Olympic wrestling champion Mark Schultz recently shared a story about his grappling encounter with Rickson Gracie.
Schultz recounted how he received an unexpected call from a man named Steve, who informed him that “the greatest BJJ fighter in the world” was in town and wanted to roll with him.
Curious but cautious, Schultz asked about the rules, only to receive an intimidating response from Rickson:
There are no rules.
However,it was later clarified that they would engage in submission grappling with tap-outs.
The match began with Schultz immediately imposing his wrestling dominance, securing a takedown and locking Gracie in a cradle position for approximately 20 minutes:
That’s a very long time to hold somebody in a cradle.
At the time, Schultz was unfamiliar with the intricacies of Jiu-Jitsu and reflected on how different it was from wrestling:
All these moves that are in Jiu-Jitsu are against the rules in wrestling.
Matter of fact, if you open up a wrestling rule book and you look at all the moves that are illegal, it’s like a Jiu-Jitsu instruction manual.
Despite his wrestling skills, fatigue eventually set in, and Gracie capitalized on the opportunity with a Triangle Choke:
He threw both of his legs over my head. I let him do it because I didn’t know what he was doing.
It’s the weirdest thing ever.
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