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The creator of the UFC just came to Timmins (9 photos)

UFC co-founder Rorion Gracie arrived in Timmins last night. He gave an exclusive interview with TimminsToday and talked about his history in bringing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to America, starting the UFC, and his new passion - the Gracie Diet

One of the creators of the UFC just came to Timmins.

On Friday evening, Ultimate Fighting Championship co-founder Rorion Gracie flew in from Los Angeles and made an impromptu visit to Timmins Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy where a group of women were taking a free self-defense seminar.

Gracie is one of the most important figures in the history of martial arts.

He’s credited as bringing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to the United States and the rest of the world and for being one of the 1993 UFC co-founders.

It’s the first time Gracie has been to Timmins, and the first time in around 20-25 years that he’s been to Canada.

Gracie said that driving in from the airport on Friday he actually saw a moose and to the best of his knowledge this is the furthest north he’s ever traveled.

After briefly talking about the Gracie Diet to the group of women and others in attendance, Gracie talk to TimminsToday about how he first brought his fighting technique to America and how the UFC got started.

Bringing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to the world

Gracie first visited the United States in 1969.

He was supposed to only stay a month but when his return ticket was stolen he ended up staying for a whole year.

The mistake changed the course of his life.

“I found myself , for a few days, panhandling on street corners and sleeping on newspapers so I could survive. But in spite of the difficulties I had I fell in love with America,” said Gracie.

Over the years he occasionally travelled back and fourth from Brazil to the States and in 1978  he became committed to moving there permanently with a single goal in mind.

“I came with the objective of teaching jiu-jitsu to the rest of the world knowing full well that what happens in America becomes known worldwide,” he said.

UFC co-founder Rorion Gracie. Jeff Klassen/TimminsToday

Gracie started out by setting up some mats in his humble two-car garage and giving free classes to whomever he’d happen to meet.

He was very popular and started stealing students from all the varying schools of martial arts around.

“Soon enough some of my students would say, ‘Rorion my former kung fu instructor, or karate, or taekwondo instructor does not believe in jiu-jitsu and he wants to challenge you to fight. Would you accept?’ I would say 'bring him in.' “

Gracie would beat competing instructors from all techniques in one-on-one challenges in his garage and very quickly they became his students as well.

“They came to challenge me to show their students that their style is more efficient than jiu-jitsu. Unfortunately for them, jiu-jitsu happens to be the most effective form of self-defense. It’s not my fault, someone has to be number one. I just happen to be it. “

Gracie became very popular simply training out of his garage.

His reknown landed him a job training Mel Gibson and Gary Busey for the movie Lethal Weapon and later on he trained the cast and had a minor role in Lethal Weapon 3

Throughout the eighties, Gracie kept defeating fighters who would then convert over to his fighting school and become proponents of his technique.

Starting the UFC

“After hundreds of challenge matches in a ten year period it dawned on me that I shouldn’t be in the garage challenging one person at time. (So), I came up with a concept for a larger scale promotion which is the ultimate fighting championship – a tournament on pay per view where you bring different fighters from different styles of marshal arts,” he said.

Gracie said the original concept for the UFC was to pit different fighting techniques against each other, and not so much, in his mind, about individual fighters.

The first UFC tournaments were eight person single elimination events that meant the champion fighter would have to fight three times at one event.

The fights had no time limit, two men walked into a ring and didn’t come out until there was a definitive winner.

The first UFC event was held on November 12, 1993, in Denver Colorado.

Gracie considered it not only a huge success as an event but even more in how it demonstrated how powerful his martial arts technique was.

“I had eight different competitors, from eight different styles of marshal arts. I put my little brother Royce in there (and) he showed everyone that jiu-jitsu is the most effective one of them all. Without punching anybody in the face, without getting hurt, he defeated all the other opponents,” said Gracie.

Gracie said he had larger, perhaps better fighters to choose from but he wanted to use his smaller brother simply to highlight the power of the technique.

Gracie said it worked and after the first event he was contacted by the U.S. Army to train soldiers.

“They asked me to create a program for them, which I did. Now, for the last 25 years it’s the official hand-to-hand combat program for the US army. Now the FBI, the DEA, and every major law enforcement  agency in the country has embraced Gracie Jiu-Jitsu,” he said.

However, Gracie left the UFC shortly after UFC 4 in 1994.

UFC was a pay-per-view event and UFC 4 had been scheduled for a two-hour television time slot.

Because they ran no time limit matches, the event ran just three minutes past the scheduled two hours..

The transmission got cut and audiences couldn’t see the end of the final match until they got a VHS copy or saw it on a free broadcast.

“We lost money, we had to refund a lot of people, and play the show again for a free. It was as a confusing time and a very bad thing,” said Gracie.

The UFC Changed, Gracie moved on

Gracie said the fiasco changed UFC forever because that's when his partners decided to put time limits on fights.

This was problematic because it meant small fighters couldn’t use the technique of tiring the bigger opponents out and this led to divisions in weight class.

“I said, if you put time limits you’re going to completely change the dynamic of the show and kill the reality element of the show,” said Gracie. “(Because of the weight class issue) you can’t see David and Goliath anymore. That was the beauty in the beginning. It changed my vision completely – put it upside down. Now, if nobody wins after a five minute round, you need judges to say well this guy’s kicks were better than this guy’s punches. It becomes very subjective for the judge to determine that. It lost the reality of the fight.”

Over 20 years since Gracie left, in July 2016 the UFC sold for 4 Billion dollars.

He doesn’t feel he’s missed out on anything.

“It’s the fastest growing sport in the world (but) I don’t’ regret selling it. I don’t watch the UFC to tell you the truth, there’s nothing for me to see. It gets frustrating to watch two guys fighting and when one puts the other guy in a perfect choke the (referee) says ‘hey stop, the bell rang, you have to let him go.’ What kind of fight is that? It’s an entertainment piece… it doesn’t excite me anymore. The bottom line is, I’m happy to have had the vision to (have created it).  How many people do you know personally that had an idea, implemented the idea , and eventually it became worth 4 billion dollars?”

Gracie has moved on to talking about his new passion, his family’s eating program – The Gracie Diet.

“After the UFC exploded I found myself twiddling my thumbs saying, now what? That’s when I had an epiphany, about the health (and) about the Gracie diet. My mission in life today is to share the knowledge of that diet,” said Gracie.

Gracie came to Timmins as part of a September 17-24 series of events put on by Timmins Gracie Jiu-Jitsu to celebrate their fifth year being in business.

The school is founded on Gracie's techniques.

Those in the city still have a chance to see Rorion Gracie speak tomorrow during two Saturday seminars.

From 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. Gracie will be presenting on Gracie Jiu-Jitsu techniques and holding a photo op.

At 1-2 p.m. he will be presenting on the Gracie Diet.

Both events will be held at the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu studio at 72 Pine Street.

Contact Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy for admission prices and more info.