In the beginning, Rorion Gracie had a day at his Torrance, Calif. academy, where anyone game enough could test their skills by fighting Jiu-Jitsu exponents until someone quit. Using techniques refined by Rorion’s father Helio, representatives of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu never lost.
A student at the academy, Art Davie, was convinced that the challenge fights could be turned into a Pay Per View event. Davie and Gracie approached HBO, Showtime, and others, with no luck; then they presented to Semaphore Entertainment Group, who got it.
SEG, founded by Bob Meyrowitz, was the pay-per-view television arm of the massive international media company BMG. The head of programming at SEG was Campbell McLaren. Chief Operating Officer of the new UFC was David Isaacs, who had graduated from Harvard Law School two years before; Isaacs ran the company for the next half decade.
Thus it was that Art Davie, Rorion Gracie, David Isaacs, Campbell McLaren, and Bob Meyrowitz founded the UFC. Gracie’s vision was to test styles of martial arts, establishing that Jiu-Jitsu was the best approach for one on one combat. The rest of the team wanted to create an extreme combat sports spectacle that would sell on PPV television, so in 1995 Gracie departed.
The UFC nearly disappeared under legal resistance to MMA, and sold in 2000 for $2,000,000 to Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, and Dana White.
It sold recently sold for $4,000,000,000. That’s not $4,000,000, a doubling in size. That’s $4,000,000,000 an increase of 2,000 times in size.
Guilherme Cruz recently caught up with Rorion for MMA Fighting, to learn his thoughts on his baby becoming a colossus.
“They did the right thing,” said Gracie. “They sold it and will continue making money. Their intention was to make money, and they did it. They enjoyed the ride for a long time, and made the decision to sell it. We have to respect their decision. If I were them, I may have done same thing.
“They took my revolutionary concept for the UFC from a relatively small company, invested a lot of money, created this huge marketing wave around it, and are now collecting the benefits of a $4 billion sale.”
“When I came to the U.S. in 1978, my dream was to share the incredible benefits of our jiu-jitsu. I spent 10 years teaching out of my garage and, faced hundreds of challenges by representatives of other martial arts, never losing a match. One day I realized that it would never be over if I stayed inside of my garage. That’s when I decided to go big time, to television.
“When I created the UFC, my intention was develop a venue to compare the different styles of martial arts, so that a larger audience could see which was the most effective form of combat. Jiu-jitsu proved, beyond any doubt, to be the best. Today, every major law enforcement agency had adopted our program, as well as every professional fighter and everyone looking for true effectiveness. My dream had become reality.
“After the issues with UFC 4, my associates decided to implement time limit, rules, and weight classes, to plan the event for the TV. I understood that. Yet, I always saw the UFC as a real fight being televised, and they saw it as a TV show about fighting. I wasn’t interested in being part of the show if they modified the original concept of comparing styles, it became a comparison of athletes. The winner was no longer necessarily the better style, but often by judges outside. It was no longer the vision I had, so I do not regret walking way.”
“The feeling I have is that I had a son, and they adopted it, sent him to study at Harvard, and now my son controls Wall Street. It’s great to have an idea, and see it come to fruition.”
Gracie now dedicates his efforts to promoting the benefits of the Gracie Diet, developed by his uncle Carlos.
