If Alexander Karelin entered UFC 1

[rmongler]

The first UFCs were basically Gracie grandstands; it was their show and they were selective with who they invited. So they weren't calling guys who already had a lot of prior MMA experience like Paulson or Gokor, never mind world class athletes like Karelin.

 

[Coconutwater]

Why is everyone saying Karelin "destroys" Royce? Isn't that what they said about everybody who walked into the early UFC's? These big, hulking figures would all "destroy" this skinny Brazilian kid. Dan Severn was no slouch of a wrestler and he actually was able to accomplish what wrestlers do...he pinned Royce. But he didn't destroy him? Royce survived long enough to submit Severn. What would happen between a fight between Severn and Karelin? NOT a Greco match. NOT a wrestling match. But a fight? Does Karelin "destroy" a 2 time All-American wrestler about the same size as him? Do you people honestly believe that Severn, or Royce, or anyone in the UFC would sprawl on all fours and wait for the "Karelin lift" or something? Karelin was the best of the best at a very specific skill set. He was very good at basically throwing people to the ground. So? Royce was very skilled AFTER it hit the ground. How would it play out? Karelin closes for a bear hug...Royce pulls guard? Sounds like the Severn fight? Or did Karelin have some tremendous stand up that I'm missing? Or was he just going to gut wrench him to death?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Karelin couldn't "beat" Royce. But to say he'd "destroy" him? I think that down plays the reason everyone was so enthralled with that skinny Brazilian kid in the first place.

Oddly enough, as a former wrestler and currently BJJ guy, I agree. Everyone knows I favor wrestling as the base art for MMA, but the reality is, people didn’t know about fighting period, in 1993, except some Brazilians. Royce Gracie is always trashed when compared to Rickson or Renzo, but where I disagree, is that Royce was arguably better matched against early MMA fighters than Rickson. Rickson would cream Royce in two minutes, but Rickson against Ken Shamrock, Kimo, Severn? I don’t know.

Rickson’s takedowns were worse than Royce. He would simply run in like a mummy. Royce was smoother in that regard.

I also think Rickson seemed to leave his neck exposed to standing guillotines and even ate a horrible knee by Takada, who sucks. Takada even bucked Rickson from the mount momentarily. Royce was passive and never chased anything, his passivity is what caused people to fall into his traps. Being conservative is why Royce did so well, not to mention he was tall enough to not get manhandled due to framing or leverage while standing. His guard worked well because of his long limbs, which help closed guard.

Back to the original question, I think Royce might of beaten the Russian. Royce would be taken down and succeed at getting full guard, from there, I can easily see a triangle, armbar happening , it’s not impossible by any means.

Saying Rickson would crush Karelin is irresponsible, Rickson was held in a cradle by Schultz and only was let go because Schultz got bored after 20 minutes, which I 100% believe is true. I just don’t see Schultz cradling Royce as easy as Rickson, as Royce just pulls guard or is tall enough not to be folded so easily into a head and arm while standing.

Hell, Ron Trip tossed Rickson easily, again, I don’t see Royce even trying to tie up with any wrestler which is why I give Royce a chance against Karelin, an even better chance than Rickson IMHO.

I know 90% would disagree simply because Rickson is a much better bjj athlete than Royce, which is an understatement.

 

[tdluxon]

Karelin would probably win regardless, but if he spent a week or two learning some sambo basics, then it would have been a cakewalk

 

[tdluxon]

Being in Russia and in the grappling scene, you don't think Karelin would've been exposed to Sambo in one form or another?

Again, answer is no.

This was my first thought. If he spent a week working sambo (if he never had at all previously) and it’d be a slam dunk.

 

[Kforcer]

Didn’t mark Shultz get rickson in a cradle for like a half hour? Rickson said that was one of his hardest rolls ever and Shultz only trained wrestling, was not as dominate as Alex, and that was against rickson who by all accounts was much better than Royce.

Then again, he wrestling folk and freestyle, not Greco. Who knows if Karelin ever put anyone in a cradle, ever. But yeah, that did happen with Schultz.

 

[Patrick Jane]

One thing we should not forget is that as a child, before he got interested in wrestling, Karelin tried a bunch of other sports including boxing, and he was apparently rather talented in all of them. So if he had natural talent for so many things, i guess he would have been a good fighter on instinct alone. And considering he tossed super heavyweights around like children, i guess even finishing a fully extended armbar would be a challenge on someone with such ridiculous isometric strength. I don't even think Royce Gracie would have defeated someone "smaller" like Mark Kerr.

The first UFCs were basically Gracie grandstands; it was their show and they were selective with who they invited. So they weren't calling guys who already had a lot of prior MMA experience like Paulson or Gokor, never mind world class athletes like Karelin.

To be fair, they (surprisingly) accepted Gerard Gordeau as a participant, who was arguably the most experienced guy in the whole tournament.

 

[Hatorade]

does he win the whole damn thing or get subbed by Royce?

How long does he get to prepare?

A couple weeks rolling with someone like Oleg Taktarov, and he beats Royce into a living death for sure.

I don't know what his knowledge of submissions was, but if he had zero knowledge and you just took him right off the wrestling mat and into combat, I could see him getting subbed by little Royce Gracie. People don't want to believe that, but Royce subbed Dan Severn who was a 250lb international wrestler that had some knowledge of submissions and was not a 100% pure wrestler already. Dan came into the octagon with basic knowledge of chokes already and still got choked.

 

[Hatorade]

How exactly would any Gracie get Karelin to the ground when the very best 280lbs+ wrestlers in the world could not? Someone enlighten me on this please.

Royce would have pulled guard on him. Karelin probably would have fallen for it too, despite the fact that he would have probably punched Royce's lights out in the stand up.

 

[Kforcer]

One thing we should not forget is that as a child, before he got interested in wrestling, Karelin tried a bunch of other sports including boxing, and he was apparently rather talented in all of them. So if he had natural talent for so many things, i guess he would have been a good fighter on instinct alone. And considering he tossed super heavyweights around like children, i guess even finishing a fully extended armbar would be a challenge on someone with such ridiculous isometric strength. I don't even think Royce Gracie would have defeated someone "smaller" like Mark Kerr.


To be fair, they (surprisingly) accepted Gerard Gordeau as a participant, who was arguably the most experienced guy in the whole tournament.

Having Shamrock in the tournament was a huge risk as well; they invited in a guy who was actually proficient in submissions and way, way bigger than Royce.

 

[Patrick Jane]

I don't know what his knowledge of submissions was, but if he had zero knowledge and you just took him right off the wrestling mat and into combat, I could see him getting subbed by little Royce Gracie. People don't want to believe that, but Royce subbed Dan Severn who was a 250lb international wrestler that had some knowledge of submissions and was not a 100% pure wrestler already. Dan came into the octagon with basic knowledge of chokes already and still got choked.

The fact that it took Royce Gracie 15 minutes to submit Dan Severn who did not even bother throwing a punch in UFC 4 actually sounds more like an advantage for Karelin who is known for an endless chain of lifting opponents off the ground and slamming them. If less than 5 minutes of continuous struggle with Kimo exhausted Gracie to a point where he couldn't continue i think wrestling Karelin would make him throw up after less than 10 times of being thrown.

I really don't think groundfighting with someone like Karelin is even going to happen as he can just stand up with the opponent clinging onto him indefinitely. The interesting question would be whether he would choose to engage in groundfighting, which would be to his disadvantage.

 

[Hatorade]

The fact that it took Royce Gracie 15 minutes to submit Dan Severn who did not even bother throwing a punch in UFC 4 actually sounds more like an advantage for Karelin who is known for an endless chain of lifting opponents off the ground and slamming them. If less than 5 minutes of continuous struggle with Kimo exhausted Gracie to a point where he couldn't continue i think wrestling Karelin would make him throw up after less than 10 times of being thrown.

I really don't think groundfighting with someone like Karelin is even going to happen as he can just stand up with the opponent clinging onto him indefinitely. The interesting question would be whether he would choose to engage in groundfighting, which would be to his disadvantage.

Severn only lasted 15 minutes because he knew what Royce was trying to do, and he had basic submission defense. He still eventually got choked by a black belt regardless. Had Severn gone into that fight with zero knowledge of submissions, he would have been subbed very quickly.

If Karelin had zero knowledge of submissions, he would absolutely have taken Royce down, and he absolutely would have got choked or got subbed with an armbar if he failed to smash Royce in the first 30 seconds.

I would guess Karelin did have basic knowledge of submissions though because after reading about him, it says he trained a bit of Judo. This leads me to believe, he might just keep the fight standing and knock the shit out of Royce or just slam Royce into another dimension without giving him his arm or neck.

My money would be on Karelin after learning of his limited training in Judo, which is what Severn had for submission knowledge. I just think Karelin is a different type of human. I little bit of training like that would prevent Royce from doing shit to that man IMO

 

[Patrick Jane]

Severn only lasted 15 minutes because he knew what Royce was trying to do

Did he say that or where do you have that information from?

 

[Hatorade]

Did he say that or where do you have that information from?

Watch the fight.
Dan Severn clearly knows how to defend both an armbar and a triangle choke in that fight. It's the very reason you don't really see him posture up to throw strikes. He chose to blanket Royce with his size almost the entire fight while using short strikes in Royce's guard to wear him down because despite being the bigger man, he knew Royce was light years ahead of him in in regards to ground fighting.

Severn has said in interviews that he started training Judo in college and was an AAU Sambo champ prior to ever even entering the UFC. He also has talked about rolling with a legit Japanese jujitsu guy prior to entering the UFC, which is why he feels that he gave Royce way too much respect in that fight instead of being more aggressive. He said he trained extensively not to get caught in the very sub he got caught in. The thing is, the only reason Royce got that choke was because he used the cage as leverage to connect the triangle. Dan never knew he was in trouble until it was too late because Royce couldn't have done that from his guard alone.

 

[Patrick Jane]

Watch the fight.
Dan Severn clearly knows how to defend both an armbar and a triangle choke in that fight. It's the very reason you don't really see him posture up to throw strikes. He chose to blanket Royce with his size almost the entire fight while using short strikes in Royce's guard to wear him down because despite being the bigger man, he knew Royce was light years ahead of him in in regards to ground fighting.

Severn has said in interviews that he started training Judo in college and was an AAU Sambo champ prior to ever even entering the UFC. He also has talked about rolling with a legit Japanese jujitsu guy prior to entering the UFC, which is why he feels that he gave Royce way too much respect in that fight instead of being more aggressive. He said he trained extensively not to get caught in the very sub he got caught in. The thing is, the only reason Royce got that choke was because he used the cage as leverage to connect the triangle. Dan never knew he was in trouble until it was too late because Royce couldn't have done that from his guard alone.

Do you remember where he said that? I'm asking because literally every time i ever heard him talk about that fight he didn't even acknowledge he tapped because of a submission but because he was unwilling to murder Royce Gracie which he expected to be necessary because Helio had such a cold stare that Dan didn't expect him to throw a towel (a remarkably silly excuse, which he quadrupled down on though).

Everything i ever heard Dan Severn say about his training for UFC 4 was that he trained submissions for a week with Al Snow which he pulled straight out of his ass.

 

[Hatorade]

Do you remember where he said that? I'm asking because literally every time i ever heard him talk about that fight he didn't even acknowledge he tapped because of a submission but because he was unwilling to murder Royce Gracie which he expected to be necessary because Helio had such a cold stare that Dan didn't expect him to throw a towel (a remarkably silly excuse, which he quadrupled down on though).

Everything i ever heard Dan Severn say about his training for UFC 4 was that he trained submissions for a week with Al Snow which he pulled straight out of his ass.

Severn has that pro-wrestling thing going on. It's hard to know when he's full of shit just like Shamrock.
I think he significantly downplayed his grappling experience prior to that fight in the old days as a way to dismiss the loss. I also remember the BS excuse about not wanting to hurt Royce.

I couldn't tell you the exact interview, but he's old, and it's a podcast from the last few years.
You can look up his bio, and it talks about his Judo and Sambo experience prior to UFC 4. He's way more honest about his career these days in regards to how he would stack up, his pro wrestling, and his previous martial arts experience prior to UFC 4.

I saw an interview with him and Don Frye recently where they talked about Mark Hunt getting fucked by the UFC after trying to sue the UFC over Brock getting a free pass for roids. Frye is very open about his PED use and an open book.

 

[ChickenBrother]

The fact that it took Royce Gracie 15 minutes to submit Dan Severn who did not even bother throwing a punch in UFC 4 actually sounds more like an advantage for Karelin who is known for an endless chain of lifting opponents off the ground and slamming them. If less than 5 minutes of continuous struggle with Kimo exhausted Gracie to a point where he couldn't continue i think wrestling Karelin would make him throw up after less than 10 times of being thrown.

I really don't think groundfighting with someone like Karelin is even going to happen as he can just stand up with the opponent clinging onto him indefinitely. The interesting question would be whether he would choose to engage in groundfighting, which would be to his disadvantage.

To add to this, folks comparing Karelin to Severn aren't realizing how much of an absolute unit Karelin was. He dwarfed guys like Severn, Kimo and Mark Kerr. Here he is at a jacked 295 lbs in his only MMA match vs. 257 lbs Akira Maeda in 1999. Yes, likely a work but the way he moves and the things he's doing are probably indicative of what he'd do in a real fight. And this isn't even "prime" Karelin - this is 32 yo Karelin 1.5 years before his finals "loss" to Hulon Gardner Gracie in his last Olympics.



1993 Karelin at the time of UFC 1 would have been 26 yo, coming off his second Olympic gold and would have given Royce something he'd never faced before. Of course this debate is ridiculous because we're talking a 176 lbs dude vs. a 295 lbs wrecking machine and these two have no business being in the same bracket of any combat sport with weight classes.

Royce has a chance but Karelin made a career out of repeatedly picking up and slamming the best dudes in the world, who outweighed Royce by 100 lbs. I see this going like the first 4 minutes of Kimo vs. Royce or the first 12 minutes of Bob Sapp vs. Big Nog i.e. Karelin slamming Royce into bolivian and eventual slam KO, due to him being much more skilled and enjoying an even bigger size and strength advantage than Kimo and Sapp did in their respective fights.

 

[Kforcer]

Do you remember where he said that? I'm asking because literally every time i ever heard him talk about that fight he didn't even acknowledge he tapped because of a submission but because he was unwilling to murder Royce Gracie which he expected to be necessary because Helio had such a cold stare that Dan didn't expect him to throw a towel (a remarkably silly excuse, which he quadrupled down on though).

Everything i ever heard Dan Severn say about his training for UFC 4 was that he trained submissions for a week with Al Snow which he pulled straight out of his ass.

Having trained under Dan Severn as well as former sambo world champion Steve Smith, I can say that he definitely did seek out Steve Smith to show him submissions. I'm not sure if it was before or after UFC 4 though. Steve Smith was on the same US sambo team as Steve Nelson, who probably knew Severn through UWFi, which could've been how they got hooked up. Not sure.

Dan definitely did train in the UWF Snake Pit with a variety of people, including Sakuraba, during his time in the UWFi. How much he actually absorbed in terms of submissions, I don't know.

 

[BigDeadFreak]

I don't see how anyone can watch Royce struggling with Kimo for so long and think he'd be able to defeat Karelin. Surely Karelin would get on top and just smash him with strikes and slams until Royce got fatigued.

At some point size overcomes technique (see Fallon Fox, Lia Thomas, etc).

Here's another question, would Ramon Dekkers beat Tyson Fury in mma?

 

[Esile]

I don't see how anyone can watch Royce struggling with Kimo for so long and think he'd be able to defeat Karelin. Surely Karelin would get on top and just smash him with strikes and slams until Royce got fatigued.

At some point size overcomes technique (see Fallon Fox, Lia Thomas, etc).

Here's another question, would Ramon Dekkers beat Tyson Fury in mma?

Fallon Fox is far from the best example of size or strenght overcoming technique since he lost to a real woman as soon as he faced decent competition and Lia Thomas even less so since swimming has nothing to do with fighting.

Said that I agree that Karelin would be too much for Royce.
It's funny however that Kimo came closer to beating Royce than Severn did when the latter is a way better wrestler, he probably paid the price of behaving too much like he was in a wrestling match and not thinking about ground and pound enough while Kimo wild aggression was more unpredictable.

 

[BigDeadFreak]

Fallon Fox is far from the best example of size or strenght overcoming technique since he lost to a real woman as soon as he faced decent competition and Lia Thomas even less so since swimming has nothing to do with fighting.

Said that I agree that Karelin would be too much for Royce.
It's funny however that Kimo came closer to beating Royce than Severn did when the latter is a way better wrestler, he probably paid the price of behaving too much like he was in a wrestling match and not thinking about ground and pound enough while Kimo wild aggression was more unpredictable.

The point I was making with Fallon Fox was that he wouldn't have even been competitive if he'd been facing other men.