted him to represent Team Carlson Gracie, but Ruas was determined to represent the new art he was developing.

I said, ‘I’m sorry, but it’s not fair,’ recalled Ruas. Because I train totally different MMA, now I defend the Gracies? People didn’t like me. I fought a long time ago some guy from Gracie, a Gracie student, Pinduka, now I’m defending jiu-jitsu?

Sorry, but I’m defending my name in vale tudo. So I put the style Ruas vale tudo, now mixed martial arts. But I only put this name because I think about everything, I think about the mixed martial arts. I trained everything, a long time before everybody. I trained judo, I trained karate, I trained capoeira, luta livre, jiu-jitsu. I trained everything.

Ruas only fought at three UFC events. He won an eight-man at UFC 7 on September 8, 1995. Then he came back for the Ultimate Ultimate 1995 on December 16. Then he left the UFC and fought for a variety of organizations including WVT and PRIDE, returning only once more to the UFC, where he lost to Maurice Smith KO on July 16, 1999.

He retired in 2001 with an 8-4-2 record, and came back only once more, in 2007, for a rematch with Smith in the IFL. That didn’t go his way, and he now devotes himself to coaching.

Looking back, he has perhaps the most common regret in old fighters – management. His manager at the time told him the UFC wasn’t paying him right, but luckily, the manager had developed a new MMA event in Brazil, and that was the smart place to be.

I feel mad for that, said Ruas. I wanted to fight more fights [in the UFC].

Image via Doug Churchill