Chris Haueter is a legend in the BJJ world as one of the first non-Brazilian black belts and he recently used his unique position to evaluate the history of Gracie Challenge matches. It was a pretty common occurrence in the past, where members of the Gracie family would travel to other martial arts schools to challenge their instructors to fights. It continued for decades and evolved into a standing invitation for anyone to come to them and challenge them instead. This was a key element in the development of BJJ as an effective martial art, even if it is looked back on as an unsavoury time in the sport’s history by some people.
The first port of call for Chris Haueter was to address that outlook on Gracie Challenge matches and although he does understand it, he also shines light on the other side of the argument too:
“Sometimes I’ve often heard this that ‘Oh, the Gracies were such bullies!’ and you could have an argument of that but it was also a phase where Jiu-Jitsu, if you looked at it, looked so ineffective.”
Haueter went on to explain the reason behind Gracie Challenge matches and although some people might not like the idea of them, they really were a necessary part of spreading the art around the world:
“Imagine right now you’re a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt and Jiu-Jitsu has not yet been exposed to the whole world… Everybody you met thought that Chuck Norris’ back spin kick, the Kung Fu movies you watch, that is the tough guys, they’ll beat everyone. But you would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you could close that gap, once the clinch is on you would win… and in order to prove that you would challenge other styles and other arts.”
Haueter continued to be very even-handed in his approach to discussing the topic and he summed up both sides of the argument brilliantly:
“There’s definitely an argument that could be said that that is inappropriate to go into someone else’s school and say ‘I challenge you to a fight.’ That’s kinda cocky and arrogant but at the same time, one could argue if you have a martial arts school, you’re claiming you teach martial arts and you turn down a challenge… That’s kinda cowardice in that sense.”
The full interview with Chris Haueter where he discusses the history behind Gracie Challenge matches was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Combat Base:
