Rickson Gracie caricature

I started watching martial arts events and sports back in the early 90's there was a lot of it shown on some satellite channels such as the eurosport. I remember the first match I saw was Kyoshi Tamura vs Mathew Saad Muhammad.
Muhammad was a very good boxer but lost in about 40 seconds to a choke. To be fair he was very near his career and I don't think he was prepared properly.
Though I was interested in MMA, it wasn't some thing that really caught my eye until around 96 or 97 when I bought a vhs of the documentary "Choke" about a Brazillian fighter named Rickson Gracie (pronounced Hickson).

 





He's a very enigmatic character. He's kind of a legendary figure and how good he is seems to be from testaments by some top fighters and grapplers who've trained with him. At the time he seemed very unique in his mix of jujutsu, yoga and gymnastics.  He has this mystical guru, yogi type vibe about him and the info out there seemed to encourage this image. He even had a cameo on The incredible hulk film starring Ed Norton playing, basically, himself as a martial arts/ yoga teacher.

There use to be a saying  in the forums when some one would ask who would win between (named fighter) vs (named fighter) and no matter who was mentioned someone would eventually say, as a joke, "Rickson by armbar"

Oddly enough he only has two finishes by armlock. The next character I'm drawing will be someone who's made a big splash with lots of wins by armlock.