Royce: MMA rules don’t favor either Jiu-Jitsu or striking
Royce Gracie: “A lot of people complain, ‘Oh, the rules favor the standup. Oh, the rules favor the grapplers’– no, the rules are even for both of them.”
UFC Hall of Famer and Bellator MMA brand ambassador Royce Gracie watched his great-nephew Neiman Gracie extend his record to 8-0 with a dominating performance at Saturday’s Bellator 189.
I told him, ‘Don’t get frustrated if you don’t win in the first round,’ said Royce post event, as trascribed by Fernanda Prates and Matt Erickson for MMAjunkie. It’s three rounds. Win one round at a time. If you happen to have a chance to finish early, good. If not, the guy is a tough opponent. He knows what he’s doing. He’s a good grappler, too. He knows what you want to do. So win one round at a time.
He wants to fight for the title; I say fight whomever the promotion puts in front of you. Don’t worry about titles, don’t worry about – it will come. You’ve just got to fight one fight at a time, it doesn’t matter, whomever.
Like he did in the fight. I think he took a hit and he composed himself very well. Didn’t panic. Same thing with [Dillon] Danis, he took a hit and, OK, he composed himself. Didn’t panic. So that’s the good strategy, that’s the right strategy.
The main card was a showcase for Jiu-Jitsu. While Fedor bombed out Mir in the main event, the other four fights that aired on Paramount ended in submission.
A lot of people complain, ‘Oh, the rules favor the standup. Oh, the rules favor the grapplers’– no, the rules are even for both of them, said Royce. In a night like tonight, the standup guys are going to say, ‘The rules favored the grapplers.’
But then, next week, it’s a bunch of knockouts, and then the grapplers are going to say, ‘Well, the rules favor the standup guys.’ It’s not that it favors one of the other; it’s a strategy game.
So it is still hard to declare which is more important, stand up striking or ground submission?
OK, hold on: We already proved that Gracie jiu-jitsu is the best self-defense style out there, said Gracie. That’s why my family created this. It was more of a quest that my family had to find out which style is the best. We proved that, without jiu-jitsu, all those guys, the stand-up guys would lose much faster. They have to know jiu-jitsu.