Friday morning, Kayron Gracie has just submitted his second opponent in a row before the final of the absolute brown belt (a trajectory interrupted two fights later by a ankle lock Carlos Gracie Jr’s son fell victim to). Two paces outside the fight area Rickson Gracie pulls his nephew aside to whisper instructions to him. Later, when asked about what he said to the young man, the master kept his secrecy: “We always have to polish up the treasure. I always talk to Kron when he leaves a fight. You're happy because he won and left the fight with a lot of mistakes to fix."
The subject now is his son and his recent promotion to black belt: "He is really excited about fighting." But why the early promotion? "He had a really good fight against a really tough opponent in Japan, a staller."
And what will his son’s debut at black belt be like? “He will be taking on guys with five, six and even eight years at black belt. It will be real different from brown.” And why won’t we see Kron in the absolute this year? “That would be to burn too much rubber.”
To finish, was there any studying done of the adversaries at middleweight? "I don't think of Jiu-Jitsu in that light, with a specific game plan for each adversary. If you put together a strategy and it fails, you’ll be dead. The thing is to go into the fight comfortable and make your adversary have the problem.”
This is Rickson Gracie, direct from Long Beach
