Rickson Gracie has just promoted his old MMA rival Nobuhiko Takada to brown belt in BJJ. The two men have a pretty lengthy history together, and their first meeting as opponents dates all the way back to the very first PRIDE event in 1997. They were at completely different points in their combat sports careers at the time, as Rickson was an undefeated professional fighter with an 8-0 record and Takada was a professional wrestler who had never had an actual fight. The fight was only booked because Rickson had beaten Takada’s student Yoji Anjo when he came to his academy to challenge him.
That fight was over in less than five minutes, as Rickson maintained his unbeaten record by submitting Takada with an armbar. The rematch between them was booked for PRIDE 4 exactly one year later, and not only had Takada won a fight in the meantime but he had also clearly been working on his skills in anticipation. He had a significantly better performance and even threatened a submission of his own at one point, although the end result was the same. It took him almost twice as long in their second fight, but Rickson submitted Takada with an armbar once again.
Rickson only had one more fight before retiring from MMA with an 11-0 professional record, while Takada faced multiple challenging opponents before retiring with a 2-6-2 professional record. Although they never fought again, they were intrinsically linked over the next few years through their family members and students. One of Takada’s later fights came against Royce Gracie, while his student Kazushi Sakuraba became famous for beating multiple members of the Gracie family during his career. The two men have since become friends rather than opponents and have even trained together, as demonstrated by Rickson promoting Takada to brown belt in BJJ.
Nobuhiko Takada announced the news that he had been promoted to BJJ brown belt by Rickson Gracie in a recent post to his official Instagram account. He made the following comment, (translated from the original Japanese):
“Oh my goodness! Yesterday I was awarded my brown belt from Mr. Rickson Gracie. What a great honor and what a big surprise this is. And I am a happy person to be able to study Confucianism even at 62, the value of continuing day by day. Never wake up old injuries that are putting you to sleep, pay close attention to new injuries, and work hard on Jiu-Jitsu starting tomorrow. Thank you.”
