Rickson Gracie (Portuguese: [ˈʁiksõ ˈɡɾejsi]; born November 21, 1959) is a Brazilian retired mixed martial artist.

[6] At 20, Gracie was pitted in a high-profile fight in Brasília against famous Brazilian professional wrestler and fighter Casemiro "Rei Zulu" Nascimento Martins (father of Zuluzinho).

[7] Despite the size difference, Gracie won the match at the third round by submitting Zulu with a rear naked choke, gaining immediate national recognition.

According to Zulu, the Gracie family demanded the rules to be changed just one hour before the event, banning closed-fisted strikes, direct punches to the face, and kicks to a downed opponent.

[7] In November of the same year, Zulu defeated kickboxing champion Sérgio "Rock" Batarelli in another fight, which was the condition to host another match against Gracie, but it never happened.

[9] Later, Gracie himself challenged Ruas to an impromptu match during a meeting with luta livre fighters in the Clube Boqueirão do Passeio.

[10] The rivalry between Brazilian jiu-jitsu and luta livre continued without Rickson Gracie, as he left Brazil for the United States after the fight.

In 1994, Gracie was contacted by Erik Paulson to compete in Satoru Sayama's event Vale Tudo Japan.

Gracie traveled to Japan and participated in the tournament, firstly facing Daido-juku stylist Yoshinori Nishi.

He later faced much larger wing chun practitioner Dave Levicki, but he was an even easier prey once taken down, and Gracie won by TKO after a flurry of punches.

Gracie then fought American kickboxer Bud Smith at the finals, winning by the same method in even less time and getting the tournament's victory.

In the first round he faced shoot style professional wrestler and mixed martial artist Yoshihisa Yamamoto from Fighting Network Rings, who unlike Gracie's previous opponents managed to keep him away from the mat by using the ropes and even tried a guillotine choke.

[12] Pride management also offered him to take Royce Gracie's place in his cancelled match with Mark Kerr, but he refused, citing one month to be a too short time to prepare.

They clinched again, but the Japanese's injury rendered him unable to wrestle Gracie correctly, and he was taken down by the Brazilian, who promptly mounted him.

[16] During the post-match interview, Gracie claimed that one of the hammerfists delivered by Funaki made him lose his eyesight for a few moments.

The fight against Ogawa was set to the next year, with Naoya vacating his NWA World Heavyweight Championship to focus on training for the bout.

[18] In August 2002, Gracie had a special appearance in Japanese media helping out Ogawa before his bout against Matt Ghaffari at the UFO Legend event, in which he assisted.

[24] In November 2014 he became an inductee of the Legends of MMA Hall of Fame, alongside Big John McCarthy, Pat Miletich, and Fedor Emelianenko.

The documentary followed Gracie and two other fighters (Todd Hays and Koichiro Kimura) as they prepared and fought in Tokyo's Vale Tudo Japan 1995.

In 1996, speaking about Ultimate Fighting Championship tournament winners, he labelled Don Frye and Mark Coleman as "very weak", and said that the latter "would offer no danger.

"[33] Though he had not fought in a sanctioned MMA contest in eight years, Gracie claimed in 2008 that he could still beat the current top fighters easily.