With all due respect to Gabi Garcia, she needs to give up on mixed martial arts. At the very least, she needs to leave Rizin.
For those of you who don’t know, Garcia is an extremely talented Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner. A black belt under the legendary Fabio Gurgel at Alliance Jiu-Jitsu, Garcia is a champion in almost all of BJJ’s major tournaments. She has won gold in the IBJJF Worlds and Pan-Ams, and has also won ADCC, and UAEJJF.
True, she was stripped of her titles in 2013, but you can’t write off her other wins because of that. Numerous other highly-ranked fighters have broken the rules, but that didn’t destroy their legacies.
Gabi’s MMA career, however, is turning into a joke (if it hasn’t turned into one already).
Though undefeated, her wins came off of fighters who were either well over her age (one of her last opponents and her future opponent are 50 or over) or against people with virtually no experience.
But that’s not all. Today, Garcia weighed in at 27 pounds over the allowed weight.
27 pounds!
And this is for a fight against a 53-year-old woman who hasn’t fought in almost 18 years.
I want to reiterate: I have nothing but the utmost respect for Gabi Garcia as an athlete. You don’t get to her rank and win the competitions she has won without being an outstanding practitioner of her art.
I just worry that her mixed martial arts career is ruining her legacy. Rizin, in particular, seems to be making a parody out of her, turning her into a female Goliath who stomps on old woman for the enjoyment of a crowd.
This isn’t the legacy she wants for herself. For that reason, I think she should give up MMA or at least find a promotion better than Rizin.
You can watch her embarrassing weigh-in video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=rQ3dB8Zceac
