Today marks the 28th anniversary of UFC 1. On November 12, 1993. (the day that changed martial arts forever), an event like none of its kind that established the effectiveness of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and forever immortalized the name Gracie in combat sports history.
But how did UFC 1 come to be?
Although the event is not that old, its history is a little confusing as everyone seems to have a different recount of the events leading up to UFC 1.
The official story is that Helio Gracie’s son Rorion had a desire to bring his father’s Jiu-Jitsu to the world so he moved to the United States and started looking for ways to promote Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. After careful consideration, he decided to host a tournament challenging all fighters from different martial arts to show how Gracie Jiu-Jitsu could beat them all.
This is how UFC 1 was created. To show the superior technique of Jiu-Jitsu, his father Helio decided to call upon his youngest son Royce. He was the least experienced and the skinniest of the Gracies, showing how effective Jiu-Jitsu is against larger opponents.
This is the official story…
What happened later did shake the entire world, for martial arts would never be the same again. Royce walked into the cage against very imposing opponents and took them out one by one to beat them all. People couldn’t believe it, a young skinny Brazilian was making huge men give up with moves that no one had ever seen before.
The very next day UFC 1 was anything anyone could talk about. It created a swarm of people who wanted to start learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The rest as they say is history…
Here is where UFC 1 get’s confusing.
One of the commentators for UFC 1 was Bill “Superfoot” Wallace. Bill remembers the event having a lot of rules and elements that unfairly favored Royce Gracie in the tournament. There were no wrestlers or Judo practitioners among the participating fighters and striking art practitioners were not allowed to wrap their hands or feet. In the very first fight, the infamous fighter from the Netherlands, Gerard Gordeau broke his foot and hand on his opponent’s head.
There is a reason why even bare-knuckle boxing uses hand wraps but according to Bill Wallace, the competitors of UFC 1 were not allowed to do so. Bill also talked about how he had a man sit next to him and feed him information that he had to say on the air about the Gracies. It seemed the tournament was intentionally set up to favor Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.
But is that bad? I honestly don’t think so, the fighters did have a chance to win and it wasn’t like people were taking dives. But the main objective of Roirion Gracie was to promote Gracie Jiu-Jitsu to the world. Which he did spectacularly. And there is no question today about the effectiveness of BJJ.
It all started at UFC 1 and because of that single event, we now have changed the entire culture around martial arts. There used to be a large amount of mysticism and trickery involved in martial arts as many of the claims people made could not be confirmed. UFC 1 and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu made it so people had to back up their claims with actions in the martial arts community.
Why was Royce Gracie Chosen?
Many have asked why Royce was the one to represent Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. With his brother Rickson being an active undefeated Vale Tudo fighter and by the admission of his brothers the best Jiu-Jitsu practitioner out of all the Gracies, Rickson seemed like the obvious choice. Most accounts (Including Royce himself and the referee of UFC 1 “Big” John McCarthy) say that grandmaster Helio wanted Royce because he would make a bigger statement about the effectiveness of Jiu-Jitsu.
Some believe however it had something to do with Rorion and Rickson not seeing eye to eye about the business side of things. This resulted in Rorion then giving the job to Royce who was in a better relationship with Rorion at the time.
Rickson himself said that Royce was always the first choice but he was there to act as a backup in case Royce was defeated by any of the other fighters.
What were the results of UFC1?
Regardless of the controversy surrounding UFC 1, there is no doubt the entire martial arts and combat sports world would not be the same today. MMA has now become a global phenomenon as well as BJJ.
Today, martial arts must prove their effectiveness just like the Gracies did in UFC 1 and in their “Gracie Challenge” videos. Not to mention that BJJ is now absolutely essential to all MMA fighters without question. UFC 1 and how its influence is the whole reason why we get to train this amazing martial art all over the world.
So regardless of what you choose to believe about UFC 1, Rorion Gracie was a marketing genius for making this happen and the world is better off because of it. As I’m sure I’m not alone in thinking that a world without BJJ is an extremely sad thing to think about.
