Speaking of Cro Cop, this was originally supposed to be a grappling match between the Croatian striker and Gracie. An injured elbow forced Mirko to pull out, and tough Russian Alavutdin stepped in. We’ll refer to Alavutdin as ‘GA’ once the action starts for obvious reasons. Lene Hardt is so cool–she trills the “R’s” in Russia as Alavutdin walks to the ring. GA is a powerful striker and looks *real* tough. He’s also got a background in Sambo a la Fedor Emelianenko. Announcers are talking about a fight where Alavutdin knocked out his opponent from the bottom while he was on the wrong end of a full mount. Alavutdin taciturn like apparently every Russian fighter. Rutten wonders what’s up with the entrance music, suggesting that Alavutdin’s sounds like ‘background music from a movie’. Or maybe something you’d hear in a trendy downtempo lounge. Gracie, not surprisingly, is a BJJ monster. Ralek is the son of Rorion Gracie. Tale of the tape suggests that the fighters are the same height with Gracie holding a small weight advantage but they look very even in the staredown.

ROUND ONE:

Fighters very tentative to start with the fighters circling each other and trying to make some sense of the contrast of styles. GA dancing and he’s no Sugar Ray Leonard. Gracie shoves him to the corner but no luck taking him down. Gracie goes for the takedown and GA responds with a Sambo takedown. He quickly lets Gracie back up as you don’t want to jump on the ground against a BJJ specialist. Rutten suggests that GA looks like Rocky Marciano and he sort of does. Now Gracie gets GA down and is in full mount. He tests the arm for a kimura and starts to ground and pound. Gracie working the arm again and GA responding as if he’s never seen a submission before. He taps out and now GA’s arguing that he didn’t tap. Nice job by Gracie in his 2nd pro MMA fight. As Rutten notes he needs to work on his striking as he lives and dies by a low kick.

RALEK GRACIE WINS BY SUBMISSION (ARM BAR)

Gracie is only 22 years old. He addresses the crowd. Replay shows clearly that GA taps three times and when Gracie lets go of the hold the Russian acts like he didn’t tap and starts trying to fight again. Nothing doing, and Ralek Gracie is your winner. Rice gets off a nice line: ‘Mannings throw TD passes; Gracies give submissions’. Getting a lot of love and signing a few autographs on his way out. Between him and Roger Gracie it looks like the family legacy is safe for another generation–their only worry at this point is running out of names that start with the letter ‘R’.