Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Royce Gracie
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The mixed martial arts fight between Kazushi Sakuraba and Royce Gracie was held in 2000 at PRIDE Fighting Championships. Due to its special rules, it lasted 90 minutes before ending with the victory of Sakuraba by TKO. It has been widely considered one of the greatest and most influential MMA fights of all time, as well as a vital part of the rivalry between the Gracie family and Sakuraba, who gained the nickname "Gracie Hunter" after the match.[1] It was followed by a rematch in 2007 in K-1 Dynamite!! USA, where Gracie defeated Sakuraba in controversial fashion and tested positive for steroids after the bout.
The rivalry between Kazushi Sakuraba from Takada Dojo and the Gracie family of Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioners started in PRIDE 8, when Sakuraba faced Royler Gracie, though it actually traced back to the first PRIDE Fighting Championships event, PRIDE 1, where Royler's brother Rickson had defeated Sakuraba's stablemaster Nobuhiko Takada.[2] The victory over Takada had served to cement the Gracie family's reputation in Japan and continue the spreading of their family art as it had happened in United States with the Ultimate Fighting Championship venture.[2] However, the match between Sakuraba and Royler changed this opinion.[2][3] Sakuraba, a professional wrestler of the shoot-style kind (a mixture of catch wrestling, judo, sambo, muay thai and other arts), dominated Royler both standing and on the ground and defeated him by the way of Kimura lock, following up with a challenge to Rickson himself.[2] This loss was the first for the Gracie family in decades (coincidentally, by the same move as the last time they lost to a Japanese fighter in Masahiko Kimura vs. Hélio Gracie),[2] and marked the question whether their approach to mixed martial arts, mainly based on Brazilian jiu-jitsu alone, could still hold up against a well-rounded, cross-trained fighter like Sakuraba.[3] The Gracie side argued Royler's loss should not be counted, as it had happened by referee stoppage, an action that went directly against the special ruleset they had requested for that fight.[2] In order to clear this out and issue a challenge, undefeated UFC champion and Royler's and Rickson's brother Royce agreed to sign up with PRIDE,[1] which had previously been in contact with him for an abandoned matchup with Mark Kerr.[1]
"I have my demands. It’s not exactly special treatment. My family, my father, created this fighting business. What he created in Brazil a long time ago, the challenge matches, it’s why we have Pride, the UFC, Strikeforce."
— Royce Gracie about the match's rules.[4]
Upon the annunciation of the PRIDE Grand Prix openweight tournament in 2000, it was known both Royce and Sakuraba were going to partake, so a match between the two was anticipated. This matchup eventually realized after the first round of the tournament on January 30, as they both eliminated their respective opponents: Gracie defeated Nobuhiko Takada by decision, while Sakuraba defeated Guy Mezger after a retirement due to contract issues. With this resolution, they were slated to fight each other.[5] However, seeking to prevent a situation like the Royler match, the Gracie side demanded special rules for the match. Their representative Rorion Gracie called for an unlimited number of 15 minute rounds, no judges, no referee stoppages, and only knockout, submission or towel throw as ways to win.[6] Sakuraba found these demands inappropriate,[4] while Royce defended himself by underlining the role of his family in the history of MMA and by pointing out he was already at a weight disadvantage in the match (actually just 7 lbs).[3] Mark Kerr, who competed at the same tournament, supported Sakuraba's criticism on the personalized rules.[4] Eventually, Sakuraba accepted,[7] and characteristically joked about wearing a diaper to the match in prevision of its unlimited length, as well as learning ventriloquism to deceive the referee into believing Gracie had submitted.[4][7] However, upon finding Royce absent from the rule meeting the day before the match, he engaged in a brief trash talking, criticizing the Gracie family and accusing them of hypocrisy and cowardice.[4]
"Crazy and Gracie sound more similar in Japanese, but they really are crazy. I can't even put into words my feelings for them. I'll take you on, with your own rules. Let me say that it is due to expressionless Royce and his relative Rorion that we have this no-rules fighting. But isn't it that this fire that they lit has gotten bigger than them and now they are running away from it?"
— Kazushi Sakuraba at the rule meeting on April 30, 2000.[4]
Sakuraba would reveal that, although Gracie's cornermen later reacted at these declarations, Royce himself took no offense and wished them both for a good fight.[8]
The fight
| Date | May 1, 2000 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Venue | Tokyo Dome, Tokyo, Japan | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Title(s) on the line | N/A | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tale of the tape | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Result | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sakuraba won by TKO at the sixth round | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
The match took place at the Tokyo Dome in front of an audience of 38,429 people.[4] While Gracie made his entrance performing the famous "Gracie train" with his relatives and teammates, including Rorion and Hélio Gracie, Sakuraba came wearing a Super Strong Machine wrestling mask and accompanied by Daijiro Matsui and Minoru Toyonaga in identical attires and masks, making impossible to tell which of them was the Japanese fighter until he unmasked in the ring. At that moment, Sakuraba revealed his hair dyed bright orange, which was part of a bet he had made with a Japanese TV comedian.[7] Unlike Royce, who chose to wear a full Brazilian jiu-jitsu gi for the fight, the Japanese wore his orange wrestling tights.[3] Professional wrestler Antonio Inoki and musician Eric Clapton came to the ring to present them with flower bouquets.[9]
Sakuraba opened the fight scoring a single leg takedown right after the opening bell. When Gracie returned to his feet, they clinched and went against the ropes. Unable to properly hit Sakuraba, Gracie pulled guard and attempted to seize his opponent's leg for a leglock, but Sakuraba escaped by turning his back. The Brazilian then got up and clamped to his back, only for Sakuraba to grab a Kimura lock from behind and drop down to try to complete the hold. The fight moved to the corner, where Gracie tried to free himself from the hold by raining hammerfists on Sakuraba's back and head, while the latter held position and stuck his head outside the ropes to counterbalance himself. Knowing the strikes lacked power to inflict damage,[10] Sakuraba spent the time looking directly to a cameraman outside the ring and smiling to him, which drew cheers and laughs from the crowd.[11] Referee Yuji Shimada separated them and restarted the fight, but the situation repeated itself, with Kazushi pursuing submissions from behind and Royce keeping himself active with short strikes. At the last seconds, the wrestler locked a kneebar that seemed decisive,[1] but Royce managed to resist until the round time went out.[12]
At the second round, the contenders clinched again against the ropes, where Gracie threw knee strikes to Kazushi's bandaged knee. A discussion happened at the four minutes mark, as Gracie refused to let the referee restart the fight.[12] Still on the ropes, Sakuraba gripped the Brazilian's sleeve to hinder his strikes, and when Gracie tried to free it, the wrestler capitalized on the distraction to undo Gracie's obi, allowing him to grab more freely his uwagi. In response, Royce tried to drop down to guard, but Kazushi was able to pull him up back to standing. Finally finding an opening, the Brazilian scored several punches, but Sakuraba's control on his jacket shut his offense off, at one point even pulling the cloth over Royce's shoulders to confuse him while trying to cover his head with it.[12] Gracie attempted now a standing guillotine choke, which Sakuraba countered with a takedown to half guard. Another tumult broke up when Royce hit an accidental knee to the groin, although not by the blow itself, which went unnoticed, but by their reactions; Royce apologized to Sakuraba, and the latter signaled his understanding by patting him reassuringly in the rear, making the Gracie corner believe he had tapped out.[11][7] In any case, the choke was ultimately ineffective, with Sakuraba even toying with Royce's pants while trying to grab his belt.[7] Again, the time ran off again without a conclusion.[12]
The third round began with the already usual clinch against the ropes. After the Brazilian scored several punches, Sakuraba accidentally hit him with his own low blow, leading the referee to warn him. Once Gracie was given some minutes to recover, he tried a sweep, but the Japanese reversed it with a takedown and dropped him to his guard. As Sakuraba wasn't engaging him on the ground, Gracie got up and rammed him to the corner, where he looked to score foot stomps and knees, but the Japanese suddenly attacked with a flurry of right punches that knocked Gracie to the mat. Taken by surprise, the Brazilian initially opted to remain on the mat to stay safe, although he returned to his feet when Sakuraba started kicking his legs as he had done in the fight against Royler. As soon as the Brazilian fighter got up, Sakuraba landed a heavy low kick that made Gracie falter noticeably.[10] During the next minutes, Royce attempted to reestablish the clinch, only for the now openly offensive Sakuraba to land both punching combinations and low kicks in every attempt. Shortly after, Sakuraba added theatrical Mongolian chops to his offense, using them to set up strikes and confuse his opponent. Royce eventually accomplished the clinch, but just a few seconds before the end of the round.[11][12]
Finally acknowledging he was facing unexpected difficulties, Gracie decided to focus completely on the match instead of looking up to continue on the tournament.[11] He started the fourth round aggressively, but Sakuraba grabbed his uwagi and dragged it around to nullify Gracie's offense. The Brazilian jiu-jitsu expert dropped down to his guard in an attempt to avoid the new tactic, which Sakuraba capitalized on to control him further by grabbing his gi trousers. This forced Gracie to stand up and keep himself mobile to avoid more grabs, but at the same time allowed Sakuraba to score more punching combinations and low kicks, clearly seeking to accumulate damage on Gracie's legs.[11] Already limping and with a cut on his eye, Royce returned to his previous offensive strategy and tried his best to take Sakuraba down, but although he managed to capture Sakuraba's back, the shoot wrestler blocked all his takedown attempts. The round ended with Sakuraba on Gracie's half guard.
Sakuraba opened the fifth round with a low kick and a takedown, showing no signs of fatigue yet in stark contrast to his clearly worn down opponent.[1] He besieged Royce's closed guard and landed ground and pound in the form of punches and Mongolian chops, which forced Gracie to open his legs. At that moment, the Japanese grabbed the Brazilian's trousers and dumped him over his head, capitalizing on the confusion to score several punches to the face.[1][12] Gracie answered with a few strikes from the bottom and avoided a guard pass by establishing a butterfly guard, but Sakuraba stood up and scored a clean stomp on Gracie's face before the time expired.
At the opening of the sixth round, Sakuraba took Gracie down and attacked his guard again. This time, Gracie hit a few heel kicks to the back of Sakuraba's head, pursuing an Ezequiel choke from the bottom that was unsuccessful. With both fighters standing again, Sakuraba landed repeated low kicks, punishing his opponent's legs even when the latter dropped to the mat in an attempt to avoid it. Gracie was able to slow the pace standing by ramming Sakuraba against a corner, but by this point the Brazilian was too exhausted and worn to follow up with a takedown attempt or a try to capture his back. A new low kick by the shoot wrestler sent Gracie to the mat, where Sakuraba rained strikes and punches through his guard. Sensing the final of the bout was approaching, Gracie tried takedowns and guard pulls in a last attempt, only for Sakuraba to block all of them and keep punishing his legs with kicks. The Japanese then jumped high over the jiu-jitsu expert's guard and landed a heavy flying punch just before the end of the time.[11] During the rest, Royce sat on his corner stool and informed his teammates he was unable to walk because the damage to his legs (one of his femurs would be found to be fractured due to the accumulated kicks),[13] and after some deliberation, finally Rorion Gracie threw the towel to concede the fight. Sakuraba was declared the winner after 90 minutes of fighting.
Despite the effort of such a fight, Sakuraba chose to advance round and continue fighting through the card, which put in a match minutes later against Igor Vovchanchyn. The Japanese performed dominantly enough to be granted an extra round, but the effects of his previous battle showed up and he decided to bow out of the tournament, being eliminated.[1]
