The son of Pride Fighting Championships talent Ryan Gracie
may make his way to MMA someday.
Teddy Riner, a three-time Olympic judo gold medalist at heavyweight
as well as a 10-time world champion, wanted to change things up in
his training regiment, leaving his home country of France to do so.
Heading down to Brazil, he joined up with the Brazilian national
judo team and together with some Olympic France teammates. After
one week of interchange, Riner asked the Brazilian Confederation
(CBJ) to train with some Brazilian jiu-jitsu guys, CBJ called up
Paulo Caruso — a black belt in both judo and BJJ — to coordinate
a short, but intense four-day jiu-jitsu training series.
Among those who joined in were the sons of Brazilian MMA fighters
Ryan
Gracie and Marcio Cruz:
Rayron Gracie and Renan Cruz. Born on Dec. 8, 2001, and not
completely dwarfed by the 6-foot-8 Frenchman, Riner found Rayron to
be a very suitable training partner for their cross-training
sessions. Caruso spoke to Sherdog this week about his experience
with Riner and Ryan Gracie’s
lone son, Rayron.
“[Riner’s] competition weight is around 140kg [309 pounds] and he
said he was a little overweight,” Caruso said. “When the Brazilian
judo confederation called us to bring up some jiu-jitsu
specialists, it was not very easy to find some guys from 90 to
110kg [198 to 243 pounds] to help four days [on] such a short
notice, and definitely the son of Ryan [Gracie] and the son of ‘Pe
de Pano’ Marcio Cruz
were the ones who helped him the most with their guard skills.”
According to Caruso, Riner’s sought out tips for the guard and half
guard positions, as the 32-year-old still actively competes around
the world. Following their four-day seminar, Riner learned a lot of
new tricks and, according to Caruso, wants to repeat the experience
in his next trip to Brazil.
“His goal was not do heavy ground sparring, it was more [to]
understand the mechanic of our jiu-jitsu and see how it could help
his [skills],” Caruso noted. “Rayron and [Renan Cruz] were amazing
at teaching him some new stuff. I truly hope this example of Riner
is more used by the Brazilian judo and jiu-jitsu community. Judo
and jiu-jitsu have a lot [that can] help each other.”
Both Rayron and Cruz won European champions in the purple belt
category in 2021, before each earned their brown belt. A mere week
after training with Riner, Rayron traveled up to Kings MMA, working
with Rafael
Cordeiro and cousin Neiman
Gracie in California. Cordeiro in particular was impressed by
the youngster.
“[Rayron] did a great training here with us last Monday. The guy is
very talented, and is ready to migrate to MMA,” Cordeiro told
Sherdog about the young up-and-comer.