Strength vs Technique

[Mike C]

This surely can't be new information to you. Consider this. Someone comes in at you low and shooting for the legs, judo might call it morote gari. Unless the rules have changed, you the defender cannot drop a hammer fist on the attacker's neck.

The rules have changed to make it ILLEGAL. When the gracies had their hands on the sport it was LEGAL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXoPkFhJgkI#t=3m25s

You are also not allowed to grab the head and chin and twist.

I'm almost certain that neck cranks of all sorts were and are legal. If the twister is perfectly legal I don't know why that wouldn't be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFTirAxYhNs

Aaand you are not allowed to clap your hands together over one or both ears.

This? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44E-lW3aYhM#t=1m02s

All of these will pretty much put paid to such an attack. Gracie knew it and so made rules that would benefit the kind of attacks he could win with. You can argue that they are there for safety and that's true enough, but let's not overlook the self serving aspect too. That's why he did so well for so long.

The thing the gracies did in the early UFC days was a two fold approach....they purposely had Royce fight Art (the boxer) in the first ever fight, and the refused to include high level wrestlers until UFC 4 (severn) because Royce wasn't very good and they knew he would probably lose - even though he beat Severn at 4.

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The first UFC had no rules. The closest they got were fines for groin shots and biting.

Correct.