Last Friday at Bellator 145, the MMA world was shocked when Bellator FC announced the upcoming rubber match between MMA pioneers Ken Shamrock and Royce Gracie. Well, maybe not too shocked, since Shamrock’s blog accidentally leaked the announcement about 30 minutes before Bellator did. But while the announcement was a surprise to the MMA community it hasn’t been met with the best of responses.
Some feel that the announcement overshadowed the fantastic main event title fight between Daniel Straus and Patrício Freire, while others feel that the fight is a mockery of the sport, given the ages of the fighters (Gracie is 48 and Shamrock is 51) and gives Bellator a quasi WWE vibe. But this style of match-making is nothing new in Bellator, especially considering the recent bouts between Shamrock and Kimbo Slice, and Tito Ortiz and Stephan Bonnar. Bellator has already set precedence with their booking style that is likely to continue.
But a match-up between Shamrock and Gracie is still a huge draw—or at least it was when they last fought, 20 years ago at UFC 5. The rematch between the two was the biggest match the UFC could make at the time. Shamrock was an established star and the Pancrase Champion at the time, and Gracie was the three-time undefeated open weight Tournament Champion, and a rematch could be very lucrative for the UFC. They even tried to make it happen at UFC 3, by having the two facing off with one another on the poster for the event. The bracket for the event was even put together so the two could face off in the finals. But the fight didn’t materialize at UFC 3 as both Shamrock and Gracie withdrew from competition during the tournaments due to injuries.
After the tournament didn’t work out he way the UFC wanted it to at UFC 3, the company decided not to leave it up to chance, and simply match the two against one another in the first ever Super Fight at UFC 5. The match itself turned out to be one of the biggest duds in MMA history, when Shamrock laid in Gracie’s guard for nearly 36 minutes in what is still the longest fight in UFC history. It seems likely that Shamrock found a silver lining in taking Gracie to a draw, after being submitted by him in under a minute in their first fight. And why wouldn’t he find a moral victory in that? Not only was Royce undefeated, but he finished all of his opponents by submission in the days before a fight could go to a judge’s decision, with most of his fights only lasting a couple of minutes.
The rematch with Shamrock ended up being Gracie’s last fight in the pre-Zuffa era UFC, and he wouldn’t fight for another five years until he returned to compete in Japan in the Pride Grand Prix 2000. Gracie won his opening round fight against Nobuhiko Takada, but shockingly lost his quarter-finals bout against Kazushi Sakuraba via corner stoppage—the first loss of his career. Gracie had three more fights in Japan going 1-0-2 before making his return to the UFC in a welterweight bout with then champion and fellow UFC Hall of Famer Matt Hughes. The fight was more or less a formality that showed that MMA was a sport that had passed Gracie by, as Hughes easily defeated Gracie in the first round via TKO. Gracie’s last bout came in 2007 when he defeated Sakuraba via judge’s decision in a rematch from their first fight in the Pride Grand Prix. The win was somewhat overshadowed for Gracie by his failed drug test for anabolic steroids following the fight. Gracie’s win over Sakuraba was not overturned.
Following Gracie’s exit from the UFC in 1995, Shamrock began to find success in the UFC. He won the inaugural Super Fight Championship with a submission victory against Dan Severn, and went on to defend his title three times. Shamrock went on to have a long and storied career that included fighting in Pride, Pancrase, and most recently Bellator.
So after 20 years what is it that brought these two back into the cage to fight each other one more time? For Shamrock its a chance for redemption, as he has long maintained that he won their second fight, and has always desired a rematch. For Gracie, it’s a chance to close out the trilogy. “For the last 22 years, the guy has been losing sleep,” Gracie said. “I don’t know if it’s because he doesn’t like me. I don’t like him. But for me, it’s just an opponent. Because I beat him before, he’s had that stuck in his throat.”
For one last time Shamrock and Gracie will square off in the cage; for some it’s a mockery of the sport, having two guys so far past their primes headlining a major MMA event, as if they were straight out of the movie Grudge Match. But for those slightly more sentimental, the concluding chapter of the Gracie vs. Shamrock trilogy is a romantic nostalgia trip; and it could well be the last time we see the two MMA legends.
“He’s chasing that win and I’m chasing to put an end to this,” Gracie said. “Maybe I’ll retire him now.
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