02/03/2010 - Rolles Gracie – Leading The Way for The Next Generation
If there is one trademark of the Gracie family, it’s the remarkable ability to perform and persevere in situations that would break most people. Whether it was Royce fighting and beating those who were bigger, stronger, and faster than him in the early UFC’s, Renzo refusing to tap out to Kazushi Sakuraba’s kimura in PRIDE, Rickson’s overall brilliance in competition, the understated grace of Royler, or the intensity of Ryan, the members of the first family of mixed martial arts have been remarkably proficient at defusing pressure when the lights are at their brightest.
This Saturday night, the UFC 109 card at the Mandalay Bay Events Center will open with only the second member of the family to compete in the Octagon – heavyweight Rolles Gracie, the son of Rolls, the grandson of Carlos Sr. and the cousin of Renzo and Royce. Just making your UFC debut in Las Vegas is harrowing enough; to do so with the Gracie surname could be even more harrowing, but in true family tradition, Rolles is embracing the opportunity and the moment, not shying away from it.
“To be honest, I’ve been getting so much love and so much energy and support from everybody,” he said. “A lot of people have sent me messages through my website, through Twitter and Facebook, and I’m loving it. I appreciate the support and I’m happy to be there to represent all these people and I will not disappoint them.”
With that said, the crush of media looking to get a few quotes from the man carrying on the most prominent legacy in the sport has been a lot more intense than what is received by 99.9% of debuting UFC fighters that are opening the preliminary card. He accepts it, saying, “The way I see it, if people want to do interviews and stuff like that, it’s because they care. So I try to feed from that energy, and it motivates me to train even more. Better to have all these interviews than none. (Laughs) Then nobody would care.”
But everyone does care, simply because of what his family has accomplished in the past and what a new generation of Gracie fighter might bring to the table in 2010. So when you talk to him, he takes everything in with a grace that makes you think he was born for this; because in a way, he was.
“I always knew that I was kind of a different kid in school and on the block because of all the habits that we had at home,” said Gracie, a native of Rio De Janeiro. “When I was young, jiu-jitsu wasn’t very famous in Brazil, so all the other kids were doing different martial arts – they were doing karate, judo, and stuff like that, and I was the one doing jiu-jitsu. I tried to explain what it was, and people couldn’t even pronounce jiu-jitsu.”
In 1993, the world began to figure out very quickly what jiu-jitsu was after Royce Gracie inaugurated the Ultimate Fighting Championship with a tournament win that got everyone talking about this mysterious art that forced fighters to give up despite holding every physical advantage. The teenage Rolles watched this and the exploits of his other cousins with great interest.
“I always saw my family members – my father, my uncles, my cousins – as my heroes,” he said. They were role models to me and I always knew I wanted to be like them.”
As the years went on, his mother wanted him to supplement his training with a college education, but after a couple years, the die was cast – Gracie was going to enter the family business.
“I had everything set up to follow this path, but I never felt pressure to do it,” he said. “If I wanted to do something else, I could have. My mother always supported my training, but she always told me that I should go to college, get a degree, and stuff like that. I didn’t listen to her. I had a couple years of college, and then I decided to go with my martial arts career.”
A laundry list of jiu-jitsu and grappling titles and accolades would follow for the second-degree BJJ black belt, and while he mixed standup training into his regimen over the years, it wasn’t until he moved to New York in 2004 that the idea of competing in mixed martial arts began to truly take shape. In 2007, he made his pro debut in the IFL with a first round submission win over Sam Holloway, and two 2009 victories (also by first round submission) over Baga Agaev and Peter Graham upped his perfect record to 3-0. It was the type of run you expect from a Gracie.
“Whenever I decide to do something, I want to dedicate myself and try to be the best that I can,” he said. “I put my hours into it and that (the victories) is the consequence of my very hard training and the right training. I don’t know if the other fights are gonna go like this – hopefully they do (Laughs) because my mother and my wife will love it, but I know that there are a lot of tough guys out there.”
This Saturday, at 31, he will make his UFC debut against late replacement Joey Beltran (who is stepping in for original foe Mostapha Al
“I feel that right now the moment couldn’t be better for me,” he said. “I feel like my body’s stronger than ever, I feel more mature than ever, and I felt that if I got into the game a little too early, I might be burned out and wouldn’t want to continue in my MMA career. Now I’m doing this because I have everything in my life settled – I have a great family, great wife, great kid – so everything is in connected for me to do this. I have a great team, great trainers, great training partners, so every piece of the puzzle is connected. There couldn’t be a better moment for me.”
And despite the inaccurate stereotype of a Gracie closing ranks in the gym and focusing on jiu-jitsu and nothing else behind closed doors, Rolles has added to his training in New York with Renzo Gracie by going to Albuquerque to work with Greg
“I love going there,” said Gracie. “Greg Jackson, first of all, he’s a nice guy. But I like going there to train, because most likely the guys I’m gonna fight are gonna be straight up MMA guys. In New York I have great training with Renzo and all my training partners, but they’re mostly jiu-jitsu guys and they accept the ground game more. They’re not worried to play on the ground with me, and I don’t think that will happen when I step in the Octagon. I think guys are gonna try to avoid the ground game, and those are the kind of MMA guys that I had the chance to work with at Jackson’s.”
It’s clear that Gracie is leaving no stone unturned before his bout, and despite the fact that Beltran is a banger who probably fits the mold of the MMA fighter who doesn’t want to go to the mat with a Gracie jiu-jitsu ace, there is no air of superiority around the New Yorker where he says that he will simply take Beltran down and tap him out. He’s preparing for all possibilities when the bell rings.
“When you’re fighting at this level, you don’t have the luxury to underestimate anybody,” he said. “I’m training a lot, putting my hours in, and it’s going to be a tough fight. If I make a mistake, he’s going to punish me and capitalize on it, so I’m preparing for a war.”
He’s also preparing for the expectations that come with growing up Gracie. And it may just be a hunch, but it looks like Rolles Gracie is going to be just fine in the eye of that storm.
“I’m very family-oriented, so everything I do, first it’s because I want to, but I also want to keep the flame alive for the next generation, the ones who follow my path,” he said. “I want to be a role model for the young ones if they want to follow in this line of work. I want to keep the lineage going on like my ancestors have before me. And everything I do, I like to do good, and even if I didn’t have this last name, I would be very sad and disappointed with a loss. So I’m going to do everything I can to get out of the cage with a win.”
Source: UFC.com
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