Kyra Gracie says she will not entirely scrap off the idea of fighting in MMA after she found out she was having a baby. After giving birth to her daughter, Ayra, the opportunity is still on the table.
Gracie is considered one of the best grapplers ever, and she has won the ADCC gold medal three times. She has been a jiu-jitsu world champion for five times as well. Just this week, she launched her new show entitled “The Third Degree with Kyra Gracie” on UFC Fight Pass. With all of these achievements, she said that fighting in MMA still entices her.
“It’s always hard for me, especially because I’ve been competing my whole life in jiu-jitsu, and I’m a big fan of MMA. But it’s hard for me to say ‘oh, I’m never doing MMA’. It’s always something I wanna try. But my life is kind of busy now, I have the show, my baby, a lot of things going on. I can’t say I’ll never fight,” Gracie said.
Gracie admitted that she had some ‘conversations’ about joining an MMA promotion but she has never closed any real deal yet. Gracie has been training in the sport and was able to compete at the 141-pound division as well. During the interview, she admitted that she admires Ronda Rousey.
“The way she fights, she goes there to finish the fight. She has a very good ground game and I admire her a lot. All of her victories before MMA, in judo and everything, and I think she opened the door for the new generation of girls that wanna join MMA and the girls that are enjoying the sport,” Gracie said.
She also said that she doesn’t think Holly Holm will do any damage to Rousey this coming UFC 193; and as for the epic fight between the current women’s MMA bantamweight champ and Cyborg, Gracie doubts that this will happen in this lifetime.
“I think it’s really hard for Cris to drop the weight. She has already a hard time dropping to her division, so… I don’t think this fight is going to happen. I think it’s going to be like the Anderson Silva-Georges St-Pierre fight. We always wanted to see, but we never saw it,” she said.
Gracie hasn’t been in a competition since 2012, the same year where she had won over UFC bantamweight champ Alexis Davis during the World Jiu-Jitsu Expo event, but she was given some opportunities to fight at Metamoris. However, she was pregnant that time so she wasn’t able to return. Now that she’s available, Gracie said that she would gladly accept if she’s given a chance to grapple with Ronda.
“I’m always training, so a grappling match, I’m ready. I think (I would need) six weeks (to prepare), something like that,” Gracie said.
During the interview, she also revealed that right now, she’s focusing on her appearance in the UFC Fight Pass show.
“I’m very happy about the show [“The Third Degree with Kyra Gracie”]. It’s a dream for me to travel all over the world to search for the essence of each martial art. We already did Brazilian jiu-jitsu here in Rio de Janeiro, we did boxing in Mexico, and we’re going to search deep inside the essence of all martial arts that make MMA. It’s been a pleasure, and I’m learning a lot,” Gracie added.