In 2022, the mixed martial arts website FanSided estimated the total value of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) franchise at $9-10 billion.
Not bad for a competition co-founded by Rorion Gracie of Gracie University in Torrance in 1993.
To trace how it all came to be, we’ll have to go back to Oct. 1, 1913, and the birth of Rorion’s father, Helio Gracie, in Belem, Brazil. Financial setbacks forced the family to move to Rio de Janeiro a few years later.
Helio had several physical infirmities as a child, and couldn’t participate in ovelry vigorous activities. When his brother, Carlos, opened a jiu-jitsu studio in Rio in 1925, Helio began training in the martial arts.
He found that jiu-jitsu had certain elements that exceeded his physical capabilities. But when he began mixing elements of judo and other martial arts disciplines into the process, it enabled him to use leverage to his advantage against opponents. This technique became known as the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu method.
Helio began competing professionally at age 18. The Gracies felt their method would prove effective against conventional boxers and wrestlers, so Helio took to the ring in 1932, defeating boxer Antonio Portugal in his first match.
It was the first in a series of contests that came to be known as the Gracie Challenge, aimed at proving the superiority of the family’s style of hand-to-hand combat, which does not involved striking or punching, over other styles of fighting.
Helio went on to fight 19 more times over the next 35 years, winning nine matches, drawing eight and losing three.
He retired in 1937 and again in 1955. In addition to martial arts fighters, he also challenged boxers and wrestlers during his career, but few accepted.
Even heavyweight champ Joe Louis said he would face Helio in a boxing match, but the jiu-jitsu master refused.
Rorion Gracie was the first of Helio’s nine children, all of whose names start with “R.” He was born on Jan. 10, 1952 in Brazil. He…
Read the full article here
