This thread is like Saturday morning cartoons when I was little
Love it
I trained with the family when Rockson died. It was tragic and put Rickson in a bad place. It was way worse than people know on the family. Renzo is the one that found Rockson after he was missing and it broke everyone’s hearts but especially Rickson. How could you fight after that? Not then. It wasn’t about the money it was about being heart broken to the core. Rickson would’ve fought Saku with out a doubt. It was the plan.
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This thread dammit
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Rorion is a Lawyer and not a good guy or a great grappler. He left Brazil with a law degree and a purple belt and landed here with a black belt. When Rickson came and opened the Rickson Gracie academy Rorion served him with a notice that he was not allowed to use the Gracie name. Rickson let him know that he wa a Gracie and they could settle it like men if he thought he wasn’t going to use his name on his academy. That was the end of that and the reason for the rift.
Royce was the marketing tool for Rorion and acted the part. Had to be a smiling asshole.
Ralph and Ryan are/were legit crazy. Bad asses that didn’t care what you thought and that would smack you in a minute.
Renzo is somewhere in the middle. A great guy until he wasn’t and then you are fucked. I’d hate to be a gas station clerk in his hood ( reference to 2 incidents).
Rickson was king. Everybody knew it. I remember Tinguinha telling me he went to Barra and sat in the middle of the mat and just walked through every black belt in the gym one after another with no rests. Multiple champs on the mat and everyone tapped. Tinguinha said no Barra BB would miss that session. They had 25+ bb on the mat.
Rickson is and was the real thing.
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I was always curious if Rickson ever took it to Rorian.
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That isn’t true, not even close, completely false. Rolls always beat rorion, but if you think rorion wasn’t any good or only at purple belt level, you’re fucking nuts. Ask carlinhos who the biggest influences on him were, and he’ll say rolls and rorion. Rorion used to go dojo storming alone in the late 70’s, which ttook brass balls and he is probably the gold standard for meticulous instruction, and this is coming from someone who is no fan of rorion or his business practices.
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Not from what I know. Why did Rorion teach to put your hand on top of the head in a rear naked and then do a rear naked knuckles forward behind the neck locked in?? Because then he could peel the hand. God forbid someone caught him. EGO. I wasn’t impressed by Rorion back in the day . His sons yea. Rose not so much but she talks a big game. You’ll have your version but I was around a lot of the family and many of them would tell you different. Your version is yours and that fine but it’s not mine.
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And that’s why I don’t like to post on these threads because I don’t like to not show respect.
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Rorion left holes for himself to exploit in the early years for sure. You’ll find no-one to back up that purple belt fallacy, zero.
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I never saw the hand on the top of the head RNC, that’s still ok as long as you suck them in close and use your chest to expand out at the same time, maybe that was after my time, i doubt it though, most of his escape hatches were in positioning.
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To be fair. You could hang out with a new family member everyday and you would get a different version of truth and history. Much of what I got was second hand and some was first. I get that it’s a funny history and that history goes to the victors. That’s why I side with Rickson, Ralph , Ryan and Renzo. Where is Rorion today in their lives or even back then? They teach good self defense stuff at Rorions and I still believe in a lot of it but I don’t for a second think he was anywhere near the others. Rorion is a business man first. He isn’t who the others proved to be in my opinion. He however produced two great sons at BJJ. So is he all pomp? Couldn’t be. He taught two monsters.
I appreciate that history is slanted for all of us and that includes me.
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Yeah I don’t think I’ve ever seen a claim before that Rorian was only a purple belt. From all accounts I’ve read Helio went hardest on him and at him because he was the oldest and was meant to be the successor.
It didn’t turn out like that and Rolls and Rickson became clearly better, plus I believe Rorian suffered from ongoing shoulder injuries. But he was a blackbelt.
Were any of Helio’s sons not blackbelt by 21?
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Cool. Let’s acknowledge him a Black Belt. Especially considering the times. It really doesn’t matter. He is Rorion and he brought it here. He deserves that respect. He was more about the pen than the lock in my opinion and Rickson is more about the base, posture ,advance and kill. This thread is about Rickson and I should just stfu. My history with the family and sport is from 97 forward. It’s definitely not a lifetime like some.
Fwiw I don’t claim to be close to any of them. I have trained with many of them and or been around them from time to time.
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Caique had a lot to do
With how good the kids got imo.
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i’ll tell you a funny little story about rorion, in 78’ or 79’, he dojo stormed one of the most famous and hardest core tkd guys in the world named hee-il-cho. Rorion smoked him with ease, then cho demanded a rematch and rorion smoked him even faster, as cho was flopping around another korean picked up a 20lb dumbbell and started over to brain rorion with it, he let go of the now unconscious cho, kicked him off and went after the roof korean with barbell, who quickly decided discretion was the better part of valor and set his rorion smasher on the floor and raised his hands in supplication. BTW, at that time tkd wasn’t the mcdojo farce that we’ve came to know and love, they were mostly korean cats who had survived the japanese occupation and korean war.
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Debraco you make a good point about Carlinhos. I have my kid in a Barra school. I can see the influence I business for sure. When I look at Barra history it doesn’t look like the game of Rorions side. They have different intents with Rorion being very self defense oriented. Close guard Game. Barra was the innovators playing hook sweep game, sitting to guard or half guard to start a match. Open guard attacks. Half guard as primary position to some games.
So I write that to say you are correct imo that Carlinhos learned the Most from Rorion but I think it was how to monetize the game.
History makes me feel old lol
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carlos jr said he learned how to teach and strong defensive game from rorion, as he was rorions assistant at carlos and helio’s gracie academy. He didn’t really start with rolls until after rolls had moved to carlsons. On an unrelated but humorous nots, sometime after ufc 3, royce did an interview with black belt or karate illustrated and was asked who his main teachers were, when he replied rorion, rolls and carlos jr, rorion about shit himself because royce had gave jr and rolls equal billing with him. It was as bad as when royce said rickson was 10x better than he.
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I stormed a dojo and shot everybody. Motherfuckers knew what was up after that.
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you would have shot yourself in the foot out of sheer terror before you even commenced
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Respect.
GIA got me into this life. I have to admit that it was all balls and confidence and it was everything I could look up to. So I’ll digress and maintain some of my opinions but Rorion had balls for sure. He also brought the game here and made it famous.
How to teach. That is a whole different thing to me. That is one of the elements of a top BB that when developed is very important. I see that at my kids school and really appreciate the program because of it.
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