Sherdog’s Top 10: Greatest Fighters of the 1990s

2. Royce Gracie

The legendary pioneer Royce Gracie, who finished 10th on the list of greatest Brazilian fighters and eighth on the list of top grapplers, is runner-up here, including an impressive four first-place votes. In many ways it's truly impossible to rank the sport's first great star. All we can say is that MMA history, and perhaps its very nature, would be very different without him. Royce wasn't even the best fighter in his own family—that would be Rickson, who tied for 10th on this list—and by some estimates, was the level of a BJJ purple belt when he debuted at UFC 1 in 1993. Yet, Gracie's BJJ, toughness, and intelligence allowed him to score some legendary victories in the sport's earliest years. Winning UFC 1 by triumphing three times in a single night, the roughly 175-pound Gracie defeated 225-pound striker Gegard Gordeau in the finals, but his most impressive victory was submitting 225-pound Ken Shamrock, the only other competitor who had any grappling prowess, in just 57 seconds. At UFC 2, Gracie won an incredible four times in a single night and defeated a more impressive group of foes. He submitted future Pancrase mainstay Jason DeLucia, who had some primitive ground skills, in a little over a minute before tapping 240-plus pound heavyweight judoka Remco Pardoel with a lapel choke in 91 seconds. Obviously, lapel chokes are impossible in the modern UFC due to the gi being illegal, but it's still a very impressive victory over a much larger grappler, who was wearing his own gi that night. In the finals, Gracie defeated world-class heavyweight striker Pat Smith, who was 210 pounds and had learned some basic grappling since his appearance at UFC 1, and had in fact finished two of his own opponents that night via submission. Interestingly, Gracie put Smith away with ground-and-pound rather than a submission.

At UFC 3, Royce didn't win a tournament for the first time, as he was so depleted after defeating 235-pound Kimo Leopoldo, who was a wrestling champion in high school, that he couldn't continue in the tournament. Many thought Royce's dominance was over, but he won for a third time at the UFC 4 tournament, with the finest moment of his career coming in the finals. Against the 240-plus pound wrestler Dan Severn, Royce was the one taken down, with seemingly no way to win. However, after almost 16 straight minutes of fighting, he executed a tactic that very few people in all of North America, not even the commentators, had ever seen before. It was called a “triangle choke” and Severn had no choice but to tap. At UFC 5, Royce Gracie had a rematch with Ken Shamrock billed as a special superfight attraction. Showing his improvement and that MMA as a whole was beginning to learn grappling and ground fighting, Shamrock was able to take down Gracie, neutralize his submissions, and inflict some ground-and-pound. However, since there was no decisive result after 36 minutes, and there were no judges just yet, it was declared a draw. Amazingly, that was it for Royce during the 90s. His first fight was in November 1993 and his last appearance of the decade was in April 1995; in just under 18 months, the original “Ultimate Fighting Champion” had left a permanent mark on the sport.

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