When Royce Gracie stepped into the first UFC 1 in 1993, the sporting world had no real framework for what it was watching. Athletes from different disciplines had debated superiority for years, but no one had ever created a true test to settle the argument. According to Gracie, that curiosity was the driving force behind the event.
“On the beginning was a quest to find out which style is the best. That was the question,” Gracie explained.
He recalled how every martial art claimed dominance at the time.
“Back in the day karate guys would say ‘we’re the best we knock everybody out.’ And then the kung fu guys would come over, ‘no, no, no, we’re the best, we knock everybody out,’” he said.
The Gracie family wanted to remove the restrictions and finally see what happened when styles collided directly.
“We’re like, hold on. What if you put the karate against the kung fu, take all the time limit, the weight division, put them to compete, no gloves, see who wins. We just had that curiosity to find out.”
What the Gracies discovered, however, was not that one athlete was inherently superior to another. Instead, Royce believed jiu-jitsu offered something the other martial arts lacked: a complete system that addressed every phase of combat.
“We never said as a person we’re better than anybody else,” Gracie said. “We said the art was a more complete art of self-defense.”
He pointed to striking arts as an example, explaining that even the most dangerous puncher only has a limited window before grappling changes the matchup entirely.
“So yes, karate is good. Hit, knock you out. I never said I’m punch proof, but he got one chance. Mike Tyson has one chance to hit,” Gracie explained.
“If he misses that chance, I’m going to take him down. I’m going to get my hands on him. Choke him out.”
That philosophy still shapes how Gracie views jiu-jitsu’s place in modern MMA. Rather than seeing it as just another discipline, he described it as the central system that connects every style together.
“Jiu-jitsu is the spine that connects all of them together,” he said while reflecting on the origins of the UFC.
“And that’s why we created the UFC, because you put karate against wrestling itself, something’s missing. The wrestlers don’t have submission. The karate guys don’t have submission. They will take them down. They’ll strike. Jiu-jitsu is the spine of them.”
