It's coming up soon! Both have had some pretty harsh words for eachother.

I think Gracie will win by submission and hopefully Hughes will gain a little humility.

What is your take on this?

I used to not like Gracie or grappling altogether for that matter. His earlier matches in the ufc made him seem arrogant,but that was before I started groundfighting myself. He is now my hero!

I look at it this way; What are they’re strengths? Hughes is clearly stronger and has better wrestling and some stand-up (compared to Royce). Royce has what??? Jiu-Jitsu? EVERYONE has jiu-jitsu nowadays! Matt HUGHES has jiu-jitsu!

I CAN tell you this much, Hughes’s will get the takedown. I don’t think anyone is really doubting that much. Royce will probably not contest the takedown much so that he can pull guard. I doubt very seriously that he’ll shoot or try and clinch with Hughes.

So I see this fight being a guard battle. And that’s really nothing new to Hughes. Hughes will do nothing but train with a lot of jiu-jitsu guys for this fight. When he gets in the ring with Gracie, it will be nothing unfamiliar to him (not that it would be anyway, because he sees guard play all the time).

The question is, will Royce be wearing the gi jacket or not? I haven’t heard. Perhaps no one will know until fight time. So what’s that do for Hughes’s preparation? He’ll probably train against a guy wearing a jacket and then standard no-gi to mix it up (because if I’m correct, Royce fought without a jacket once recently?).

Either way, I really do not see this fight being much of a problem for him. Maybe if I’d just seen Gracie a little more than I have in recent years against fighters of worth I’d feel differently. We’ll have to wait and see if there will be any “special rules” for this fight…..

I like Royce. He even quasi promoted me (telling me several years ago to “go get yourself a blue belt”). And I like Matt Hughes. I don’t think he is nearly as arrogant as people think he is. I’ll watch this and won’t know whom to root for.


-John

whilst I only have a spectators view point on such things, i do think that the advantage Gracie had in his hayday was based on BJJ/Grappling being an unknown quantity to the wider fighting community.

Hughes has youth, strength, striking, clinch, wrestling as advantages, and has shown himself to be great on the ground as well .

I think Gracie will play a spoiling game and hope for break in Hughes's concentration or fatigue to set in.

either way, he will be doing the grappling equivalent of looking for a lucky punch IMO.

Then again, what do I know? the last grappling I did was with a footlong double meat chicken teriaki from Subway

Quote:

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Then again, what do I know? the last grappling I did was with a footlong double meat chicken teriaki from Subway

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SUB mission.

I've noted that Spike TV is currently showing a lot of Royce Gracie's old UFC fights. Presumably to justify and hype the up-coming fight with Matt Hughes.

The problem is, that every contest they've shown shows that the opponents have next to no knowledge of the ground game. It's a very different scenario now. All the top fighters are used to being on the ground and dealing with fighting there.

MH has youth on his side and my money's on him.

I'm kinda sad that the fight is taking place. I'd like to remember RG for what he did in his prime, changing the face of Martial Arts as it was known. Kind of like Ali in his prime.

Mind you, he's always been one tough guy and maybe he'll suprise everyone.

Much respect for Gracie, he has earned it over and over. Hughes, I don't like his attitude since seeing the Ultimate Fighter 2 series, but he has earned his place and the title and he is good. Old vs. New. 100% that I do know, this is a money grabber for the UFC, plain and simple.

I see Gracie pulling guard after Hughes takes him down. Gracie will try to work things and creeping his legs up or looking for an arm bar from the bottom or something like this. Hughes will use a lot of strength and I believe he will pick him up and crash him to the matt repeatedly through the match. I think it will go two rounds and Hughes will come out the victor. Gracie will get his well deserved applause and Gracie will give props to Hughes and talk about he was the past and Hughes is the future and he wishes Hughes well. Hughes in his speech will give props to Gracie ... and everybody will be friends.

When it is all said and done, I have a hard time seeing the UFC putting up somebody that get beat Hughes at this time, though they would make oodles amount of money either way. When it is all said and done, St. Pierre deserves his title shot and should have had his opportunity already with Hughes ... but money got in the way for the UFC and Gracie was a better draw. IMO

John,
I kind of figured you'd be rooting for the old guy.

Anything can happen, as we saw from some of the last fights but I hope Gracie wins by submission. Did you hear how much money he is getting???!!!

To me it seems Royce has nothing to lose by fighting Huges. I would imagine that most MMA folks when thinking of Royce consider him to be history. I don't mean that in a condescending way but that the game has moved on. The most compelling aspect of gracie story is smaller/weaker/and now older, practioner can be victorious. Certainly anything could happen. If Royce loses he still has his place in MMA history which nothing is going to touch. If he happens to win, he reinvigorate the Gracie brand inspireing a new crop of middle aged grapplers interested in BJJ. Again I don't mean this to sound condescending at all, perhaps pragmatic.