Rener Gracie comes from a problematic branch of the family, with a father who tried to trademark the Gracie jiu-jitsu name and prevent others in his own family from using it. He’s been all over the news lately due to his role in the Jack Greener trial. He was contracted as an expert witness and went on to charge over $100,000 for his services.
Jack Ryan Greener was a beginner in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu when he suffered a devastating accident that changed his life forever. He suffered a traumatic dislocation of the c45 region, two cracked vertebrae, and a severed artery on his left side in the back of his neck. To make matters worse, he suffered multiple strokes due to clots passing through his brain twelve hours after the accident.
Jack was rushed to the hospital and underwent a nine-hour surgery to save his life. Despite the odds, he survived and began a long road to recovery. The recovery process was grueling, and Jack had to relearn everything from scratch.
Rener Gracie received wide criticism for characterizing the technique during which the injury happened as ‘spiking’ which it wasn’t, by all accounts.
Gracie also has a conflict of interest as someone leading a major BJJ franchise, and someone who wants to claim a position of power over BJJ and dictate industry standards. While most BJJ practitioners frown upon the way Rener Gracie teaches and promotes, the backlash was limited prior to his testimony.
Now a criticism is coming from his own family. ADCC champion Royler Gracie commented:
“I see the video many times, backing for many times. And then I’m not a judge, you know, but I’m expert in jiu-jitsu. I’ve trained jiu-jitsu for more than 50 years. And then I can see when someone have bad intention, in my opinion, for the video, what I see is an accident, completely accident. And don’t tell me the negligence for the teacher, for the school.”
“You know all the moves in jiu- jitsu I do to the black belts and to the white belt. I do it to everybody.”
