The gracie family?

How come everytime there is Grace fighting someone who apparently knows some sort of kung fu, or striking technique, the striker always throws a really poor kick toward the knee of gracie and it's gonna get caught obviously and he'll go down, and then just be dominated.


They try to play it out like all martial arts that aren't bjj are going to use a lame *** poorly executed kick that wouldn't matter if it hit you or not. just look it up on youtube like gracie vs kung fu, or gracie vs some other karate, it's all lame lame kicks, and they get Tackled basically because of it. nobody punches!? or uses any sort of sprawling or avoidance? it seems really fake Like aikido demonstrations.

The gracie family?
You know why the kicks are lame on the video you watch?





It is because they know the reputation is they are going to get taken down. So they are very careful but in the end it does not matter because if you want to close the distance and get the take down against a stand up fighter you will. If you want to kick and I want to close there is nothing you can do except hope that that big kick takes me out the first time. If not you are on your back and I will win.





Your top wrestler at your local high school could most likely take down your stand up only fighter and pound him into submission most of time.





If all you have is your striking, with a good grappler coming after you what are the chances you can knock him out before he takes you down. Answer NOT GOOD.
Reply:They do punch, only when the gracie is already close, see the basics behind punching is that you need your weight going forward, and it looks like the kung fu guys were doing their best to avoid going forward because they were scared to get taken down, so instead they used kicks and started punching when gracie moves in





Good idea but the gracies are tough and could probably take a few kicks or punches so even though some punches probably landed they were still able to do a take down and once they were down it was gg





i dont know how you see these videos as Aikido demos, they look very real too me, It looked like the kung fu guy was trying to avoid, i mean he got pushed all the way back to the wall, but if someone is determained to take you down and you have no grapling exp whatsoever, trust me you will go down, especially if you are fighting the guys who invented the stuff!





I think the whole point of the video is if you dont have any grapling exp then you wont know what to do, here the guys knew that their opponent is a grapler but still had trouble, lesson = learn grapling!
Reply:I think a lot of Gracie matches are rigged. Same with a lot of muay thai fights. If you watch either of these styles fight anything else they always dominate and it's always because of stupid moves by the other stylist. If you watch more than a handful of these types of "matches" you're sitting there thinking something smells fishy.
Reply:I think a lot of it is because of the legend Royce Gracie had built up over such a short time. Like Mike Tyson in the late 80s. Nobody thought to sit back and jab him and tie him up every time he came up for an uppercut and make him go into late rounds until after about 5 years of his competing. Once someone, Buster Douglass, figured out the "key" to Tyson, everyone had a good chance of beating him. Just don't get into a tough guy, punch it out, testosterone laced, duel with Iron Mike, and you can win.


With Gracie Jiu Jitsu, nobody had seen this kind of fighting for years. tournement Karate was king, and it was ruled by easily grabbed, non snapping side kicks. Shootboxers did much better against Gracie, but all things considered, Gracie was in much better fighting shape than everyone he went up against. Some of the guys were in their late 30s and 40s, running dojos that were loosing students, and tried to do what they could with their limited ability, and their lack of understanding of the rules of the MMA game. They came in with an assumption of modern rules and etiquette, and so they lost. Once people realized the violence of the Gracie game, they started beating him. At least as much as he was beating them. Gracie was still an excellent physical specimen and represented his martial art well.
Reply:Because most fighters facing the Gracies are trying to keep a distance pleasing to them, and the Gracies are trying to close that gap. Kick Boxing will naturally stand, and BJJ will try to close the gap and take you down, how the styles differ.


Thai clinches have done very well at forcing BJJ to stand and take a beating.
Reply:Type in Sakuraba and watch him dismantle every Gracie he fights. Rickson was basically afraid to fight him cause he didn't want to wreck his perfect record. Saku isn't even that good a striker, he just doesn't show the BJJ as much respect as others do.
Reply:Maybe the gracies are actually just that good? I mean. is it the gracies fault that that kung fu guy threw a lame kick? No. Should the kung fu guy have done better? Yes. Its too bad because those videos on you tube end up being the end all word on which martial art is better. I cant find any video on youtube that shows a gracie losing a fight. Its either pure skill or a very good marketing technique.
Reply:The Royce vs. Kung Fu guy you see on the videos was Jason Delucia. It was taken from the "Gracies in Action" video.





This was about 7 months prior to the first UFC, Jason Delucia had heard about the Gracie challenge and went down to Brasil to fight him.





He got worked easily, primarily because he was a Kung Fu guy who had never heard of grappling.





I don't think it had to do with any kind of known reputation as to these people's kicks.





Keep in mind aside from a few styles, Kung Fu's kicks are pretty poor in general. No one who is of any caliber of talent will throw a high kick right off. (Those kind of things have to be set up). So naturally when a person is beyond punching range you are going to start with a low kick.





However keep in mind that in the time frame that most of the Gracie videos were done, they were going against traditional stylists with no grappling background.





Avoidance isn't easy, Sprawling takes some sort of background and it wasn't in 90 percent of "striking" arts.





Even really good kickboxers were getting worked by grapplers. Patrick Smith, Orlando Weit, etc.





Sakuraba has what you can consider Gracie Kryptonite: Good wrestling.





A good wrestler or Judoka would give fits to most BJJ artists simply because of an ability to control the takedown, and thus control position.





Kimo Leopoldo gave Royce a hard time until he slipped up and got caught.





It's simple, at the time Gracies had a very effective style because they practiced it in Vale Tudo matches constantly and refined it. They then fought people who had never truly been in any kind of match such as that and beat them.





Some arts have now evolved because of that and work some sort of grappling into their style (wisely so) others have tried to ignore those lessons and stick to their own opinions.





"Well if it was a street fight I would have had him" type of mentality instead of correcting what they were doing wrong.





I can promise you if you have never been in a No Hold Barred competetion against another skilled individual. Your first couple of kicks are going to be timid. (There is a feeling out process in most all fights) the problem was, those initial feeling out kicks didn't get far because Gracies were good at closing the gap and getting the takedown.





It's hard to throw a full bore kick straight out the gate with another fighter. You set yourself up to be countered or taken off balance if you miss. That is why there is a jab in boxing, and low kicks in Martial Arts (they aren't full committal type of moves, you are able to feel out your range with them)





I think the Gracies were the real deal back in the day, and are still great fighters. I think that they had a very effective style that caught people off guard who had never fought that way.





Now people are aware of it, and train to be able to fight in that realm, and I think that is a good thing.





It doesn't take away from their legitimacy. They showed the world that a pure grappler can easily beat a pure striker, and changed how a lot of people viewed unarmed combat.
Reply:If they are so lame, why don't you just challenge one of the Gracies? They have been known to accept challenges from idiots.





As for the other posters: Comparing the Gracies to Mike Tyson is just plain silly, especially claiming that no one ever challenged Tyson until Buster Douglas. Douglas was probably one of the lamest fights Tyson ever accepted, which is why he chased the Japanese girls more than he saw the gym in Tokyo.








There is nothing rigged. When people are good, they make it look easy and the challenger looks ineffective. Mike Tyson made everyone look bad.





If Mike Tyson was 24 again, he would go through all of the heavyweights yet again with little resistance. This is unlike the Gracies, because in order for the MMA guys to compete in the UFC, they all learned the Gracie Style of JJ.





Finally, Rickson afraid to tarnish his record? Uhm, the guy was in his forties, when the wrestler fought the other Gracies. Anyone who disses Rickson, the greatest of the MMA types, is definitely a Gracie hater and can be discredited in any future discussions.