MMA icon Georges St-Pierre believes one of MMA’s biggest rule changes may have taken the sport further away from identifying the best athlete. During a conversation with Royce Gracie, the former two-division UFC champion questioned whether the introduction of rounds and time limits was the right move for the sport.
Speaking on his podcast, St-Pierre reflected on the original UFC format, which featured no rounds, no time limits, and no weight classes.
“I think putting round and time limit was wrong,” Gracie told GSP. “Maybe a 15-minute but straight up, no stop between the round. I understand it’s still a show, it’s a business, and at one point the fight needs to stop.”
“But I think the reason why they put rounds was because at first, when they were trying to legalize the sport, they wanted to use boxing as a model, you know, to use rounds. But if you really want to know who’s the best man, or the best woman, the best fig hter, just let them compete for 15, 25 minutes.”
Gracie pointed to his own matches as evidence. Against Dan Severn at UFC 4, Severn controlled large portions of the action before Gracie eventually secured a choke to close the fight. Under a shorter time limit, the result could have been entirely different.
“All my guys, Dan Severn was on top of me for what, 16 minutes. So if it was a 15-minute match, he would have won, maybe,” Gracie acknowledged.
That reality shaped how Gracie always understood the trade-off between size and time.
“The way we look at it is, I’ll give you the weight advantage but you have to give me time. Because if I give you the weight advantage and it’s a five-minute match, the heavy one will win.”
St-Pierre, reflecting on how much the sport has changed, noted that many athletes today have built their styles around the rules rather than around finishing matches. Gracie agreed, and went further, arguing that the round structure itself interrupts the natural progression of a contest at its most critical moments.
“At least take the time limit off. Make one round of 25 minutes. Because sometimes the guys are figh ting, the round finishes, and the guy on top is winning, about to go for the choke, but the time comes off,” Gracie noted.
GSP agreed, saying, “If they would have cut the round and made it only one big round, one fig ht, instead of interrupting the fig ht to stop for the round, I think it would make the fig ht more interesting.”
