When the UFC launched in 1993, the octagonal cage became one of the sport’s most iconic features. But according to Royce Gracie the design almost looked very different.
In a recent interview at UFC Expo in Las Vegas, Gracie revealed the wild ideas his family considered before settling on the now-famous octagon.
“Rorion’s initial idea, he already wanted to make this, but he didn’t know how to do it with plastic,”
Gracie explained.
“Then he wanted to do a pit, surrounded by alligators and sharks.”
The Brazilian MMA star detailed several concepts the organizers explored in those early planning stages.
“There were several ideas that the guys there had before arriving at the grid format,”
he said.
“The fence, but they wanted to put an electric fence on it, they wanted to put barbed wire on it.”
Gracie was adamant about his opposition to some of these proposals.
“How are you all doing? I said that I’m not the one who’s going in there,”
he recalled.
“Let’s grab a guy, grab a sumo wrestler, hold me against the fence, make me fry against the fence, man. Dude, that can’t be it, you know? ”
“t’s a good thing they only kept the fence. It just closed. And that’s it.”
The octagon ultimately became the perfect middle ground, contained and secure yet allowing MMA stars complete freedom of movement without corners where competitors could get trapped. Unlike a traditional boxing ring, the eight-sided cage prevented competitors from escaping and forced constant engagement. UFC has since trademarked the octagon and has even filed legal complaints against the Europe based MMA promotion for using the name Oktagon.
Gracie, who entered UFC 1 weighing around 180 lbs (82 kg) and faced opponents significantly heavier, became the face of the early UFC despite never being the obvious choice.
“Rickson, for example, was the best at the time, but he had a physique that looked like a Greek god,”
Gracie noted. His father Hélio and brother Rorion selected him specifically because he looked ordinary.
“I look more like a normal person. I’m not that light, I’m not that heavy. One of the normal ones, in a weight, an average as they call it here.”
This choice proved strategic. Audiences watched a regular-sized man defeat much larger opponents using Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu technique alone, no weight classes, no time limits, no gloves, and virtually no rules.
“If you take Jiu-Jitsu out of the UFC, everything will go back to the way it was before,”
Gracie said.
“It was wrestling versus kickboxing, it was karate versus kung fu.”
The octagon design, despite its controversial alternatives, became synonymous with mixed martial arts worldwide. What could have been a spectacle involving electric fences or aquatic predators instead became a controlled environment where technique could triumph over size and strength, exactly what the Gracie family wanted to prove.
