Royce Gracie Reveals The Advice He Gave Neiman Gracie For Bellator 198

Royce Gracie spoke following his great-nephew Neiman Gracie’s win at Bellator 198. Highlights are below per MMAjunkie:

On the advice he gave Neiman: “I told him, ‘Don’t get frustrated if you don’t win in the first round.’ It’s three rounds. Win one round at a time. If you happen to have a chance to finish early, good. If not, the guy is a tough opponent. He knows what he’s doing. He’s a good grappler, too. He knows what you want to do. So win one round at a time.”

On a possible title shot for Neiman: “He wants to fight for the title; I say fight whomever the promotion puts in front of you. Don’t worry about titles, don’t worry about – it will come. You’ve just got to fight one fight at a time, it doesn’t matter, whomever. Like he did in the fight. I think he took a hit and he composed himself very well. Didn’t panic. Same thing with (Dillon) Danis, he took a hit and, OK, he composed himself. Didn’t panic. So that’s the good strategy, that’s the right strategy.”

On the show as a whole: “A lot of people complain, ‘Oh, the rules favor the standup. Oh, the rules favor the grapplers’– no, the rules are even for both of them. In a night like tonight, the standup guys are going to say, ‘The rules favored the grapplers.’ But then, next week, it’s a bunch of knockouts, and then the grapplers are going to say, ‘Well, the rules favor the standup guys.’ It’s not that it favors one of the other; it’s a strategy game.”

On which style is better: “OK, hold on: We already proved that Gracie jiu-jitsu is the best self-defense style out there. That’s why my family created this. It was more of a quest that my family had to find out which style is the best. We proved that, without jiu-jitsu, all those guys, the stand-up guys would lose much faster. They have to know jiu-jitsu.”