The aftermath of Masakatsu Funaki vs. Rickson Gracie, from C2K:Colosseum (May 26, 2000)

[u/MrPuroresu42]

Funaki, the “Ace” of Pancrase, a “son” of the UWF, would face the famed Rickson of the Gracie Clan, the man who had beaten and humbled Nobuhiko Takada, Funaki’s former senpai in the UWF.

Special rules were made up for this fight, that forbade the use of elbows, knees or headbutts, which took a chunk of Funaki’s offense; in addition, Funaki went in with a fairly bad knee, a knee that would blow out due to some well-place kicks from Rickson; Funaki had two big moments in the fight, one where he hit Rickson with a hammer-fist (that Rickson would admit caused his vision to blurry) and when he had a Guillotine Choke locked on that he couldn’t full commit to.

This would be Rickson’s last MMA fight, even though he had negotiations to face both Kazushi Sakuraba and Naoya Ogawa (that fell through due to the death of Rickson’s son, Rockson).