Rorion Gracie is one of the more controversial personalities in the Gracie family. Gracie was among the first of his family to move to US and subsequently even tried to trademark the family name which caused a lot of conflict in his family.
Rorion came out recently with an interview in which he said Gracie family members need not compete in MMA.
“Even because my original idea was the comparison. It is already proven that jiu jitsu is the backbone of martial arts. ”
“So my point is this: any fighter who doesn’t know jiu jitsu has no chance of doing better. I, personally, think that the representative of the Gracie family doesn’t need to do Vale-Tudo, but he can do it as a joke if he wants, to get involved in the story, in the certainty that there are a lot of good people who now also know jiu jitsu, who don’t it’s from the family, they’re training, taking this like very seriously.”
‘So I don’t know if the Gracie family necessarily has to fight, because sometimes when you enter it’s a fight and you win big. Someone won, but losing was sometimes wrong to lose. I mean, stay with it. There is much more to lose than to gain, you know? But those who want to compete train hard, go there and there.’
While Kron Gracie is still in UFC despite his self induced exile to Montana, Neiman Gracie is active in Bellator as is Khonry Gracie. And they’ve all had mixed success. It’s general consensus that Kron is the most promising of the bunch but at the same time he’s come out admitting that he struggled with depression in the past and has been on an eccentric path (which includes advocating for flat earth).
But still Rorion insists that a win against a Gracie is akin to a trophy.
“Jiu jitsu is an easy martial art, easy to learn and easy to practice. The dedicated way will improve, you will put a touch here, a touch there. You will customize the fighting style, the art and you will become an efficient guy. Jiu-jitsu is not in the Gracie family. Jiu jitsu came through the Gracie family to the world.” – explained Rorion.
As for Kron, Rorion is content he showed he had a good chin in his 3 round outing against Cub Swanson:
‘That he’s tough. We know that.’
Nieman Gracie is the son of Marcio Stambowsky – and has had mixed success over at Bellator. Gracie lost 3 out of last 4 bouts including a title shot eliminator against Logan Storley. His MMA record stands at 11 wins and 4 losses.
As for Neiman Rorion commented:
“What happens is that we have to be very careful with what happens a lot, not only with the Gracie family, with the person that the Gracie family does jiu jitsu with and that it’s important that in the MMA the guy also practices punches and kicks to get a sense of the distance. Do you know about the danger? What business is what we can’t do is want to embrace the enemy’s culture, that is, I’ll keep exchanging punches and kicks.”
Khonry Gracie is the youngest of them all and with a very spotty record. Son of Royce Gracie has gone 2-2 in Bellator.