UFC founder Rorion Gracie on the formation of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (Part 1/2)

[@redoz9768]

"We thought of a moat with alligators, sharks, and an electric fence. But eventually we came up with the idea of an Octagon" - Rorion

[@theDavidChannel1]

449 views?? This thing should have at least 449,000 views!

[@redoz9768]

3 years after your post, 7,710 views. Something ain't right.

[@buttadog281]

Well after 4 years it had 10k views

[@KazakhLezginka]

He is awesome!

[@jeffreysimpson9939]

So, I met a guy at a Friday's bar in Sarasota FL in the early 90's. A bartender and one of the patrons ushered me over and said, 'hey, Jeff, You've got to meet this guy. He wants to start a mixed martial arts competition like you talk about doing.' Well, I was surprised they even remembered that was one of my interests; it was just a pipe dream to me... and no one ever seemed interested when I talked about it and always changed the subject. Anyway, so I said hello to this gentleman, and he bought me a beer, and we proceeded to discuss the subject for at least a couple of hours. It wasn't long before I realized this very pleasant guy was actually very serious about doing this. His name was Bob, and I believe he said he was from Connecticut and had some sort of promotional company. I think he was also interested in car racing as well as the martial arts. His idea though was to bring together karate, boxing, muay thai, and some other martial arts fighters into a competition to see which style was best. I don't think he even knew what jiu jitsu was, but I did. Although my notion of it was what came out of Japan. Still, I figured since jiu jitsu included both striking and grappling, that it would be the most effective. I told him he should seek out jiu jitsu fighters for the contest, along with the others.. I also recommended submission wrestlers. I was thinking that a big strong American farm boy who was athletic, and learned submission wrestling would be extremely hard to beat and would be able to compete well with a Japanese fighter who had both grappling and striking skills. I also recommended that he take a good looking, charismatic fighter and send him over to the WWF at some point, then bring him back, and with him all the fans he would be bringing over from the WWF (now the WWE). I don't know if they were sent, but Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn actually did just that a few years later.. They were pretty much exactly the type of fighters I was imagining at the time. Bob and I blueprinted a lot about how the contest would be. I liked the idea of the traditional ring, just because I had been a fight fan my entire life, and was attached to it, but Bob had the idea that it should be in an octagon. I thought that was stupid, because it seemed like an imitation of a Chuck Norris movie. But the more i thought about it, it actually would work. And it did, so, Bob was right on that one. I also suggested that he was going to run into legal trouble once his promotion became a threat to the boxing business. He dismissed that and said he didn't think that would be a problem. Well, I think Senator McCain proved Bob wrong on that one, although perhaps that was unconnected with the political clout of the boxing world, and more about the apparent moral outrage over cage fighting. Regardless, it sure helped get Bob to eventually sell the UFC for dirt cheap, I think a couple of million or so. Compare that to what it is worth now. You see, it turns out Bob was almost certainly a man named Bob Meyrorwitz, who for awhile owned the UFC.I was watching the UFC one day in the 90's when they had actually resorted to giving out medals at the end instead of the checks they used to give out. Maybe they didn't want the fans to know how little cash they had to give the fighters at that point? In any event, , they introduced this guy named Bob Meyrowitz, president of SEG sports, and he presented the winners with these medals. I think there were multiple winners, but I can't remember for sure. What I do know for sure is that the guy I was looking at named Bob Meyrowitz was the spitting image of the guy i met a few years before at Fridays from Connecticut named Bob who wanted to promote a mixed martial arts contest. And he even sounded exactly like the guy named Bob. As I thought more about it, it became pretty clear to me that they had to be one and the same. Nobody ever talks about Bob Meyrowitz anymore when discussing the origins of the UFC. Yet, I would like to think he must have been pretty involved to be able to sell it years later. So, while Rorion Gracie was obviously a huge part of all this, and absolutely deserves most of the credit, I feel like maybe it wasn't just Art Davies and the other guy Rorian mentioned that played a significant role in helping set this up, that maybe Bob Meyrowitz deserves a share of the credit too !?

[@ShannMart2029]

In the 1980s, the biggest arguments about martial arts and fighting were about what style of hand to hand combat was the best. Also, in those times you hardly saw a real fight. Probably only in the rough neighborhoods. So, it was only in our imagination that we thought what was the best style of fighting until the UFC came along.

[@sadbasturd99]

I knew back then a greco roman wrestler would completely ruin a boxer or Karate guy because I did a little wrestling. I couldn't tell anyone that though because they would never believe me. So at least I was right about the fight going to the ground.

[@MrMZaccone]

@TheJughead77 Not from their back they can't, and that's where they end up if they can't grapple.

[@MrMZaccone]

@big dog Some of the guys in the early UFC had been in prison.

[@MrMZaccone]

@TheJughead77 You have any evidence for that statistic? Don't bother. No. You don't. It's bullshit and all the early NHB competitions proved it.

[@777Skeptic]

Kids growing up with MMA will probably never understand how mysterious martial arts was prior to 1993. A lot of martial arts were nothing more than snakeoil, with the practitioner believing their own BS. UFC 1 was such a reality check, and it demystify a lot of martial arts that didn't work. When the smoke cleared and the dust settled, it turns out BJJ, wrestling, and kickboxing produced results. The rest produced excuses.

[@siasti]

I'm sure that Ken Shamrock was fully expecting to win the event...

[@ShannMart2029]

The old timers should watch this and also find out how the UFC started. I still have arguments with my uncle's (they're around 60 plus years old) about pro boxers are the best ultimate fighters, and would take out any MMA fighter.

[@DarkScorpionPete98]

The Gracies proved you wrong, mate.

[@Voo504Doo]

@@DarkScorpionPete98 im pretty sure his uncles are proved wrong, not him. if you read correctly

[@blindnumber]

Electric fence, wtf ... It would have been a hard draw ..Man from finland. Good vibes

[@jakeheke8326]

He should speak about how the GRACIES rigged all the fights in early UFC

[@xmanc5687]

They didn’t rig anything. It was style vs style back then. No one knew what would happen back then. I was one of Royces earliest students. I was at the first UFC. They did these type of events in Brazil, so they were way ahead of the game in the US