There’s already a lot of eyes on Taisei Sakuraba in Japan thanks to his family history, but he explained that he wants to lean into that by facing Kron Gracie in a grappling match. Sakuraba spoke to MMAFighting recently and he was very clearly interested in extending the rivalry that has gone on between the two families. His father, Kazushi Sakuraba, was known as ‘The Gracie Hunter’ during his professional MMA career on account of the unprecedented success that he enjoyed against the Gracie family. When he first submitted Royler Gracie, it was at a time when the whole family were thought to be among the greatest fighters on the planet.
That moment alone was enough for him to leave an impressive legacy, but it only grew when he finished both Royce Gracie and Renzo Gracie as well. Ryan was the final Gracie family member that he defeated during his career and it meant that Sakuraba earned a special place in MMA and grappling history. His son Taisei is now following in his footsteps by making his professional MMA debut at RIZIN 49: Decade, but that isn’t the only way he might be emulating him. He was asked in the interview about the possibility of facing Kron, and he was immediately interested in taking on the current generation of the Gracie family:
“If there’s a demand and if there are people who want to see this fight, I’m down.”
Although the two families rivalry took place under MMA rules, Taisei Sakuraba is more realistic and he understands that a grappling match might be the only way he can face Kron Gracie:
“I’m not so sure about how the RIZIN system is going to work but Quintet is a grappling promotion, and that’s a team versus team type concept. It’s only grappling, but I think under Quintet, there’s a high probability of that happening. That would be interesting. But for me, I wanna travel abroad. So I hope, whenever this happens, I hope it happens outside of Japan.”
Quintet is his father’s promotion and Kron has competed at the highest level of grappling before he transitioned to MMA, so it isn’t such a crazy idea. If Kron ever decides to return to Jiu-Jitsu competition then Sakuraba might just be the ideal opponent for a promotion like Quintet to create an interesting storyline.
