World Victory Road, an upstart promotion built around Japanese lightweight sensation Takanori Gomi, is accusing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu prodigy Roger Gracie of faking a rib injury to avoid fighting on their Sengoku: Battle V card tonight. WVR and their doctor contest that Gracie's injury, "an intermuscular tear to the intercostal muscle between the sixth and seventh left ribs," is not severe enough to keep him from competing in a scheduled match against American veteran Travis Wiuff. WVR is "considering punishing [Roger] severely" for the last minute pull-out, whatever that means. Roger Gracie is arguably the biggest blue-chip MMA prospect to come along in the last five or more years. He is the grandson of Carlos Gracie, one of the UFC's founders. He is a heavyweight but can fight at light heavyweight if he wanted to. He is an Abu Dhabi Combat Club submission tournament open-weight and heavyweight champion and has 19 first place finishes in BJJ tournaments around the world. At just 27-years old and still improving, Roger could be an MMA world champion someday. So for WVR to be publically hammering him right now is really playing with fire. This is somebody they can build around. Gracie only has two fights under his belt and could give them many more before going to DREAM or the UFC to face top competition. It makes me wonder if they are serious about their brand or just a bunch of gangsters and intimidators like the ones that poisoned PRIDE.
