Rickson Fighting and Teaching

After only intermittent teaching for the last couple of years, Rickson has been teaching at least 1/2 of the classes at his school in west LA over the past several weeks. We hope it will continue, as classes are a totally different experience with Rickson teaching in the room. He is very hands on, very technical, spends a lot of time attending to each guy. He has a tremendous amount of charisma, and the students seem to be very focused and attentive while he is there. Some speculate at the school that this is part of his preparation for a possible fight in Japan in 2004.

In related news from Fightsport.com: "The Japanese media is reporting that Antonio Inoki is ready to offer Rickson Gracie up to USD$5 million in order to get him on his New Year's Eve show that will be broadcast on Nippon TV.

Rickson Gracie's opponent would be Kazuyuki Fujita."

Whizzard - I'll be in LA the first week of June and am hoping to stop by Tuesday,June 1 at the 6:30 class - what are the chances it'll be taught by Rickson?

tsdabjjfighter,

As it stands now, he is teaching the Tues and THurs night classes, so chances are excellent.

awesome

I used to train with Luis when the academy was in the Palisades and being shared with the karate studio next door....Baxter (sp?) the thai boxer with one arm used to teach privates there too. Anyway, I never saw Rickson one time until he moved to the location off Wilshire....it was for sure a different experience when he's there. He'll jump right in and stop you if you're doing something wrong.....but, hearing this about him coming back and fighting again I do not believe....especially if it's against Fujita....I mean, the guy is old as far as fighting goes now. It's been almost 4 years since he last fought.....and if he's coming into class more often to teach his students...I don't see how in anyway that could help him prepare for a fight if he actually was going to fight.

Any Sumos in the class he can train with?

No way he fights Fujita, an unranked but dangerous heavyweight.

Funny, I heard the same thing 5 million and fujita, only I heard this a year ago.

Henry Akins and Shane Rice (who are both close confidants of Rickson), as well as Rickson's son, said that Rickson is very close to signing up a fight in Japan this year. That makes it a lot more credible in my book.

The person I heard it from is very credible as well, I think this is something that has fell through a couple times, hopefully it will happen. I'm glad to hear it's still in the works.

Mickey

TTT for Rickson, although I don't think he should be fighting anymore, as he's past his prime. In his day, he was a bad ass tho; I heard he once tapped Royce and Rorion at the same time!

In just about anything that you teach, you seem to actually learn and retain more by teaching it to someone else. So, as crazy as it sounds, I'm sure even Rickson learns a little while teaching. If nothing else, it reinforces what he already knows and probably gives him more focus.

Rickson turned 45 in Nov 2003. He'll be 46 if he fights on 12/31/04.

Rickson vs Fujita would be interesting but I seriously doubt he will fight again. He is 45 years old. It would take some serious balls to get in the ring with a heavyweight who is as strong as a bull when you are a 45 year old middleweight.

Personally, I hope that Rickson doesn't fight, at age forty-six, especially against another Japanese fighter. What is the point?

I heard from Royce's mouth months ago at dinner(him, myself and some others ate together after a seminar) that Rickson was probably going to fight again in the next year or two in Japan. He also said he doubted he would fight again if it wasn't in that time period. He seemed pretty sure he was going too though.

"Personally, I hope that Rickson doesn't fight, at age forty-six, especially against another Japanese fighter. What is the point? "

Well, among other things, $5,000,000 USD.

thanks for the info, whizzard...send me an e-mail and I can give you some details on where I'm planning to train and get your thoughts - send me your # and we can take care of it in one phone call

bjjbeartrap@yahoo.com

wow, interesting stuff!!!!

5 Million Dollars is a payday that no other MMA can compete with. Absolutely amazing if it is true. The temptation/incentive is there for him to step into the ring again. But, if he loses, would it be worth it? I don't want to see that. Fujita is freaking tough as hell, and much younger. I would seriously pay to watch that fight. I don't know if I want Rickson to do that fight.

If he does, I hope he wins.