Brazilian jiu-jitsu legend Rickson Gracie recently appeared in an interview following the passing of martial arts and Hollywood icon Chuck Norris, offering his personal remembrance.
“We all love Chuck. He’s a great guy, great martial artist, great actor. He’s very supportive to the community. So I feel like we lost somebody very important in the community,” Gracie said.
When asked what Norris meant to him, to the community, and to the Gracie family, Rickson spoke to the bond that formed early on.
He said, “Chuck Norris was a great friend and introduced us in a very early time. He introduced us to the jiu-jitsu world, to the US. So he’s a very important guy in terms of being part of the initial movement about bringing jiu-jitsu to America.”
On the personal connection that grew from Norris’s time in Brazil, Gracie added: “He got passionate about it when he was in Brazil. He got introduced to the family, and since then he became a loyal friend, a very good supporter. Even though he’s the karate guy, he fell in love with jiu-jitsu, and we all miss him a lot.”
The interviewer brought up a now-famous clip of the two rolling together on the mat. “It was great. I feel like we were an important part of introducing him to jiu-jitsu when he got amazed by the effectiveness of the art. After that, things just followed in a good flow for him to learn the techniques, get training hard, get his black belt, and become part of the family in a way. A great supporter, a great friend. We’re just going to miss him a lot.”
Asked how skilled Norris was as a jiu-jitsu practitioner, Gracie was straightforward. He mentioned: “He’s good enough. In his lifetime, he cannot be great in many things. He learned jiu-jitsu, and he’s not too young, so he learned a lot, trained a lot, he loves it, he practiced. But he never got to a level of competitors’ level. But he was a great guy.”
Gracie closed by speaking to the full scope of what Norris meant to him personally. “He has different influences because as a martial artist, I’ve been in his seminars, I’ve been in his meetings from his tribe. I admire him as a martial artist, as an athlete, but also as an actor, the movies, the inspiring Rangers and everything. So in many ways, he’s an idol for a lot of us.”
