Royce Gracie is one of the legends of modern combat sports. His matches back in the earliest days of the UFC not only helped catapult mixed martial arts towards the fame that it has today, but helped turn Brazilian jiu-jitsu into one of the most popular new arts in the world.
Royce’s views on women, however…well, let’s just say they’re not so popular, especially with some of the folks over at the online MMA magazine, Bloody Elbow.
When asked if he was a fan of women fighting in the UFC, Royce Gracie simply responded:
Nope, I’m not a big fan of it. I like the woman feminine. I don’t like to go home and get beat up. But hey, it’s a free country. They can do whatever they want.
They audience may have laughed at Royce’s comments, but one person who wasn’t laughing was Bloody Elbow’s Beau Dure.
“What’s shocking about Gracie’s comments aren’t how offensive they are. It’s the ignorance,” Dure says in his article. “It’s as if this pioneer of mixed martial arts has been cryogenically preserved in a gym in Brazil, emerging only to beat Ken Shamrock with a groin shot and do an interview on a set that seems borrowed from a public-access show. The basement in Wayne’s World is the Ed Sullivan Theater compared to this.”
Beau then goes on to dissect each one of Gracie’s comments, accusing him of not only stereotyping women, but MMA fighters.
Dure ends his article with a little bit of advice to the mixed martial arts legend and sixth-degree black belt:
… the next time Gracie is asked about women’s MMA, he should simply go against family tradition and tap out.
If he wants to keep his reputation intact, Royce Gracie might want to heed those words.
The post Bloody Elbow Slams Royce Gracie Over Comments About Women’s MMA appeared first on Jiu-Jitsu Times.