By UFC 3, Royce Gracie had been established as the main UFC star. He'd gone into both UFC 1 and UFC 2 and ran through the competition to prove the validity of BJJ. So going into UFC 3 it only made sense that he would run through the competition again and win a third time. However, everyone was shocked to see him bow out of the tournament following a bout with one Kimo Leopoldo that exhausted him to the point that he had to be helped to the Octagon for his next match before his corner threw in the towel. During that match with Kimo, Gracie actually ripped out his pony tale as a means of controlling the much larger opponent. As one night tournaments were dropped at UFC 23, the major issue in this match was the hair pulling. This still went back to the no rules philosophy at the time and apparently hair pulling restricted fighters of various disciplines from using techniques correctly. To be fair Gracie was experiencing some trouble against Kimo as he'd never faced as skilled an opponent as Kimo before of that size. Regardless, hair pulling was eventually banned at UFC 14. It was a good thing hair pulling was banned before women joined.
Matthew Salzer fell in love with Mixed Martial Arts when he watched Pride Fighting Championships on Japanese TV. He is a lifelong wrestler having earned a Bachelor of Science at Missouri Baptist University. Matthew is the Senior Editor at MMA Freak and has written for Funky Monkey MMA, H4 Entertainment, and MMA Fiends.
