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Check out part 2 of our talk with Laimon as he talks more about Royce Gracie’s Jiu Jitsu, what he thinks of Rickson Gracie’s skills, Eddie Bravo’s 10th Planet system, and more. This is part 2 of a 3 part interview. For part 1 click here.
Laimon: You can also add about Royce, that if you watch Royce’s BJJ match against Wallid Ishmael. his guard was terrible. Wallid is not known as a finisher, and Royce got put to sleep. Royce had a very lazy guard and never relooped his legs to regain guard, he just gave his back and sat there and got clocked. I don't think Royce would do very well in BJJ competition. His game is just not up to par.
For MMA he could not finish Tokoro who fights at 145. You don't have to listen to my opinion, just look at the facts.
MMAyou.com: What is your opinion of Eddie Bravo’s 10th Planet system?
Laimon: Eddie knows his positions really good and I think you’ve been starting to see a lot more people in MMA start implementing the Rubber Guard. Even though they don’t do it exactly like he does it but there’s been a lot of good things with it. I’ve been really impressed with a few people using it. It really does start to help the grounding and pounding and he’s got a very good idea. And he knows his system inside and out. It’s a very thought out system.
I think he’s helping change some of the landscape of MMA right now.
MMAyou.com: Did you ever consider fighting MMA?
Laimon: I did back when I was a blue belt, that’s originally why I wanted to do it. You know I never went into Jiu Jitsu saying “Man I want to have a bad a** X-Guard sweep”. I wanted to learn how to fight and defend myself and that’s basically why I started doing it. I wanted to fight but I’m not that good of an athlete and I kind of had to look to the future and was like “there’s better athletes getting involved” and once there’s more money bigger and better athletes are gonna be involved. I had to be a realist with myself and I’m not a great athlete so I decided to focus on understanding the intricacies of the art and being able to transfer that knowledge onto other people which has been very rewarding to me. I really enjoy teaching people, seeing them pull off techniques I helped show.
To me that’s the most rewarding thing. Fighting is good but I…. I wanted to but I’m also a realist. I think a lot of people in this sport, in life in general, aren’t realists. They’re not realists with their skills. They’re not realists with their life. They’re not realists with their relationship and I try to be a realist in everything I do. Some people say I’m a pessimist but I just try to keep it real and keep a good perspective on things.
MMAyou.com: Do you think gi training is important?
Laimon: It depends on what you want to do. If you want to win the Mundials then yeah, you gotta start training the gi. If you want to be a successful MMA fighter I don’t think it’s necessary to train in it. I think it does help when you get guys that are such good athletes, the ones that use power; speed; and strength to burst through things instead of being technical problem solvers. It can kind of slow down the game and forces one to become a technical problem solver instead of relying on strength and speed. Once they start using the technique and they apply their attributes with the techniques, now you got a whole new monster to deal with it.
I think it has its time and its place. I don’t make any of my fighters do it. If they want to do it, I let them do it. Some of them like it, it’s a change of pace for them but I don’t force that on anybody. It’s a personal preference.
MMAyou.com: Where did you grow up?
Laimon: I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
MMAyou.com: Where do you rank Rickson as an MMA fighter?
Laimon: Ummm…. Here’s the thing, video tape doesn’t lie. I heard all this hype about Rickson Gracie like “Oh my God, he’s the best thing ever”. I think he got a lot of his hype because Royce Gracie said in an interview in Black Belt back in the day “Rickson’s ten times better then I am!”. And I think people thought “Oh well if Royce is that good, Rickson must be God”. So I ordered those Japan Vale Tudo tapes and they came to my house and I’m expecting to see basically the second coming of Christ. I had such high expectations, I saw him fight and I’m like “This is the guy everybody’s raving about?”.
I just didn’t see anything that special. I think if he fought MMA today he probably wouldn’t even be in the top ten. I just think he was ahead of his time. He was beating up guys that didn’t know that much. Now once the game caught up, now you know…. He’s got this mystique about him where he’s unbeatable, and you know, all this stuff. I don’t buy into things, I gotta see with my own eyes to believe it. I don’t believe in myths. I believe in what I see and I’m not really impressed with any fights he’s ever had.
He’s always fought sub par opponents. He’s never fought anybody that’s really tough or really in their prime. I just don’t see him as a…. I don’t think he’d be a force in MMA. If he fought 205 or 185 I think there’s… I could name twenty guys that could beat him in MMA fights.
He’s good but it’s not like he’s this great thing that everybody said. He was winning competitions back when his Dad was reffing matches. It’s like him and his buddies that he promoted to black belt were the guys he was competing against. I just didn’t really see anything that… There are some things he did that I liked like the way he mounted as opposed to the way that Rorion taught by throwing the leg over from side control. Rickson drove it across in the mount. I like that. But that to me is a pretty simple basic technique and once I saw it I was like “okay”. But I didn’t really see any of this crazy mythical stuff. I see guys now that are just way more impressive. BJ Penn does stuff that nobody does and Marcelo Garcia is just unbelievable.
I met Marcelo, and told him “Marcelo, you are the real Rickson Gracie”. He’s won Abu Dhabi three times in his weight class. He subbed everybody except two people in his weight class. He’s gone into Open (open weight class) and subbed a bunch of people there. That to me is amazing. And Marcelo is doing it at the height of the sport. Every year it gets tougher, bigger, and better and he’s still competing and beating these guys easily! That to me is the real Rickson Gracie right there. That’s what people should say “Wow, this guy’s something special”. When I watch Garcia I’m like “Wow, that guy’s doing something right, I’d like to learn how to do that”. I look at Rickson and I’m like
“Okay, this guy’s good because someone said they beat him in the gym real easily”.
I think one of the problems people succumb to in Jiu Jitsu is they tend to worship their instructor. They have this hero worship type thing. I think it stems back to traditional martial arts. They’re taught “Oh an undefeated fighter” ah dah dah dah dah. It’s not realistic. When you start worshipping heroes and they can’t do anything wrong… You gotta have an analytic mind and you gotta be a realistic.
It’s just like I don’t think he’s doing anything that looks super special. His son is doing pretty good, that’s very impressive. I think his son is very impressive. Kron has been tapping a lot of people in competition. He’s getting his black belt now and will go against a little bit stiffer competition. But he’s smashing people, I think that’s impressive. But Rickson himself, I just don’t see who’s he beaten, I don’t see the techniques he’s done, and I just don’t think he should be worshipped as a hero just because he tapped some people in training at the gym. Competing and putting it on the line is a much different thing then rolling in the gym. I can roll in the gym all day even though I have no cardio and I’m fat and out of shape but to go into a tournament man, it’s a whole different scenario, all these eyes on you.
I think Rickson’s got too much pressure to go out there and compete because everybody (inaudible) for real. If he doesn’t fight now he’s got this mythic aura about him, where he’s undefeated, unbeatable, a throwback to traditional martial arts. Where you’re like “This instructor is undefeated” and “He’s the best” but when did you ever really see those guys fights? He’s supposedly 400-0 but he’s been beating up, he’s rolled with drunks in the street. To me that’s not impressive. What’s impressive is when you have an opponent that’s training to fight you. It’s a big deal and you execute your game plan and you have all that pressure, all those eyes on you, and you go out there and give it your best. To me that’s impressive. I’m not impressed with 400-0 against guys that have no skill. It’s a much different thing.
If you look at MMA from Royce’s time to where it is now, it’s just a quantum leap in skill and understanding of the sport. No one can.. If anyone wants to argue that they’re pretty much a fool. If you look at David Levicki, Rickson beat up that guy. That guy (inaudible) got beat by Johnny Rhodes in UFC 2. So what? That guy sucked. He’s a Wing Chun fighter with no ground skills. If Rickson couldn’t beat up those guys then he’d have some real issues. To quote John Lennon, "I don’t believe in Beatles, I just believe in me."
Due to the length of the interview we will be posting part 3 tomorrow. Laimon goes into detail about the incident with Matt Serra on The Ultimate Fighter, his thoughts on Tito Ortiz and much. Check back with us then as we’ll have part 3 ready. We also have interviews with Lucia Rijker, Jason Miller, and more on the way! You've heard of it before and now we have it available for you; the Bas Rutten Mixed Martial Arts Workout. The greatest workout in the MMA industry. It will improve your conditioning, reflexes, stamina, and will get you into shape!!! Pick it up now.  It now comes with free shipping for US residents!!!
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rickson didn't come to the US and fought the animals here at the time, guys who could have truly kicked his ass like Bas Rutten, Maurice Smith, Mark Kerr, Dan Severn, Mark Coleman, Randy Couture, Don Frye. Those guys would have torn Rickson inside out. Rickson ducked all of them. Rickson beat up fat karate guys and little Japanese guys. Guys who didn't know BJJ.
One guy that really was good, that Rickson beat up, was an already half-dead and exhausted Yuji Nakai.
Don't even bother to mention Funaki. Funaki sucked. Hell, Ken Shamrock beat Funaki.