Kron Gracie has one of the toughest tests of his MMA career ahead at UFC 310, but he will be facing it without his father Rickson Gracie in his corner. As his father, Rickson was the first coach that Kron ever knew and he helped guide him throughout his BJJ career. Although he also helped him in the earliest days of his MMA career, the two have since been less involved in that respect. They’ve even had disagreements on the best way to approach the sport and it’s not surprising given that they’re from two completely different generations of the MMA world.
Regardless of whether he’s in his corner or not, Rickson Gracie had nothing but positivity and support for Kron ahead of UFC 310:
“I am very hopeful that he does a good fight, I am wanting him to win but now I am giving him space and we had a certain understanding and now he has the space to decide his life in the best way. I pray for him, but now I am going to stay at home watching.”
Rickson also mentioned the difficulty that Kron might have in living up to the career he had in the sport, and that pressure of being in the Gracie family is something Kron has been open about before too:
“Maybe, I think the moment of Kron now, he really wants to feel like Kron Gracie, because he does not want to feel the son of (Rickson) Gracie, he wants to feel like Kron Gracie, having his victories, his merits, his training, his strategies.”
“I think he is a little tired of being compared to me, ‘ah, you breathe like your father,’ so he is at the age to free himself, he is trying to get out of this segment, he wants to become an individual, present and powerful in what he created.”
Although he clearly supports Kron Gracie in his decision, it still has to be tough for someone like Rickson to watch UFC 310 at home instead of being in his corner. The fight against Bryce Mitchell will be one of the toughest that Kron has had so far, and it’ll be a part of the legacy he leaves when he eventually retires. Rickson still has hope that they can look back on this period together regardless:
“I respect this, I see that this is a phase, maybe in the future we can interact and talk about the past and we both want to be together, but now he is serious in his mission and I am serious respecting this and I hope he is happy in his decisions and has good success in life.”
The full interview with Rickson Gracie where he explains why he won’t be in Kron Gracie’s corner at UFC 310 was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of Combate:
