A biography for Royce Graciehasn’t been written yet.
“Kids wake up in the morning and say, 'I want to be a UFC fighter one day,' just like they do in baseball.”
“I believe in pure jiu-jitsu. That's what I've done in the past.”
“I'm a MMA fighter, man. I'm a MMA fighter, all the way.”
“Like when I fought Akebono - six foot eight, 490 pounds. Before the fight, everyone's like 'Man, you're crazy. You're out of your mind. How are you going to fight a guy that big, there's no way you can take him down. You cannot punch him out. You're out of your mind.' After the fight, everybody was like 'Oh come on, he's big and fat.' Really?”
“I am a product of my father's work.”
“I never put a 'last one' tag on my fights because you never know.”
“The main thing is strategy. It's not just come in and duke it out and fight.”
“I'm not a fighter to score points of fight with time limit.”
“I did a seminar once in Pennsylvania when there was big snow, road construction, a big flood and just one person showed up. I said, 'No problem, I'll do it.' If there's one or 100 on the mat, the juice is still there.”
“If Teila Tuli won the first UFC, everybody would have been learning sumo.”
“I've trained boxing in the past to learn the distance, trained wrestling to understand how he would take me down, but I won't get there to fight my opponent's game.”
“I get stopped at the airports by just everyday people that are not even fans of the MMA and they say how they have seen me fight. Its very humbling and also rewarding.”
“I have such a big family, sometimes, I was wondering, when is it going to be my turn? There's always a brother who's older, younger, bigger, stronger, faster, I was like, 'hey, give me a chance guys.'”
“You have to know your opponent and take him out of his game.”
“Do this rubber guard stuff and I'll punch you in the nose.”
“In any professional level competition, soccer players, you've got to know when to stop.”
“GSP is at the top of my list in knowing how to use strategy, how to bring an opponent out of his game, how to beat a guy without taking a beating. And he's good in standup and good at grappling.”
“Martial arts in general were not made for a tournament, for points system. Martial arts were made to defend yourself in the street fight situation, not to score points.”
“I travel seven months a year, so it's a lot of hotels and airplanes. I teach about three hours a day. I always go for a run. I try to lift some weights if I have the time and the strength. But running and teaching, that's my life.”
“When you're a fighter, you have to be ready all the time. There's no 'I need a month.' It's always time.”