When Royce Gracie faced Dan Severn at UFC 4, it was a 185lb fighter facing a 260lb fighter. Severn spent 15 minutes hammering Royce on the ground before getting caught in a triangle. 

Severn recently said in an interview with Submission Radio, that he saw Helio Gracie almost throw in the towel and that he (Severn) may have given Royce the victory by feeling sorry for him.

“When I tell people I was more torn with my conscience then ever with an opponent, most people will probably never understand that,” said the former pro wrestler. “You know, during the course of that match I’m actually looking at – I’m a big believer that the eyes are a windows into a person’s soul – I’m staring right through his soul and he’s looking over at his Dad outside the cage wall there, and I could read exactly what’s going through his mind.

He’s saying ‘Dad I’m hanging in here, but if you were to throw in that towel I wouldn’t hold it against you’, and then I went from Royce’s eyes, I looked over to Helio outside the cage wall, Helio is looking at me, he’s got the towel in his hands, he brings the towel up, crosses his arms and then just shakes his head ‘no’. And I’m thinking to myself, you old bastard, you’d let me kill your kid out here for Gracie Jiu Jitsu wouldn’t ya? Well nobody knows that Dan Severn is out here tonight, so I’ll just simply say, did I tap out because someone beat me, or did I tap out because I refused to do what I had to do to another human being? I’m the only person that can answer that question. All I’ll simply say is, from UFC number 4 to UFC number 5, I took 32 days out of my life and I trained to become a No Holds Barred fighter, and I destroyed the field.”

Watch the fight for yourself. What do you think?