Olympic gold medalist Mark Schultz recently discussed the early days of ADCC and the influence of the Gracie family.

And he agreed with a theory that may explain why he was never invited to compete in the prestigious grappling tournament.

Speaking on the MMA History Podcast, host Mike Davis suggested that the Gracies had significant influence within ADCC during its formative years.
Davis pointed to several incidents from the early events that he found questionable:

So much so that when Robin lost to Eddie Ruiz… There’s a couple instances where some of the Gracies lost (the tape) – where the tape just doesn’t exist anymore.

He then suggested that a well-known grappling session involving Schultz, Rickson Gracie, and Allen Albright may have hurt Schultz’s chances of ever receiving an ADCC invitation:

My belief is that this experience between you and Rickson and Allen Albright excluded you from ever being invited to an ADCC tournament as a combatant.

Schultz appeared to agree with the assessment:

I can buy that. I think that’s probably right. They kind of rigged it.

(But) you know, I don’t want to be disrespectful to the Gracies because I have a Gracie black belt.

He also questioned how some fighters were promoted during the early UFC era:

If you look at the real accomplishments of the fighters in the very first UFC, they’re not world champions like they’re being promoted. They’re not even close.

Schultz also reflected on his own BJJ journey, revealing that he remained a blue belt for years while training under Pedro Sauer:

When I was with Pedro, I was with him for like three years and he wouldn’t advance me beyond the blue belt and I was beating everybody.

According to Schultz, things moved much faster after he began training with Walt Bayless:

And Walt, after working out with Walt for two weeks, he gave me a black belt after two weeks.

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