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Ryan Gracie

The phrase "he's a Gracie" has always conjured up a very specific archetype: The tenacious, technical grappler, patient jiu-jitsu tacticians who fight with almost disconcerting calm and look for opportunities to snatch an arm or a neck. This is why the debut of Ryan Gracie was so shocking for MMA fans: Much more like his brother Ralph, who would make his own debut a few years later, Ryan fought with an angry, ruthless aggression, famously winning his first fight with a flurry of punches so furious they left his opponent (obscure trivia: NJPW junior heavyweight wrestling champion Kendo Kashin) clutching the referee for safety. That became the hallmark of Ryan's style: Wild, angry and often outright reckless abandon, taking him to a final record of 5-2 with 4 wins by violent stoppage.

Unfortunately, that recklessness extended further than his MMA career. Ryan loved partying, fighting and living the kind of self-destructive lifestyle that lends itself to stories that would sound completely unbelievable were they not corroborated by multiple people. He and his friend fell asleep while driving, rolled their car down a hill and laughed about it. He flipped a rental car in Hawaii and beat up two random men on a beach. He spent most of a month in jail for stabbing a man named Chuck Norris in a bar. (Not Chuck Norris, to be clear; just a man named Chuck Norris.) He tried to bite a man's ear off in a street fight. He shot himself in the thigh--reportedly by mistake, while trying to retrieve a gun from his sister's closet. He lived his life as hard as he fought.

And, tragically, that ended exactly the way it had to. High and paranoid, he stole a car to flee a gang hit squad that probably didn't actually exist, crashed it, tried to steal another car AND a motorcycle and was apprehended by a crowd of passers-by and arrested. The police let him call the family doctor, who gave Ryan a drug cocktail to hopefully calm him down in prison. He took it, went to sleep, and never woke up. He was 33.

I was training at Ralph Gracie Mountain View when Ryan died. I will never forget the feeling of being in the school that day. The shock was palpable, but at the same time--and maybe most tragically--no one seemed completely surprised.

Moveset, stats, logic and four attires (Pride 10 vs Ishizawa / Pride 12 vs Sakuraba / Pride 22 vs Oyama / Pride Shockwave 2004 vs Anjo).