LONG BEACH, Calif. — The first lady of the Gracie family isn’t sure when she’s going to make her mixed martial arts debut.
So for now, MMA fans have to settle for seeing Kyra Gracie take on a cage fighter on the submission grappling mat. Gracie, the three-time ADCC gold medalist, defeated Strikeforce bantamweight standout Alexis Davis, 5-0, in a no-gi contest at the World Jiu-Jitsu Expo at the Long Beach Convention Center.
“She was a very tough fighter,” said Gracie, who is Renzo Gracie’s niece. “I’m just happy to get the win tonight.”
Gracie has mainly been training with a gi in recent months as she prepares for the upcoming World Championship. Davis took advantage in the early going, nearly catching Gracie with an armbar. Once Gracie got out of trouble, she took command and cruised for the remainder of the 10-minute bout.
“I took this fight on really short notice,” said Gracie. “I haven’t been training [no-gi] really at all. I have the World Championships coming up in June with a gi, but I haven’t been training no-gi. I wasn’t tight with my grips, I wasn’t used to my grips without the gi. I felt like she did very good rotating, had a very nice armbar and she was very tough.”
As for when we might see Gracie step into an MMA cage? Time will tell. With four World Championships and five Pan-American Games titles to go along with her ADCC laurels, the 26-year-old Gracie is already arguably the most decorated female jiu-jitsu fighter ever. But she feels she has more left to achieve on the mat before turning her attention to MMA.
“It’s something that can happen soon or it can never happen,” Gracie said. “I really want to fight, but I’m waiting to see from which organization I am going to be in. I have to wait for the right moment. I still have a lot of things i want to do in my jiu-jitsu career, but everything is going toward MMA so I’m pretty sure one day I’ll make my debut.”