The former UFC champion Royce Gracie is a legend in the fight game and is well-known for the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu he displayed during the early years of the UFC. He’ll always be remembered as one of the fathers of mixed martial arts due to his superb ground skills, which allowed him to submit opponents of all sizes. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was new to many when he fought for the UFC, but he has continuously stated that his success was all due to the “strategy” he mastered. In a recent interview with sherdog.com Royce considered Lyoto Machida, Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre as fighters who possess that strategy and that is why they dominate their division.
Here’s the snip from Royce Gracie himself:
“I don’t understand why people criticized (Silva) so much (against Thales Leites). He used a perfect strategy and wasn’t hit in the whole fight, had a clean fight and won. Do we have rules? So let’s fight under the rules. Why would he go there and fight until he rips his opponent’s head off? … Why would he expose himself? You have to use your mind. I like the guys who use strategy — these are the guys who are on the top: Lyoto, Anderson, GSP. They fight clean and take their opponents out of their own games … Lyoto is one of the few guys that knows how to use strategy. Besides his karate and his ground game, he knows how to use strategy and that’s what puts him on the top. I saw his victory over Rashad. He wasn’t punched one single time in the whole fight and that’s (the strategy).”
