In some ways, this past Saturday’s Bellator 198 event was a typical fight week for Neiman Gracie.

There was, of course, the end result: As it has been the case in his entire MMA career, Gracie was victorious. There’s the manner in which it happened, too: Like all but one of the opponents who’ve crossed paths with Gracie (8-0 MMA, 6-0 BMMA) in MMA, Javier Torres (10-4 MMA, 0-1 BMMA) was the victim of a submission.

But outside the cage, too, there were some repeats for Gracie. Both before and (immediately) after, the welterweight saw himself answering the same questions he has been for a while – all of them regarding the same thing: his last name.

In any area, be it sports or showbusiness, there are different sides to being part of a famous lineage. It, of course, often opens some doors. But then there’s the process of becoming your own person and being acknowledged for you – and not for your name.

Gracie’s immediate laugh when the subject is brought up indicates that, yes, he’s gotten his share of what-is-it-like-to-be-a-Gracie questions before. But he has no problem answering them.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Gracie told MMAjunkie. “For me, it’s an honor to represent my family. It’s normal. People want to know. But it’s like I said after the fight: I think everything my family had to prove, they already did way back then. We wanted to prove that jiu-jitsu was the best art for self-defense, and I think Royce, Renzo, Rickson – they proved it. So, for me, it’s easier.

“I don’t carry as much of the weight to prove jiu-jitsu is the best art. And it changed a little too. My last opponent, for instance, was a jiu-jitsu black belt. Everyone knows jiu-jitsu now. I think it changed, and I don’t feel the weight as much. I think, win or lose today, it’s more on me than it is on the entire family, because history has been written.”

At the same time, though, there were the ways in which Gracie’s most recent fight week wasn’t that typical.

As Gracie revealed in the press conference after his win, Torres got a bit adversarial with him, going as far as to trying to stir up trouble backstage, before the two walked out to the cage at Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Ill., near Chicago, for the Paramount-televised main-card welterweight bout.

That, the habitually friendly Gracie said, was one of the first times that has happened in his pro MMA career. Personally, he added, he doesn’t really see the point of “mean faces and talking crap” when you’re going to settle your differences in the cage, anyway.

But, in any case, it wasn’t like he was the least bit fazed by it.

“Because I’m a Gracie, at school, in Brazil, since I was a kid, there was always someone talking crap,” Gracie said. “An uncle of mine would lose, and people would make fun of me at school. Or there’d be someone who did karate and said jiu-jitsu sucked. I had numerous fights in school because of that, so I’m used to it.”

Gracie has lived in New York, where he trains at uncle Renzo’s gym, for more than a decade now. But he was in Brazil before that, which means he attended school – and the gym – at a time when his family’s name really boomed in popularity.

“It was Royce’s time,” Gracie recalled. “It was the time when the Gracie name became known in Brazil and worldwide.”

When he weighs the pros and cons of having that be such a big part of his growing up, Gracie believes the takeaway is certainly positive. Which is not to say that it was all positive.

“On the one hand, it’s good because you get used to the pressure,” Gracie said.” Whenever I went to compete in jiu-jitsu or when I went to train at the gym, everyone watched and wanted to see if there was something special. So you get used to it.

“Because there’s really nothing special. I’m a regular guy, like everyone else. I was just born in this family. There was that annoying aspect, of everyone’s expectations, but I got used to it and it ended up being good.”

Family ties aside, fact is that the unbeaten Gracie is making his own way as the thing he’s always expected and wanted to be: a fighter. With the win over Torres, he’s gone 6-0 in the Bellator stage after a two-fight stint at WSOF to kick off his pro run.

That has, understandably, led to higher goals. Gracie had been talking about getting a higher-ranked opponent in the 170-pound ladder, already with a title shot in mind. He reiterated that post-fight, adding that a nice alternative would be other opponents defending family names, such as Ryan Couture or Kevin Ferguson Jr. (a.k.a. “Baby Slice”).

He stood by that speaking to MMAjunkie a few days later, adding that he was already angling for a July return.

“Who’s never thought of something like Gracie vs. Couture, or even Gracie vs. Slice?” Gracie said. “It would be pretty cool.”

But Gracie was also clear in that he had no specific callouts in mind – shortly before having a bit of a change of heart on Twitter:

Danis comes off a big Bellator 198 submission win of his own – which spelled a successful start to his pro MMA run. And while we’ll have to wait and see whether he takes the bait or not, it’s certainly one that grappling fans wouldn’t mind one bit.

Whether it’s a fellow grappling expert or not that comes next, though, Gracie knows one thing about his future.

“I’d like to have this belt around my waist in 2018,” Gracie said. “And I hope my plans work out.”

For complete coverage of Bellator 198, check out the MMA Events section of the site.