BJJ News — gracie-family

Rickson Gracie's MMA advice never worked. That's not an outsider's take.

That's the pay gap Kyra Gracie says existed inside the Gracie family for its own champions. Not in some rival organization.

The Gracie name is jiu-jitsu. It's on the lineage walls, in the textbooks, baked into every gym that traces its roots to Rio.

Three weeks ago, on April 10, Rigan Machado walked into the Combat Submission Wrestling World Conference in Los Angeles and walked out a 9th-degree red belt. Rorion Gracie tied it on him.

That's what Rorion Gracie walked away from. Robert Drysdale laid it out on the Jiu-Jitsu Revolution podcasthttps://bjjdoc.com/2026/04/12/adcc-veteran-questions-if-gracies-ever-believed-in-mma-as-a-sport-they-sold-ufc-the-first-chance-they-got/ last week, and the numbers are the kind that keep you aw

Robert Drysdale went on the Jiu-Jitsu Revolution podcast this week and said the quiet part out loud. Rorion Gracie, the man who founded the UFC, never actually believed in MMA as a sport.