The Two Sifus Fight TD, Talk and Demo, of Royce Gracie vs Kimo Leopoldo UFC 3 1994 by Two Sifus Who Care
Pretty impressive battle by both fighters. Kimo was a newcomer to MMA. Royce was the Two-time champion and a very advanced fighter.
See our info on SBMartialArts.com
and TheAgingAthlete.com
The word from Sifu Mike is that there was a significant theme of ADDING STUFF — martial arts background, belts you never earned, etc. — to some of the competitors (notably Kimo and Gary Goodrich) to BUILD UP THE FIGHTS by building up backgrounds. See our other video that mentions this topic.
Kimo was a large, athletic, former football player and current weight trainer who had previously suffered severely debilitating injuries and likely needed all the help he could get to hang with experienced fighters and grapplers. Big John McCarthy was already an advanced belt in BJJ by this time and might have done well in this event as a competitor.
I can’t comment on the grease since I don’t have a good source on that.
Had Kimo known what he was doing and had he been able to keep his composure, he could have rained down atomic elbows on Royce’s neck and head, or even the Brazilian’s shoulders and back. Can you imagine 200 pounds of elbow blasting you in the trapezius or rhomboids? … Stunning to say the least.
The hair — a ridiculous thing to keep in an era of approved hair pulling. Kimo lost a chunk as you can see in the fight film.
Running out of gas affected both competitors. Royce had enough survival training and technique to give one more push to finish it.
