#1 Royce Gracie v/s Sakuraba
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I know most of your jaws would drop at the mention of Royce Gracie embroiled in a ‘cheat win’, but 16 years ago, the pioneer of the modern-era of mixed martial arts found himself in an uneasy tussle.
It was in the year 2000 when Royce Gracie was handed a loss by Japanese MMA fighter Sakuraba at the Pride Grand Prix event. Gracie couldn’t answer the bell for round 7 and post his loss, he demanded a rematch.
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7 years later, a rematch was scheduled at K-1 Dynamite and this time there was no stopping Gracie, who won the fight after a 3-round bout. A post-match drug test, however, revealed that Gracie’s body showed abnormally high levels of testosterone (almost 25x of what a normal male’s levels usually show).
Despite the drug test, the decision wasn’t reversed in Sakuraba’s favour because the regulatory bodies weren’t particularly strict with doping back in the day.
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