The New forum starts in a couple days and I wont be heading over. (Tim Duncan or wiggum you may take over the dream fight threads).
Anyway, the biggest fight to never happen IMO! Saku ran thru 4 Gracie brothers/cousins but we never got to see him fight the Big Brother and baddest of the Gracie’s. The fight was being worked on until Rockson died. A real shame we didnt get this fight!
So, who takes it UG? Does Rickson have anything for Saku?
Here is a cool little Rickson video to remember what he was all about:
Tough one to call. I could really make a case for either fighter. I wonder why this fight never happened? Did pride not want to pay the asking price or were the Gracies afraid to loose ?
Tough one to call. I could really make a case for either fighter. I wonder why this fight never happened? Did pride not want to pay the asking price or were the Gracies afraid to loose ?
I Think OP covered it in his original post.
It was heavily rumored to be in the works until Rockson died. Rickson lost the desire to fight after losing his oldest son.
If he beat Royler, Royce, & Renzo with better BJJ I could see thinking, yeah but he can't get Rickson his BJJ is next level. But he basically did things totally outside the box of BJJ & MMA at the time. Like kicking the legs of butt scooters & jumping through their guard. Flipping Royce over by his gi pants. Cartwheel pass. It was like he was doing things you would roll your eyes at in an action movie in real life against the freaking Gracies.
FatBuddha - If prime Sakuraba couldn't submit over the hill Royce in an hour and 30 minutes, he's not beating Rickson.
Royce threw in the towel. Thats submitting / quitting. Saku also beat the piss of out royce for most of that 90 minutes and broke his leg AND was well on his way to kneebarring royce at the end of what i think was rd 1when time fan out.
FatBuddha - If prime Sakuraba couldn't submit over the hill Royce in an hour and 30 minutes, he's not beating Rickson.
Royce threw in the towel. Thats submitting / quitting. Saku also beat the piss of out royce for most of that 90 minutes and broke his leg AND was well on his way to kneebarring royce at the end of what i think was rd 1when time fan out.
As usual, you bring flawless logic to the table.
To be fair, that fight was stupid long. They were both warriors that night.
Rickson was past his prime when it was time to fight Sakuraba and no longer enjoyed fighting or training. I’d pick Saku for that alone. And while Rickson was my coach, his back was a mess and he would’ve needed a warmup fight before Sak. Sak wins and that’s hard for me to say even though Sakuraba is one of my all time favorites.