METAMORIS 7: Garry Tonon will face Ralek Gracie on July 17th at the Ray Dolby Ballroom in Los Angeles, CA.

Ralek Gracie was recently on the awesome podcast Inside BJJ ​​. Where he talked about his super fight against Garry Tonon.

Ralek Gracie has a serious grappling pedigree. He is a 1rst degree BJJ black belt. As the son of Rorion Gracie, he is a member of the Gracie family, and the nephew of Legends of MMA Hall of Famer Rickson Gracie and UFC Hall of Famer Royce Gracie. He was awarded his black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu by his grandfather Hélio Gracie. He is also the founder of Metamoris.

Ralek made his MMA debut at the age of 21 at K-1 Hero’s – Middleweight Tournament Opening Round on July 16, 2007 against Katsuyori Shibata whom he defeated by armbar-submission after 3:05 of the first round. His next fight was at Dream 4 – Middleweight Grand Prix 2008 Quarter finalswhere he faced Alavutdin Gadzhiyev after Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipović had to pull out of the originally scheduled match with Ralek due to injury. Ralek defeated Gadzhiyev by armbar after 3:02 of round 1. On May 29, 2010, Ralek defeated Kazushi Sakuraba by unanimous decision at Dream 14.

Rakek Gracie will come into this match much heavier at around 190-200lbs whilst Tonon walks around 170 lbs.

“His contract is signed. Let’s fight. All the trolls want to see me lose, but it has always been the case when you are a Gracie. People would like to see a Gracie lose.

I don’t really care what the trolls think, I care about the athletes, Garry understands the effort that has been done to bring Metamoris. 

For this fight I’ve been training all my life. I’m training hard now to have better conditioning and know that I can fight for an hour without stopping. My technique and knowledge are ready, it will be difficult to find something to submit me with. There is absolutely no way he’s going to catch me with a leg lock. I hope has other plans, it will be difficult for him to have the angle. ”

About why Buchecha vs Roger II didn’t go down at Metamoris 7:

“Buhecha accepted the payment amount. 70% of the time I have no contracts at the beginning, it is only a verbal agreement, we announced and signed. Buchecha wanted half before fighting, I told him that we did not do that, he replied that he understood and asked if Roger was confirmed. I answered yes. The problem was that when he said ‘I understand’, so I assumed that he was in. We pay after the day of the event because that is when people buy the event. We have our hands tied. What happened, is that 5 days later we announced the match and a week later he writes me back, saying that we did not have an agreement. What happened is that I said okay I will give you half, then Buchecha changed the deal and asked for everything in advance and asked to sign. Then it became impossible.

I understand that with all the drama that has been going on he wanted to protect himself. After that, he sent me a lawyer and that made it too complicated, because the lawyer is doing its job to protect him, but had no experience in these things. It became more difficult. I felt that he had no confidence in me. It was weird. “

ABOUT THE EVENT

Roger Gracie will have another opponent.

Gabriel Gonzaga vs Satoshi Ishi

Gilbert Durinho vs Dillon Danis

Matheus Diniz vs. TBA. (Yuri Simoes pulled out)

Secret match may be revealed.