Eddie Bravo’s Win over Royler Gracie Was ‘One of the Best Days of My Life’

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Joe Rogan is a sucker for historic combat sports moments.

One of the longtime UFC commentator’s closest friends is world-renowned Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner Eddie Bravo. During each man’s rise to fame, Rogan and Bravo worked together on their grappling abilities, with Bravo being the more serious of the two. While Rogan primarily focused on his gig with the UFC, Bravo also found himself in a role analyzing the fights as they happened and providing his unofficial scores between and after rounds.

In 2003, Rogan traveled with the Jean Jacques Machado-trained Bravo to Brazil where his life changed forever with one single submission.

“I was in Brazil in 2003 for the Abu Dhabi world championships,” Rogan said on his Joe Rogan Experience podcast. “Eddie Bravo was over there competing. That was the year he tapped out Royler Gracie. It was the craziest upset ever. It was insane. He wasn’t even a black belt yet. Eddie was a brown belt.

“Royler, who was Royce’s brother, who was more successful even than Royce in jiu-jitsu tournaments. He’s one of the greatest Gracies of all time in terms of his accomplishments in winning world jiu-jitsu tournaments. He was the man. [Eddie got him with a] triangle off his back. It was amazing.

“[Eddie] has crazy flexibility and leg dexterity. It’s very surprising,” he continued. “So, if you’re in his guard, you’re f*****, and Royler didn’t know it. He was in Eddie’s guard and Eddie just slapped that triangle on him and then started pulling the head and Royler tapped and it was insane. I was crying. Dude. I’ll cry right now. Woo.”

Rewatching the footage of the match while discussing it, Rogan let his emotions get the better of him as he wiped away tears. For Bravo on the fateful night, he played it cool immediately after the tap before breaking down on the mat and in Rogan’s arms as they embraced. The win ultimately catalyzed Bravo’s 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu academy, which has multiple locations around the globe.
In addition to teaching, Bravo has also taken up the promoter role with his Eddie Bravo Invitational events as well as developing Combat Jiu-Jitsu. Rogan has been a part of some of MMA’s biggest moments, but from a personal standpoint, the Bravo win over Gracie supersedes simple sport.

“It’s one of the greatest experiences of my life,” Rogan said. “I get emotional right now talking about it. It changed his life. He was always like this super-talented guy. And he didn’t kind of want to believe it for some strange reason. He was very humble about his jiu-jitsu. He knew he was pretty good, and then he started winning tournaments. He won the Abu Dhabis and the West Coast trials, so he made it to Brazil.

“It was one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen in my life because for him to go there — he was such an underdog. And he had this very strange style of jiu-jitsu that really he formulated. He came up with — it’s not like he invented submissions, but he came up with new ways to set things up that were completely unique to him and his system. That’s how he created the 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu. It’s one of the best days of his life. It’s one of the best days of my life

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What a huge moment. To be young, right there & a part of it would be crazy. Great time period in my life.

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I watched that on YouTube sooooo many years ago. Bout to rewatch it now

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Here the video of the article HKP posted

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YOU SON OF A BITCH

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Lol. Come on man?

Leonardo Dicaprio Reaction GIF

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You literally beat me in posting that by 5 seconds

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LOL Like Minds

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Well it was an incredible upset and if my buddy had done that I’d call it one of the best days of my life too.

I remember Royler used to post here many years ago and he never gave Eddie one ounce of credit for that win. Typical Gracie excuse machine.

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Story Of Your Life :slight_smile:

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Weird. I just watched this video yesterday.

Such a crazy moment

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The re-match cemented it for me.

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Joe got almost a quarter BILLION dollars for selling his sidebar podcast to Spotify.

I’m sure it is great and all to have your friend tap a Gracie, but…

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Bravo during an interview after the rematch

“I thought I won, and the headline on the Underground just 20 minutes later was, ‘Bravo dominates Gracie and Metamoris,’” he told host Ariel Helwani. "That pretty much sealed it for me, because after a fight everyone can blow smoke up your ass. I’m sure everyone was telling Royler the best possible stuff you can think of. So he actually thought it was a legit draw. At the press conference he said, ‘yeah he had me in a couple of things and I escaped, and I had him in a couple of things, so it’s a draw.’ And at the time I’m sitting thinking, damn, maybe I’m delusional. Maybe it was a legit draw.

“But then I got on the Underground, and everyone, 98%, Eddie Bravo dominated, Eddie Bravo won. That confirmed it. He’s delusional, not me.”

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That was no draw.

Bravo took that re-match too.

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The best part of this was Joe came on here to brag for Eddie and it was all love from him. His post reeked of amazed that his buddy just pulled off a huge feat and then the post ended with….and now we are headed to a Brazilian house of ladies.

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