Roger Gracie is arguably the greatest BJJ competitor of all time. There are only perhaps one or two other athletes we can consider when thinking about this elite club. Roger Gracie achieved legend status within the BJJ world when he defeated Buchecha by submission in his final superfight. A fight which he was not expected to win, let alone by submission, a fight which also was at the end of a relatively inactive 7 years against one of, if not the best competitor in the world at that time.
This article is not meant to be an attack on Roger Gracie by showing his all of his 7 losses, but more of an admiration. During his career, he went 67-7-1 without being submitted once. This is actually quite an unbelievable record, especially with the level of competition in the modern era. Gracie was facing the best in the world for 15 years and his biggest loss was by 3 points. I cannot even imagine this level of success at a local competition, let alone ADCC and IBJJF events.
We will not include MMA wins or losses in this article since it is a completely different sport. However, Roger’s record is still a very respectable 8-2 throughout UFC & ONE fights, which are obviously no joke and a very high level of competition.
Loss 1 – Jon Olav Einemo (2003 ADCC)
There is no footage of this event available on the internet, but we can confirm Einemo won this fight by points 2-0. Einemo was somewhat of an enigma at this ADCC event and ended up winning the under 99kg category. He is still to this day the only Scandinavian who has ever won ADCC and only 1 of the 2 Europeans to ever win.
Gracie did defeat Einemo in 2007 by points in a superfight, but even still this shows the level of Einemo as not getting tapped by Roger Gracie in his prime is a big achievement. Einemo is probably the least known of Gracie’s opponents to ever beat him, but he is certainly not a fluke.
Loss 2 – Marcio “Pe de Pano” Cruz (2003 Worlds)
Marcio Cruz was one of the best grapplers of his generation. He is not too well known in modern day grappling since he became somewhat of a laughing stock after his antics at the Arnold Gracie incident. Even with this being said, he has an amazing record and if it were not for his terrible attitude, he would be a lot more respected and well known today. He is a Worlds, ADCC and Pan-Ams champion in his own right.
In the clip below he beats Roger 3 – 0 on points. Also please bare in mind 2003 was Roger Gracie’s first year at black belt.
Loss 3 – Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza (2004 Worlds Absolute)
Gracie had already won his own weight division and faced off against Jacare in this classic. Jacare is a well known UFC veteran and one of the toughest BJJ competitors of all time. In this match, Roger actually breaks Jacare’s arm in an armbar, but Jacare does not quit and runs away for the rest of the match to win on points. Obviously this is a very controversial fight since it should have been stopped when the arm was broken and you can clearly tell Jacare is suffering since he literally cannot use this arm. Even still, it was an extremely brave performance and a classic match
Loss 4 – Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza (Worlds 2005 Absolute)
Once again Jacare showed how good he was. Gracie had already beaten him twice this year, once in ADCC by RNC, and once at the Europeans on points. There was definitely a friendly rivalry between the two competitors who were extremely evenly matched. However, this time Jacare got the best of him once again. It is really quite a boring match with Jacare winning 2 – 0 on points. You can see by his celebration at the end just how much this victory means to him.
Loss 5 – Alexandre “Xande” Ribeiro – (2006 Pan Ams)
Xande Ribeiro was Gracies toughest match up, he managed to beat Roger a total of 3 times, with Roger only winning 5 matches. A very impressive record against the likes of Roger, however one of these wins was also at the Pan Ams 2006, in the absolute division with Roger managing to triangle Xande within 30 seconds.
The video of the triangle can be found on youtube here, however I cannot find the footage of Ribeiro winning. For what it’s worth the win was by 1 advantage.
Loss 6 – Alexandre “Xande” Ribeiro – (2006 Worlds, Absolute)
Another very close match. Xande won this by an advantage once again after the points were even at 4-4. I can only find the ending part for this match as it is quite hard to get hold of videos prior to 2010. It is reasonably exciting since Ribeiro wins in the final seconds of the fight. The celebration is wild as this is the world championship final in the absolute weight category. The video ends with Xande Ribeiro jumping into the crowd to celebrate with the fans.
Loss 7 – Alexandre “Xande” Ribeiro (Worlds 2008, Absolute)
Perhaps this match cements that Ribeiro is amongst one of the most underrated BJJ competitors of all time. This is perhaps a silly thing to say since Ribeiro is a multiple world champion, but with this said he is not talked about anywhere near as much compared to Gracie, yet maintains a respectable 3-5 record against him in major competitions. In this match, Roger Gracie is just seconds away from securing an armbar submission on Ribeiro when the time expires. To clear up any confusion, the commentators can be heard saying “Did he tap” but I think they are confused since he tapped to let go after he knew the clock had expired.
