Kakutogi Road: The Chronological History of MMA |
We at Kakutogi HQ recently had the pleasure of sending over one of our cub reporters to track down UWF-I legend, and catch-wrestling icon, Billy Scott, as he was nestled deep into the impenetrable forests of western Kentucky. Our plucky agent was able to transverse mountains, ford rivers, and endure many hardships, before finally getting the pleasure of meeting Scott, who was nothing but gracious and pleasant throughout this entire interview. We would like to publicly thank him for generosity in freely spending this time with us and agreeing to be interviewed.
MB: What were your first memories of wrestling, whether it was professional wrestling, or wrestling in general?
BS: My first memories of it? I guess my first memory of it was my first time going to Japan. How I got into the Japan episode was Shinji Sasazaki. Do you know who he is?
MB: Yes, from what I understand, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, he was originally part of New Japan, and he was living in Tennessee. Wasn’t he working at a restaurant?
BS: Yes, now when I first met him, I didn’t know what he was doing, or what restaurant he was working at, but later on I knew what he was doing. He was working at a restaurant, and I’m not sure if he was married at the time, or if they were just together, but his partner was helping a lot with getting the visas together for the wrestlers.
MB: So were you just a patron of the restaurant?...
BS: No actually, I went to a gym where my brother was getting ready for a Tennessee amateur wrestling event. My brother and I were both decent amateur wrestlers, and he was training for amateur wrestling in high school, so we were going to this gym to train, and there was a Japanese guy in there, that got to watching us, and I thought it was kind of weird at first, but it wound up being Shinji Sasazaki, and he asked us what we were training for, and that’s how I got involved in it.
MB: Ok. That’s interesting. I know that the PWFG had a similar thing going where they had Masami Soronaka, who was living in Florida at the time, scouting talent for them.
BS: Yeah, pretty much.
MB: That leads me to my next thing… you really impressed me with your debut, because you weren’t the first one there, I mean, I think that JT Southern was there, and Tom Burton was there before you arrived, and I’m assuming that they were recruited by Sasazaki as well?
BS: Yes.
MB: But you could tell that while they could probably be fine in an American style of pro wrestling, they weren’t really clicking in the paired down shoot style, and what really impressed me was that even though you could tell that you still had some ways to go, you really took to it way more than those before you.
BS: Yes, I was more aggressive, and I enjoyed it, I loved it. My first match was against Yamazaki, and they loved it.
MB: Ok, so let’s back up a little bit. You meet Sasazaki in the gym, and he tells you about this. How does he explain it, how does he pitch it to you?
BS: He called it “shoot wrestling,” and he showed me some scars that he had on his knees. I didn’t know much about his background, and he spoke in broken English, so all I really knew is that I loved to train, and that he loved to train, and he showed me his driver's license where he was something like 300 pounds, and the time that he’s talking to me he’s around 185 pounds, and I was really impressed that someone that had his kind of knee injuries was able to lose that kind of weight.
MB: Did he tell you that this was going to be a work upfront, or did you have any idea what you were getting yourself into?
BS: No, this is what people don’t understand. Over the years when people say it was a work….some of it was, some of it wasn’t. A lot of the matches that you see that you might say, “that was a work.” No, it wasn’t. I was there. I was one of the guys that was inside there, now I have to say that there was some that was worked, I know that.
MB: Ok. Let me try and rephrase that. Did he ever explain…
BS: No, what he did to me was tell me that it was a shoot style of wrestling, and he wanted to know if I would train with him for a little while and try and pick up on some moves, and stuff like that. He took an interest in me, because he liked my style of wrestling, and I liked it because it was similar to the amateur style that I was used to, and some of the drills that we did. And I also did pro wrestling before that. Me and my younger brother did pro wrestling before this. Did you know that?
MB: No, I didn’t know that.
BS: Yes, a little bit, but it was short-lived, but what I liked about this was that it was more like a shoot, and it was more authentic, and when people talk about works, I knew what a work was, because of my involvement in American pro wrestling. But when a lot of these matches come up on the internet, and people say things like, “oh they were working,” I don’t pay any attention to it, because some of it was, and some of it wasn’t, and it bothers you, because the training that you did was the same kind of training that you would do if you were having to fight every day. There were times they would say to us, “Ok, now this is going to be a shoot.”
MB: Ok. Now would the average situation, or the average match be something like, “Ok we want you to go in there, and you’re going to pretty much spar, you’re going to be shooting, more or less, until you have the ending, this is who we want to go over, and this is how we want the match to end?”
BS: Well, sometimes over there in Japan, they would have you spar one with another. They would have you shoot, to determine the winner.
MB: I know that Ken Shamrock mentioned something similar to that. He said that when he first met with Duane Koslowski, that Koslowski didn’t want to put him over, because of his Greco-Roman background.
BS: Right, right.
MB: So, I guess Fujiwara’s solution to this was to have the two of them go shoot in the back to see who wins.
BS: Yeah, that’s how they did some things, depending on who you were, they did that a lot of times.
MB: So basically you have the idea that it’s going to be pro wrestling, but more in the vein of a shooting style?
BS: Yeah.
MB: Did you get to meet anybody before this? Before your match with Yamazaki did you get to meet Takada?
BS: No, I never got to meet Takada.
MB: So, they were just like, “There’s the ring, have a go!”
BS: Actually, the first time I met Takada I was in his corner, and I knew that he was a big figure, but I didn’t get to meet him the first time I was there. What they did was take the Americans to the gym, so we could train, or do whatever we were going to do, and then take us back to the hotel.
MB: So, they had a handler that spoke English?
BS: Yeah, a handler, or you could call them a “green boy,” someone that was supposed to pick you up. *Laughs*
MB: *Laughing* Yeah, there are always lots of stories about the “green boys.” Ok, so going in, was this only supposed to be a one off, where you would wrestle Yamazaki and that’s it, or did they have plans on using you more?
BS: Their only plans were to put me in with Yamazaki and see how I did.
MB: Well, I have to say that you did a lot better, not that I want to say anything bad about him, than JT Southern. You could tell that he was not in his element.
BS: Yeah, he was on a different avenue, basically.
MB: Alright, so they did show you some submissions before you got into this? Did they show you any ankle locks, or leg-locks?
BS: No, they didn’t show me anything. The only ankle locks I knew were from Sasazaki.
MB: So, he showed you a few things?
BS: Yes, Sasazaki and I trained together, and we did stuff together. Basically, he was my coach before (Billy) Robinson.
MB: Ok, so going in there against Yamazaki, (it was a great debut btw), what were your thoughts on this, were you nervous going into this?
BS: Yes, I was nervous and excited, I mean, I had never been outside of the country, and for me to go over and experience that, I was as excited as you could get.
MB: Did you know anything about him going in?
BS: Actually, I got invited over to Yamazaki’s place for dinner, and he showed me a video of him, and I was like “Holy shit! This guy is awesome!” And that was all that I had seen of him, thus far.
MB: How well did he speak English?
BS: He didn’t speak English, hardly at all. The majority of them spoke broken English, though they spoke better English than I spoke Japanese! *Laughs*
MB: Well, obviously they must have liked you, because they brought you back. Now I’m going off of memory here, but I believe your next match was a tag match, but your third match was against Yoji Anjo, and that was your first win I believe, so they must have saw some potential in you.
BS: Yeah, the training we were doing with Sasazaki, like when we would lift weights, or when there was a workout, we were there to WORK OUT. He wanted you to jump rope, and when he looked at you, he wanted to see someone that was up to par to being a fighter.
MB: How did that work anyway? After your Yamazaki fight, did they just basically say, “Hey you were great, and we would like you to come back?”
BS: Actually, I didn’t think I did so well. I mean, I didn’t think so anyway. I came back to my mother, and my stepdad, who was there with his wife, and they gave us some balloons. I was like, “What’s this?” And they said, “They’re balloons, that means we would like you to come back.” And once they did that, I felt good about it.
MB: So for your 2nd, 3rd, match, etc, did you fly to Japan, and get some time to train, to prepare for a match, or did you pretty much have to just show up, and be ready to go?
BS: Usually they gave you a three-day window. That three days was what you had to work with, and you needed two of those days to deal with jet lag! They would pick you up, take you to the gym, have you train, feed you, and take you back to the hotel, and it was never more then 6-7 days before I had to head back home, so it was a quick trip.
MB: Ok, so you didn’t get any prolonged times to train at this stage?
BS: No, when we first went, I can remember some of these guys, like Tom Burton, and Steve Nelson, people like that, what we did when we got there to deal with the jet lag… Have you ever been to Japan?
MB: No, I haven’t.
BS: Ok, so over in Japan it didn’t matter what kind of hotel you went to. Everything was always really nice as far as the tile, there was never any kind of drywall, everything was tile, or some kind of stone, and it was always really nice, so because the rooms were small, we would turn on the hot water and put towels under the door, and try and turn it into a steam room before going to bed, and we would try and stay up as long as we could to try and recover from the jet lag. It was crazy, but that’s what we did.
MB: What was it like working with Anjo in the ring, what were your thoughts on that first win?
BS: I thought he was pretty slick at the time. I thought he was an all-around decent guy, and he actually spoke pretty good English out of all of them. Actually, I think he spoke really good English because at one time he lived in England, up until he was 5 years old, or something like that.
MB: At the end of 1991, at the giant end-of-year show that the UWF-I had, you faced James Warring, and this show was interesting for a number of reasons, because not only was there all the press due to Takada facing Trevor Berbick, but also you facing Warring, who was still a champion at that time.
BS: He had won all 4 kickboxing titles and was the current IBF cruiserweight world champion.
MB: I watched that match, and I have to ask, what happened there?! That was one of the strangest things I’ve seen.
BS: Well, this is the way they did it… If you look, I’ve got some old posters in the back * Editors Note: Scott is referring to a promotional poster that had hanging up in his gym. James Warring pulled out of this fight temporarily and was briefly replaced by Ernest Simmons * This was one of the few matches where they offered me a chance to come to Japan and do some more training there, so I got to go and train for six weeks, to prepare to face this guy. At the time, me being young, and me liking challenges, I wanted to do it. But the person they wanted was James Warring. When we got to New York to do a press conference kind of thing, he didn’t show up, but he was the one that they were trying to get, and they wound up filling him in with another guy, he’s the one the board back there (Ernest Simmons). Then two weeks before the fight was supposed to happen, James Warring came back into the picture, so to me they were trying to pull one over on me, because they both had the same promoter, or the same manager. The whole time they wanted James, because he was an accomplished kickboxer, and the current IBF cruiserweight champion, but they had this other guy scheduled instead.
MB: Ok, so if I’m understanding this correctly, there was some apprehensiveness on Warring’s part?
BS: There was. They came to me and said “Hey, this is what we want you to do, we’re going to have this big fight, and would you be willing to come here and train for it?” And I told them that I would, and they told me that James Warring is the one that they wanted to put me in there with, but somewhere along the way, things didn’t work out, and I’m now fighting someone else. I don’t know if it was money, or what, but when I get to Japan and start training, they started advertising this other guy, (Ernest Simmons), so I think that I’m fighting him, and two weeks before the fight they came to me and said, “You’re going to fight James Warring now.” So, to me they were trying to protect people’s images.
MB: Ok, so basically they said, “We want you to fight James Warring,” and then they were like, “No he’s backing out, we got someone else,” and then at the last minute, “It’s Warring again?”
BS: Yeah, they couldn’t get things worked out with who they wanted in Warring, so they had this other guy, which to me, after looking back on things, and I’ve looked back on this a lot, I’m like, this was crazy, because all that time, you are training to face one guy, now all of the sudden you have to fight someone else.
MB: I watched the fight, and I don’t know if you ever saw, or heard about this, but during one of the early PWFG shows Takaku Fuke fought Lawi Napataya, who was a Thai boxer, and he actually had two fights there, the first one was with him, and the 2nd one was with Minoru Suzuki, but both were shoots, and the first one was hilarious because obviously they didn’t really think the rules through, because that ring was even smaller than the one you had to fight Warring in. Here you had a very small ring, and you have a very skilled Thai kickboxer in Napataya, who was completely lighting up Fuke in the standup. Now Fuke had very good takedown skills, but he would constantly get caught up in the ropes, every time he would take Napataya down, and this would just keep going on and on, and to make matters more hilarious, Napataya was having his cornermen grease him down in between rounds! Now my question is, were you frustrated during this fight? For one thing, it seemed like he was using his reach and his height to good effect, and he also seemed very apprehensive, and cautious, and you would have to keep taking some shots before you could take him down, and when you finally get that takedown, he gets the rope escape, and you have to do that all over again.
BS: Yeah, it was aggravating, because that’s how the rules were set up. That’s the only way that him and his manager would take the fight, is if the rules were like the way they were. They wanted rounds, and we didn’t use rounds, but they insisted on having rounds for this fight. The judges were supposed to deduct points when we used the ropes to escape, but what he was trying to do (because he said that he was going to knock me out in the first round) and he did knock me down in the first round, and if you remember from watching it, I got the heel hook, but he rolled, and he was long enough to get to the rope. I remember feeling something pop when I had him in that heel hook, but he was still able to stand back up. During that fight he always stayed close to the ropes, and that’s because of his reach. He made it to where I had to get close to him, to try and pick him up and take him down and submit him, or use palm strikes, or whatever, and as a fighter, I’m getting aggravated because I’m trying to FIGHT. I’m trying to go to him with the palm strikes, he’s punching, and as soon as I get ahold of him, he gets a rope break, because his whole idea was that he was going to knock me out.
MB: Now while you’re in the middle of this are you thinking, “Wow, having unlimited rope escapes, is the stupidest idea in the world.”
BS: *Laughs* Yeah, I thought it was silly.
MB: Yeah, I thought the same thing, of course, at this time we’re breaking new ground. I don’t think anyone is thinking about the problems that are going to come up, but had there been let’s say… I don’t know… ten rope escapes, just pick a number… now obviously he would have lost eventually because he would have ran out of rope escapes.
BS: Yes, first off, it should have been set up that way, but where they were, at that time, they were trying to do a mix style of fight. In those days if you went to a karate tournament, you saw karate, jiu-jitsu, you saw jiu-jitsu, boxing, you saw boxing, and this is really how mixed martial arts started to come about. Now the thing with Trevor Berbick against Takada, I do know that when we were in New York at that press conference, Trevor mentioned that he didn’t want to have anything to do with kicks below the waist, and that’s why during that fight you could see him waving his arms, and looking shocked. Now this is how bad people are….when we were at Mickey Mantle’s restaurant, where the press conference was being held, his own people kept telling him that they would take care of it, and make sure that the fight had the stipulations that there wouldn’t be any kicks below the waist, but the Japanese didn’t want any of that, they wanted their style of fighting, against a boxer like that. They saw Trevor, and they saw someone with a big name that they could use, but had Trevor known that the fight was going to have kicks below the waist, he never would have taken it.
MB: So, you think that Trevor went into this with the wrong understanding, that he probably thought he was going to have an American style kickboxing fight with no kicks below the waist allowed?
BS: Yeah, he thought that he was going to be able to go in and just punch with Takada. His people were the ones that did this to him, because if he didn’t fight, they didn’t get paid either.
MB: *Laughs* I didn’t think of that, but that makes sense. I wonder if a lot of fighters get screwed like that, especially when there’s communication issues.
BS: When I was in New York, Trevor was adamant that there was to be no kicking below the waist, and his lawyer was there as well. He was some guy that had a doo-rag on his head, and looked like he just came in off the street, but anyway, to make a long story short, to me his crew lied to him so he would fight and they could make the money, and they didn’t give a rats ass about him.
MB: I’m glad you shed some light on that, because when you watch that fight you can see that Trevor doesn’t seem to know what’s going on.
BS: Yeah, that’s why at one point in the fight you can see him yell back to his corner. One of the people in his corner was his attorney, and the other one was his coach.
MB: As this is going on, are you aware of some of the other promotions out there, like RINGS, and Akira Maeda, Shooto and Sayama, Fujiwara, etc?
BS: Sure.
MB: Did they ever express any interest in you, or did you get to see what they were doing?
BS: No. I guess you could say that I’m old fashioned, more so now, but even then, my upbringing was that unless you have some type of a conflict that you stick with what you start. I didn’t have any kind of conflict with the UWF-I, and I was treated right, so I had no reason to move on, at that time. But I did know about RINGS, and of course Tamura went to Rings later, although I didn’t know what the ordeal there was.
MB: If my notes are correct, this was your last show for a while (referring to the 12-21-91 show) and it looked like you were out of action for all of 1992, and all the way into September of 1993.
BS: Yes, the reason for that was a contract dispute. You saw my matches, and saw what I was wearing?
MB: You were wearing a singlet, right?
BS: Yes, a singlet, red, blue, or whatever, but after that they came to me and said we want you to wear… *trails off* … My idea was to agree to come over for a certain amount of money per fight, and everything was going to be paid for, and they were going to take care of everything, and Sasazaki said “If there’s something you don’t understand, you come back to me, and tell me, and I’ll take care of it.” He told me that in case there was any kind of misinterpretation with anything. So, I get over there about three weeks before the fight, and they told me that they want me to have a different outfit, so that’s where the green came in at, and the trunks, and shinpads. So, I agreed to it, but when they went to pay me, my pay was short $500. So, I went to them and asked them way my pay was short, and they told me that they took out half of my outfit cost, and I was like, “No. You pay all of it. This is what you wanted, not what I wanted. Also, this was around the end of '91, and I had a very young son, that I was paying child support on. They had decided that they wanted me to stay over, and I told them that I couldn’t stay, and I already had a return ticket, and I told them that I had to go home. They then told me that I had to stay, and I told them no, and they told me to come back around January 10th ( of 1992 )
MB: Ok, let’s pause there for a second. Now when these guys were dealing with foreign talent, did they typically try and pay per appearance, or did pay a contracted amount per month?
BS: Well, at that time, as far as I know, all foreign talent was paid per fight, there were no long-term contracts at the time.
MB: So, they pretty much told you, “We want you to come on this day, and this is how much we’ll pay?”
BS: Yep. The pay was per the date, and you could come back or not.
MB: Now, did you see that pay go up as you started becoming more prevalent in the company?
BS: Now after all this, I made a mark for myself. I enjoyed it, and I had made a mark for myself. For me it came down to how I was raised. It wasn’t about the $500, rather it was the principal behind it. They were supposed to pay for everything. So, I came back and spoke to Shinji, and told them there was a misinterpretation, and something was wrong, and I was out $500 from my pay, so he told me that he would take care of it. Now at this point I have no contract to return, I don’t have anything, because they had per fight contracts at the time, and so Shinji called the main office and they said, “No.” They insisted that I pay half, so I said, “Fine.” They wanted me to come back January 10th, and I already had my ticket to come back on that date, and I’m like, “I don’t have to go back,” and they’re like “No, you have to come back.” But not without a contract! *Laughs* So what happened during the year of that breakage, and why it was broke for so long, was because we were going back and forth butting heads. Well, finally I had moved over here to Kentucky, and they had kept trying to call my mom, and they got ahold of my mom, and then she tried to contact me, telling me, “Hey I got someone from Japan trying to get ahold of you, there’s someone from Japan that keeps calling over here asking about you.” She didn’t know why they were calling though, and I blew it off, but after a while I wondered who was continuing to call, so I got in touch with them, and they said that they wanted to meet me and talk to me. So that’s when we met, and they told me that they were interested in me coming back long-term. I agreed, but I told them that they still had to pay me the money that they owed me. They paid me my money and gave me a 3-year contract, too.
MB: Now in the meantime were you thinking that, “OK. I’m done with professional wrestling, this is over, I’m going to have to find something else to do with my life?” Or did you think that they were going to break?
BS: No, to be honest I was at a point where I was in no hurry, as I had set myself up in a good position, and I didn’t feel like I was in the wrong, but I still trained, and still did whatever, but what really made everything better for me, is that they also offered to provide a coach for me. A different coach. This was in the contract, and this is where Billy Robinson comes in.
MB: Interesting, so when you say coach, are you talking about a coach that is going to be presiding in Japan, or a coach that was going to be in Kentucky?
BS: No, he was going to be in Tennessee. They brought him in from Vegas to Tennessee. ( Billy Robinson )
MB: Wow, they actually paid to have him relocate?
BS: Yes, they relocated him, and paid for everything, so that they could have him coach me.
MB: Wow, I was going to get to Robinson later, but this is really fascinating. I had heard about the UWF Snakepit in Japan, but that must have been later.
BS: Yeah, that was later.
MB: Ok, so Robinson is basically living in Vegas, and then they relocate him to Tennessee?
BS: Yeah, the relocated him to Tennessee after I agreed. I don’t know when the negotiations took place, but if everything worked out with me, it was going to work out with him.
MB: What was your schedule like training with him? Was it 5 days a week?
BS: We trained 5 days a week, 3 hours a day. That was my life.
MB: That’s amazing.
BS: And he wasn’t just a coach, as far as just coaching wrestling, he was a coach in life. When I first met him, he shook my hand, said he was glad to meet me, and that we are going to be like father and son. When he said that, I’m thinking in my head, “This crazy old man, who does he think he is?” At the time I thought he was crazy, but as time went on, I learned that what he told me was true.
MB: Well, that’s really awesome, too because there aren’t too many people, especially in this country that got to train at the feet of someone that really was the last in the line of these old catch-wrestling icons of times past.
BS: It was awesome, I enjoyed it. I didn’t realize at the time, how lucky I was, and how if I hadn’t did what I did at the time, and not refused to come back over the $500…..because I could have went, but if I did, then that deal with Coach Robinson, may have never worked out.
MB: So, Robinson was basically your personal trainer 5-days a week?
BS: Yes, 5-days a week, and sometimes, during certain parts of the year, we would train twice a day. It was brutal. Shinji Sasazaki, he liked to do a lot of running, and in those days, when you’re young, you just do whatever. Whatever Shinji told me to do I did. He was like my boss. I had to look at it that way, because they were paying me for training, and that was my life.
MB: Now when this was happening, did you have any concept of how much of a pedigree this man had with catch-wrestling?
BS: You mean Robinson?
MB: Yeah.
BS: Shit, I had no idea.
MB: So, it’s safe to say that you didn’t realize how amazing this opportunity was at the time.
BS: No, I did not. When they told me that my coach was going to be Billy Robinson, I was like, “Huh, who’s that?” They told me that they were going to get me the best coach ever. Now Shinji used to watch Robinson when he was a boy in Japan, so Shinji was apeshit about Robinson. So now I have Shinji, and Robinson, and I had another coach named Terry Farr ( SP? ) he was an American boxing coach who also taught Keith McKnight, who at one time was ranked 6 in the world, and I think that he was even ranked above Mike Tyson, and some of those others at one point in time. So, I also got to work against boxers, sometimes, so it wasn’t like American pro wrestling. A lot of us were busting our assess every day, so we should legitimately shoot if we had to. Sometimes when you were going over, you didn’t even know who you were going against. Did you ever see them do the ball thing in the UWF-I? Where they put names in.
MB: You mean like a lottery to see who was going to face who?
BS: Yeah, like a lottery. Did you ever see this? So what they did, it was like a celebration thing, they would put all these balls in a sack, and when the ceremony was done, they would toss it out to their fans, as kind of a collectible type thing.
MB: I don’t remember a lottery, but I do remember seeing Takada and Yamazaki toss the balls out into the crowd. Now as this is progressing, do you start having more actual communication with Takada?
BS: Oh, no. I never dealt with Takada. He was always in the back. I just dealt with mainly the green boys.
MB: OK, let me back up a second, now the whole Trevor Berbick, and James Warring thing, to your knowledge, were the people behind the scenes pissed at the whole thing? Did they feel like it was a disaster, or were they happy with everything?
BS: No, they were happy with it.
MB: Well, when the Warring match was over, did you find someone and say, “Hey, this is BS!”
BS: No, it was already over. To me it was just part of the fight, and now it’s over. But at some point I had heard that Warring was favored to win a ten-round fight, and he couldn’t understand how he lost the fight, but he understood the rules. The rules were if you didn’t engage with me, you would be penalized. All he had to do was engage and stop touching the ropes. Why do you think I threw his ass over the ropes, like I did?
MB: *Laughs* Yeah, it seemed to me that you were getting frustrated more and more as the fight went on.
BS: I was getting frustrated because he wouldn’t engage and I was young, and I didn’t bust my ass for seven weeks for nothing, and I was there to prove a point. To me at that time, it was an opportunity for me step up. I was 20 or 21 years old, and I wanted to take advantage of it. Now looking back on it, it was an opportunity from no mans land, but at the same time, my mental state at the time as a competitor was that I busted my ass in training.
MB: Well, you’re a competitive person. You don’t want to lose. Especially for the wrong reasons.
BS: Sure, and when somebody comes in there, and the rules were set up that way, and the guy is really not engaging with you, it’s just me going in and taking punches, just to grab ahold of a guy, and then all of a sudden you grab the ropes, it becomes a situation where you don’t have any satisfaction out of it.
MB: Sure, and the problem was made even worse because he had a lot of reach, as he was a very long guy, and he could pretty much reach the ropes wherever he was. So, I could see why that would be frustrating. Ok, so your next appearance is 9-18-93. Now I tried to do as much research as I could, and I don’t know if I’ve been looking in the wrong places, but I couldn’t find any footage of it, but apparently the UWF-I had an event in Tennessee as part of a boxing event? Is that correct?
BS: Yes, that was club knockout, it was an event that Terry Farr ( SP?) did. They used to promote fights, and bring boxers in.
MB: Ok, so it was a boxing event, and they decided to have a couple of UWF-I matches as a special attraction?
BS: Yeah, yeah.
MB: Did anyone even have any clue what this was?
BS: No, they didn’t but when we went on, the people went apeshit for it! It was crazy, and to be honest with you, that was the first night that I got to meet Coach Robinson.
MB: So you actually got to meet him there?
BS: Yes, I met him there, and it was his birthday.
MB: Now you fought Anjo again, correct?
BS: Yes
MB: And you won?
BS: Yes
MB: Do you know if Anjo had ever been to the U.S. by this point?
BS: Yes, I believe that he used to go and stay with Gene Lydick and Steve Day, out in Atlanta, and Anjo had been to the states, because he had to visit Shinji.
MB: Ok, so the UWF-I didn’t have any intentions of breaking into the U.S. market? This was just kind of a one-off event?
BS: Well, actually when we were doing the mixed fight with Warring, they were wanting to break into the U.S. market. When we were in New York, they went over to Madison Square Garden, and looked at using it as a venue, and we went to a Gold’s Gym to do a photo shoot before the fight. They were talking about doing this worldwide, they didn’t just want to stay in Japan.
MB: That’s interesting, not to get off into the weeds here, but I think that has been something that has been a hindrance to other Japanese promotions, for example K-1, as there was a time that K-1 could have been more worldwide, but it seemed like they wanted to stay in Japan, and so for UWF-I to have the ambition to be worldwide, is interesting.
BS: Well, you know the owner of K-1?
MB: The original owner?
BS: Yeah, the original owner.
MB: *Thinks for a minute* Kazuyoshi Ishii! *Laughs* He was a good friend of Maeda, too.
BS: Yes, he was. I met him. Now the word was then, that HE wanted to control everything related to fighting in Japan. He also owned a lot of disco clubs in Japan at the time, and he was using military bases, and using some of the military personnel for security.
MB: Did you ever feel any animosity because you were a westerner, or any bad attitudes or did you think that anyone ever looked down on you?
BS: No, anybody and everybody that I ever met in Japan, they all treated me great.
MB: You never felt like there was any weird politics that you had to deal with?
BS: No, at least if there was, I was never aware of any.
MB: So, the UWF-I had global ambitions. Why didn’t it go any further, than that match in Tennessee?
BS: Well, right after that match in Tennessee, that’s when the first UFC started… I thought that the UWF-I was going to do well, I really thought they would do good with it, but the '93 thing, I think maybe that was just promotional material for the magazines in Japan, and a way to introduce Coach Robinson, and I believe that Danny Hodge was there too, because the first time I met Robinson, I met Danny Hodge, and for my first two weeks of training with Billy Robinson, he had Hodge with him as well.
MB: So, does the UWF-I have any executives at this show in Tennessee that are observing it to see what its potential was, outside of Sasazaki?
BS: I’m not sure.
MB: Ok, so this was probably just Sasazaki observing all of this and giving feedback to Japan. When did you first become aware of the UFC, do you remember? Was it when Severn went over?
BS: I think I saw the first UFC card… wasn’t Ken Shamrock on that first card?
MB: Yes, Shamrock was in the first event. He defeated Pat Smith in his first match and lost to Royce Gracie in his 2nd.
BS: Ok. So that was it, because I was going to something with the guy that did Savate….Gerard Gordeau, because his brother Nico Gordeau, also fought for UWF-I, later on.
MB: Ok, when you saw the first UFC, did that register with you? I mean here we have Ken Shamrock, whom I don’t know if you were familiar with him at the time.
BS: Yeah, I had heard of him, because he had did some UWF beforehand.
MB: Yes, he was in the NEWBORN UWF before we went to the PWFG.
BS: Yes, for a short time. When I got to the UWF-I, they said something to me about him, and showed me a video of him, and they also showed me a video of Bart Vale.
MB: Did that register, because you had Shamrock, who was a very imposing physical specimen, and he was also trained by Funaki, and Karl Gotch to some extent, and that first fight with Pat Smith, he just obliterated him, but he tried that same move against Royce Gracie while in his guard, and Gracie just used that momentum to ride with him, and then just got off to his side and put him in a lapel choke. When you were watching this, were you like, “Holy crap! There is something going on here?”
BS: I thought it was neat. I thought it was really interesting it was now MIXED martial arts, because in the years before this, it was only starting to come together. Now back in '93 when this was going on, and I was with Coach Robinson I was now in a long-term contract, so the UWF-I was my bread and butter, and they controlled who I fought, and when I fought, and what I did, or didn’t do. Like when we went to Israel, and stuff like that.
MB: Now conversely Pancrase started shortly before this UWF-I event as well, now were you kind of keeping tabs on what was going on with Fujiwara, and with Pancrase, did you have a feel for what was going on there?
BS: Well, I knew that there was another group going, but I also knew that being an American in another world, you try and make sense of a lot of stuff, and you don’t know if your interpretation is correct. Because you would hear different stories, about Maeda, or Suzuki, or Fujiwara, or Takada, or whoever, and you would hear different things about where they were before, but I had no friggen idea about any of that, but over the years you put together the different pieces, and I got to look at some of the stuff you did ( referring to the Kakutogi Road columns).
MB: Well, let me put it a better way. When was the first time that you got to see a Pancrase match?
BS: Actually, me and a younger Japanese fellow went to see a Pancrase event with a bald-headed guy that I met… *thinking*
MB: Bas Rutten?
BS: Yes! We were all together, and we were near the venue, so we went to meet some guy that brought in fighters from different promotions.
MB: So, did your contract actually end in 1996?
BS: Actually, it was going on even after the UWF-I was finished. I didn’t find out about the final event, until the day I got there. Can you believe that? *Laughs* Now what happened was they kept paying me even after the promotion ended. They told me just to keep training in case something came up. So I kept training, and they kept paying me.
MB: So, when you saw that Pancrase event, did you think that it was a lot different than what you were doing, or did you find it to be similar?
BS: I thought it was the same, really. You might have people that jump around, and go from one place to another, but that wasn’t the way I was.
MB: This now leads to what may be one of the most interesting stories of the UWF-I. On 6-29-94 the first Vale Tudo Japan event took place, in which Shooto invited Rickson Gracie as well as other fighters, to compete in a tournament, and he wins, and as I understand it, this prompts Takada and Anjo to want to capitalize on Rickson's newfound stardom, and they wanted to book a match with him. The legend goes that they kept trying to broker a deal with Rickson, unsuccessfully, because Rickson didn’t want to do a worked match, and felt that is what would be expected of him, and not only that, but Rickson wanted A LOT of money.
BS: A million dollars!
MB: So Anjo decides to go down to Los Angeles to challenge Rickson at his dojo, and to be fair, from what I can gather, I don’t think he was intending to actually get into a fight with Rickson, but was hoping that by his showing up, he could goad Rickson into coming into Japan, but it didn’t work that way of course. Rickson isn’t at the dojo at the time, but he hears about what’s happening, and decides to rush down there, and long story short, he beats the crap out of Anjo. Were you aware of any of this as it was going on, or the lead up to it? How did you hear about this?
BS: Actually, I didn’t hear about this until after Anjo went down there. I do remember before this happened though, Sasazaki said something to me about him planning on going to California, but that’s all I heard, and then sometime later….. Wait, wasn’t Sasazaki with him, when they went down there?
MB: I didn’t know that Sasazaki was with him, but I do know that he had some other Japanese people with him.
BS: Originally, they wanted me to go to California, but I didn’t know what they were planning. I didn’t go, because I didn’t know that I needed to go. I didn’t hear about it later, until I was back in Japan, and it blew up, and everyone was talking about it.
MB: Well, the story goes, that Rickson had one of his students tape the fight, and of course Anjo loses, and was a bloody mess, but then when he gets back to Japan, he told the press in Japan that he was sucker punched, and jumped, to save face, is what it sounded like. At least that is what has been reported. Supposedly, Rickson hears about this, and has someone contact the press in Japan, to set up a press conference, where he has a copy of the beatdown he gave Anjo played for the press, to dispel Anjo’s comments.
BS: Actually, at that time, I think that he thought that Rickson was going to fight Takada.
MB: Yes, I don’t think that he ever wanted to challenge Rickson, I think that his intent was just to try and broker a fight between Rickson and Takada. Of course, that’s where the money would have been. These events wind up leading into the formation of Pride FC. Did Anjo come back to Japan, and repeat this story? Was he like, “Hey Rickson was an asshole, and he jumped me.” Did you hear anything like this?
BS: No, I never heard him talk about it. All I remember was some of the guys talking about the incident, but I never heard anything about it from Anjo.
MB: Did you think that there was any immediate loss of face to the Japanese public over this? Do you think that this hurt the company?
BS: I’m not sure. I don’t know what really hurt the company. As an outsider, I couldn’t really understand what was going on. You would think as someone that was under contract with them, that there are things that I would hear, or be privy to, more so than any normal person, but not necessarily. *Laughs* It’s like anything else, there could have been something going wrong in the office, or there could have been some problems with the finances. When you’re in that kind of position, you are only going to know what they are willing to tell you.
MB: So, you didn’t see or hear anything that would indicate to you that something isn’t right here?
BS: No. You have to understand, that time that I went over there, and they told me this was going to be my last fight, I was totally surprised. They didn’t tell me anything about closing down. I was like, “Are you kidding me? What?!” It really flipped me out, but it tells you how much they kept us in the loop.
MB: The legend was that supposedly Yoji Anjo had a reputation as a strong shooter behind the scenes, so they had some confidence in him going to California. Do you think there is any truth to that?
BS: No. Anjo was a good shooter, but he wasn’t the best shooter.
MB: I think that he proved that with his UFC fights. So in your opinion who were the best shooters in the back?
BS: Tamura was good, but so were all of them. When those guys trained, they trained to shoot. This is what was tough. You saw guys that would do a worked match one week, and then another week over here, he is going to have to do a shoot. That’s how good some of those guys were.
MB: Yes, the more that I get into this, the more blown away I am by Tamura, that guy was really good.
BS: Very good.
MB: He was one of the few that could excel at a worked match and he could excel at a shoot. When you look at someone like a Sakuraba, here was someone that was great as a shooter, but was ok as a pro wrestler, but Tamura could do it all.
BS: Even when they would do shoots against each other (I’m assuming he means in training), somehow he would pull a rabbit out of his hat and beat Sakuraba. I wouldn’t have thought that.
MB: So Anjo didn’t have a reputation in the back as being a great shooter?
BS: He was good, but no, he wasn’t the best.
MB: And the thing with Anjo, was at least he was still a mid-card guy, so even though he got beat up by Rickson, it shouldn’t have killed the company, it wasn’t the same as Takada losing, but I still wonder if it wound up hurting the company.
BS: I’ll tell you that I was very surprised with Takada when I saw him and Rickson fight. Going into it I thought it was going to be an awesome fight, but it wasn’t the Takada I thought. He was hesitant, and to me it seemed like Rickson was already in his head, long before the match started.
MB: I’ve noticed that with MMA in general. There are times where your watching someone, and you know that they are a good fighter, but you can see them become hesitant, and apprehensive, and that always costs them the fight. It’s not enough to be good, but you have to be good under pressure.
BS: And Rickson is friggen awesome, and Takada was too, I thought, but when it came time for the clash of it, and you’re sitting back as a spectator, and you’re expecting it to be awesome, and it was like, “Shit, that isn’t what I expected to see.” He didn’t kick Rickson like I thought he was going to. Anyone that punches and kicks is going to have enough sense to know that you aren’t going to try any kicks above the waist, because you know that your going to have a grappler that is going to take that, and take you down. Of course, you have to stick to low-kicks, and he didn’t even do any of that.
MB: I think that he was really nervous.
BS: Yeah, it showed.
MB: Ok. My next question is about Billy Robinson. Did your 5-day a week training regimen with him last for the entire duration of the UWF-I?
BS: Yes. Even after the UWF-I shut down they still paid Robinson for a while, and they paid me too. Then at some point later, Robinson went back to Japan to do the Snakepit.
MB: When did the UWF Snakepit start in Japan?
BS: I’m not exactly sure on the date, but whenever Robinson left to go to Japan, and I’m not sure when that was, but it had to be around 2000, or maybe shortly before, because that’s the time that Black Belt Magazine contacted me about doing a catch-wrestling video, so they sent me to Tony Cecchine, and some of the moves that he was doing were not freakin realistic at all. Maybe he was a great guy, but some of the stuff he displayed was not realistic. As a salesperson he could sell himself, but the moves he was showing were BS. At least that’s my take on it after having trained with Coach Robinson.
MB: This might be an interesting question. You saw the first UFC in 1993, and you got a glimpse of BJJ, even though it was only a glimpse of it, now by the time 1996 rolls around are you more familiar with it, or is Billy Robinson more familiar with it? What were your guys’ opinion of BJJ? In the beginning you had Royce Gracie beating everybody, and Rickson had success, and for most of the 90s BJJ was a force in MMA. Did you ever see this, and think to yourself that you needed to learn it, or that you need to start incorporating it into your game?
BS: No, because that’s working off of your back, and Robinson didn’t want you working off of your back. Also, I was in love with catch-wrestling because when I did collegiate wrestling, I loved it, and it was similar to catch wrestling.
MB: Did Robinson have any tools, or contingency plans if you did find yourself on your back? Did he have any concept of a guard, or was that even a thing in Robinson’s world?
BS: Back in the gym we used to have guys come over that did Jiu-Jitsu and different things, and sometimes they would send people that trained in different kinds of martial arts to Japan, to be our sparring partners, and when we sparred with those guys, they were usually supposed to stay with us for seven weeks, and they would only wind up staying with us for seven days, and run back. The majority of guys that came in, couldn’t handle it because of the way that Coach Robinson trained, as it was very hardcore.
MB: What was Robinson’s answer to when you wound up on your back, not that you wanted to be there, but did he have any submissons from that position, or what did he teach.
BS: Robinson had submissions, but he really wanted you to stand back up or go for a sweep, and this is when sweeps were not as common as they are now. Sometimes, he would have you overhook the shoulder and get your hips out, and stand back up with your opponent, or push on his head and try and control him that way.
MB: So, in other words, get off your back.
BS: *Laughs* Yes, get off your back. Like I was saying before, we were in a boxing gym, so we would spar with boxers, they wouldn’t wrestle with us, but we would spar boxing. Coach Robinson would always tell me to relax. You know, Coach Robinson had an uncle that was a European world champion, too. ( I’m assuming that he is referring to Alf Robinson. ) Coach Robinson used to box as well, until he was ten years old. He was blind in one eye; did you know that?
MB: No, I did not know that.
BS: Yes, he was blind in one eye, that’s why he got into wrestling. Also, did you know that Karl Gotch and Coach Robinson used to live together?
MB: No, I didn’t know that. Did you ever get to meet Karl Gotch, or did you ever get to train with Fujiwara? The reason I ask, is because to me it sounds like Fujiwara had the same relationship with Gotch, that you had with Robinson. Gotch really took him under his wing.
BS: He was very lucky, I didn’t know that, but as far as Fujiwara, I went over and did a thing… *Pauses* I forget the name of it, but it was USA against JAPAN, ( editors note: I didn’t realize it at the time, but Scott is referring to an event from the short lived JPWA promotion that featured a stable of wrestlers on Yoshiaki Fujiwara’s team vs a team of wrestlers on Nick Bockwinkle’s side. ) They had different guys from different places, they had one or two guys from Dan Severn’s Dangerzone, they had me, and somebody out of Texas. Anyway, Fujiwara was the Japanese coach, and Coach Robinson was in Japan during that time, I suppose that was the time he was doing the Snakepit thing, but he came there, and I was the only American that won in that entire event, because they did a shoot before hand to determine the winner. That’s how they did it. Coach Robinson was there with Fujiwara and I was placed with a guy who’s name I can’t remember. ( Mamoru Okamoto . He was a Japanese pro wrestler that wrestled mainly for the FMW and Battlarts promotions ) I remember that the fighters that fought in the last match really wound up beating the shit out of each other. It was America vs Japan, and Fujiwara was the Japanese coach, and the American coach was Nick Bockwinkle, and that was the first time that I met Nick Bockwinkle.
MB: It’s funny you mention that, because that leads to my next question. You had a layoff in 1992, but Nick Bockwinkle had an exhibition match with Billy Robinson in the UWF-I, in 1992. Were you aware of that, or did you see it?
BS: I’ve never seen it. I heard them talk about it, but I never saw it.
MB: Yes, it was an exhibition, and it was fascinating, because even though you could tell that physically they couldn’t do everything that they wanted to do, you could still see how sharp they were mentally. They had so much experience, and were amazing at what they did, and you could tell that their bodies didn’t want to quite do what their minds wanted them to do, but mentally they were very with it, so it was really good. Ok, so you never got to meet Gotch, did you ever meet Fujiwara over the years, or any of those guys, like Funaki, Suzuki, etc?
BS: I met Suzuki when I went over in 2011, ( referring to his final match at the Hiromitsu Kanehara U-Spirits event ) and he seemed like a nice guy, but crazy with the haircut.
MB: In a nutshell, and I realize that this is a complicated question, but how would you describe the difference between catch-wrestling and other grappling systems? For example, catch vs BJJ, or catch vs sambo?
BS: Well, I think you have to go back to the actual individual. You can’t say “catch is all like this,” or “BJJ is all like this,” because you might have one coach over here that is really good at one thing…
MB: Like one BJJ coach being really good at leg-locks?
BS: Yes, and actually BJJ didn’t really do any leg-locks until the 90s or somewhere in there.
MB: Well, funny story. You know Enson Inoue?
BS: Yeah, I know Enson!
MB: He started out in Shooto, and it was kind of funny, because how he got into it, was he first tried to get into RINGS, or UWF-I, or whatever, and he would call these places and they would say things like, “How big are you?” or “How much do you weigh?” He didn’t realize at the time, that there was a worked element to it, so he was like, “What difference is it, how big I am? I’m good, I can fight.” So, he wasn’t getting anywhere, so he finally contacted Shooto, and Sayama had him roll with some of his guys to test him out, and outside of getting caught with an occasional leg-lock (because he wasn’t used to training in leg-locks in BJJ) he was mostly beating the Shooto guys in rolling. Then Yuki Nakai took a liking to him, and started training with him, and of course Sayama felt like he could use Enson. That planted the seed of BJJ in the mind of Yuki Nakai, although he wasn’t really willing to fully devote himself to BJJ, until Noboru Asahi lost to Royler Gracie at VTJ 96, and from there I think he realized that Judo alone wasn’t going to be enough, and that’s how he wound up becoming the first BJJ black belt in Japan. Of course, he brought a large knowledge of leg-locks to the BJJ game at the time, and of course the Luta Livre guys in Brazil liked leg-locks, and there always seemed to be your random Brazilian BJJ guys that liked leg-locks, so there was always outliers, but for the most part they were looked down upon by the BJJ community (due to causing injuries). Helio Gracie thought it was low-class, like it was cheating basically. Only a peasant would lower himself to do this. *Laughs*
BS: It’s like these tournaments nowadays. For years, when I’ve been here, I would train my students, and they would go to these no-gi tournaments, they couldn’t do ankle locks, unless they were at a certain ranked level in BJJ, or you couldn’t do anything below the waist, even though you could still do triangles, and armbars, and that really takes away the weapons of a lot of guys. But I don’t think you can really say “BJJ is this, or Judo is this, etc,” I think that it really comes down to the individual, if someone is good, they’re going to be good no matter where they are, because it’s all grappling. It’s going to really come down to who is teaching you, and if you’re on your game or not, because any kind of grappling, is good for you. Sometimes I’ll watch different catch wrestling videos, from different people, and some of them, when I compare it to what Coach Robinson taught me, are putting together two moves at the same time, what I mean is that they’re showing a move as one move, but it’s actually two different moves that’s been mixed into one, so that’s why it goes back to the coach.
MB: In my personal opinion, and when I say this, I mean in the context of this time, because nowadays everything is so blended together, so it would be silly to now say that “BJJ is this, or this art is that,” but in the context of the early 90s, to me, and what I saw, was that the Japanese mindset was attack, attack, go, always look for the submission, and it was never too worried about finding and maintaining a superior position, where BJJ had a much more position first approach, and then once your position is correct, then go for a submission.
BS: Yeah, I agree with you.
MB: And a really great match to watch, in terms of this conversation is Allan Goes vs Frank Shamrock from Pancrase.
BS: Yes! I’ve seen that.
MB: Cause, Frank Shamrock is going 100mph looking for submissions, and he cared less about his position, and sometimes that cost him, and sometimes his athleticism got the better of Goes. So, it really seems like a matter of what are your physical attributes, what are you good at, etc. For example, some people are going to be really good off of their back, and I was never one of them, I was like a turtle off of my back, I don’t want to be there.
BS: *Laughs*
MB: But some people are really flexible, and are really crafty down there. There is never a one size fits all approach to this. You really have to figure out what your good at, and really kind of play to that. Back to the early 90s though, if you watch some Shooto from that time period, they had the guard, but when someone was using their guard, they were looking for submissions, they weren’t stalling, or hanging out there, they were always going for something, and that’s something that I wish was more common in modern MMA. A mentality of “I’ve got to win this fight.”
BS: Yeah, now it’s a matter of once you got your position, you can just kind of hang out there, and now you’re winning the fight.
MB: Do you think that Ken Shamrock was a good representation of catch-wrestling?
BS: I think that he was. Sure, them, Funaki, and a lot of those guys were good with the submission wrestling. There were things that were taught a little bit different with them, but again, that goes back to your coach, and how you were taught.
MB: What do you think of Erik Paulson?
BS: I think that he’s awesome. I think that he’s brilliant, to be honest with you.
MB: He was a fascinating character to me, because he was in Shooto before the first UFC, and he actually got his start, I think, in Jeet Kun Do, or Tae Kwon Do, so he had a striking base, but then he started training with Rickson Gracie, and then he goes to Shooto, and learns from Sayama, so he has all this different knowledge, from all these different places.
BS: And he puts it into perspective, I think he does really good with it. There has been so many times, where I just go through stuff, and there’s Paulson. So, yes, he has a great background in everything. I’ve never met him, so he could be an awesome guy, but technique wise, he’s great.
MB: What are your thoughts on Dan Severn? Did you get to hang out with him in your UWF-I days?
BS: Yes, Dan and I are friends. I’ve brought him over here for seminars, and he’s a really great guy. To me he’s a great wrestler and a great guy.
MB: And from what I’ve seen of him, he seems like a good teacher.
BS: Yes, he is good, from all that he’s done over the years. Also, as a big guy he knows how to do the big guy stuff, too. He knows how to ride, and put his weight on you, and how to wear you out, and he doesn’t get in a hurry, and that comes with experience. Once he gets a good position, he is going to try and keep it and wear the other guy out. He was a great teacher too. So was Steve Nelson.
MB: What was Lou Thez like? Did you ever get to meet him?
BS: I met Lou Thez a few times, mainly on a plane. I didn’t really get to talk to him much, though. He would speak at some of the UWF-I events, and his belt was over there for a while. I saw Danny Hodge more than I saw Lou Thez.
MB: What was Billy Robinson’s opinion of Karl Gotch, and Lou Thez?
BS: He always spoke well of both of them, but Robinson was someone that would tell you up to a point, how he felt about you, but at the same time he wasn’t someone that would speak ill of someone that he didn’t like. From what I recall though, he always spoke well of Thesz, and Gotch.
MB: Did he ever speak in terms of something like, “Hey, one-time Gotch showed me this move right here,” or “I learned this from so and so?”
BS: No, not really, he just mentioned things like how he lived together with Gotch at one point, or how he got his eye injury. I never got to meet Gotch, I would have liked to.
MB: Like I mentioned earlier, you remind me a lot of Fujiwara, because I just watched an interview that was put out recently, where Fujiwara just talked about his relationship with Karl Gotch, and how he was like a 2nd father to him. It didn’t start that way, but over time, they built that kind of relationship.
BS: Yeah, that’s what I had with Coach Robinson.
MB: You were one of the very few people to have worked with both Kiyoshi Tamura, and Kazushi Sakaraba. Which person impressed you more in a pro wrestling sense, and who impressed you more in a MMA sense?
BS: To me, as individuals, Tamura was the quickest as far as getting positions, and stuff like that, and to a point I would put him above Sakuraba, as far as quickness, but either way, it was going to be good.
MB: Did Sakuraba’s future MMA success surprise you? Were you surprised when he started beating all the Gracies?
BS: No. I worked with him, and did some stuff with him, and I knew that he was special. Sometimes you just know when you have a guy that’s special. A lot of guys are special, but sometimes, like Coach Robinson used to tell me and Gene, “You guys are ten years ahead of your time,” so what that meant to me was that you can be good now, but four or five years later, times can change, so you just never know. Sakuraba made a hell of a career out of himself, and Tamura has done the same to, to an extent, but maybe not to those from the outside looking in.
MB: For people that really know MMA, they know that Tamura is amazing, but he doesn’t have that name recognition with casual fans, but he beat Renzo Gracie, and he beat Pat Militech, and those are big wins! I guess to me, and this is just my opinion, I think that Tamura was probably more well-rounded in MMA, Sakuraba really had the number of other grapplers. He beat Carlos Newton, several Gracies, but he always seemed to have a problem with strikers.
BS: To be honest with you, the majority of the time, standup seemed to be the weakness of the Japanese. It was their kryptonite, but grappling was like 2nd nature to them.
MB: Well, let’s ask you this. It’s 1996, and you have to have a full-blown vale tudo match with either Sakuraba, or Tamura, who do you choose? Which one do you think you would have a better chance against?
BS: Pick a stick of dynamite, either one. *Laughs*
MB: *Laughs* Fair enough. How did Kingdom come about? Who started it?
BS: Actually, my contract was still in effect when the UWF-I ended, so they told me not to worry, that they were still going to pay me, and they told me that they were going to open up another league, so I continued to train, and when I came back I fought Larry Parker, who was doing quite a few things at the time as well.
MB: Yes, and later on, he became a bit of a journeyman in MMA. Ok, at this point are you weighing your options, I mean Kingdom is rising up, but Tamura has gone to Rings by this point, and he’s having success there, and you have the UFC going on. By this time, were you interested in trying the UFC?
BS: No, because around the time of the Larry Parker fight, I was close to 30 years of age, and around 30-31, I began thinking about longevity, and this is what I had been doing for my whole life, so why stop now? Also, I had always wanted to open up a gym, and I knew that I had to find something that I could do. So, I started a job around the year 2000, and that gave me medical insurance, and then I opened up a gym in 2007. So I go to work at my main job, and then I come here, and I get to deal with my students and teach what Coach Robinson taught me, and I can make a difference in their lives.
MB: Did the UFC ever reach out to you, or make any offers?
BS: No, they never reached out to me.
MB: What about the pro-wrestling side? Did New Japan ever say that they would like to do something with you?
BS: Not New Japan, but there was another group that reached out to me, that I did something for, but I can’t remember the name of it…
MB: Do you mean U-Dream?
BS: Yes, U-Dream.
MB: I have that event, but it seemed like it was only a one-time thing.
BS: Yeah, one event, that was it.
MB: Yeah, you were there, and Enson Inoue was there, but I guess it was a one-and-done kind of deal.
BS: Yes, and after you do something like that, you realize that you are beginning to get up in age, even though I was only 30-31, I knew that I had to start thinking about myself, because I knew that if I kept trying to do this for several more years down the road, that I could get injured. At this point, I just started looking at things differently. Now if I was 21 years old, or 23, or 24, then I would have loved it.
MB: I don’t know if regret is the right word, but do you ever look back and wish that you didn’t come on as soon as you did? Do you wish that you were able to get into MMA more into the late 90s or early 00s?
BS: It’s like anything else. You talk to boxers that used to box in the 80s or 70s, and you show them MMA now, and they’re like, “Holy Shit, I wished we had that then!” Of course, you say that, until you actually get in there, and start getting hit! *Laughs* Then you’re like, “What the hell did I just get myself into?”
MB: Until your orbital bone is broken? *Laughs*
BS: *Laughs* Yeah, like “Maybe, I should have thought this through!” You know what, though? Out of this whole thing, in my experience of getting in front of over 50,000 people, and to be able to experience walking out to that, or to experience meeting the people that I’ve met, and to be able have the best coach, that I could have ever had in my life, and not just about wrestling, but about life… It was awesome!
MB: Yes, and hopefully, and maybe you already have, but you’ll get someone in your life down the road that you can mentor, because depending on the circumstances, you can really….. I don’t want to say something cliché like you could save someone’s life, but maybe if you have someone that is going the wrong way, you can help give them something, like discipline, or by being a father figure in their life.
BS: Yes, I’ll tell you right now, that I’ve been here 13 years, and over those years I’ve gotten to meet with so many different kinds of people, and I’ve even had therapists send me people that have issues with their anger, and they go through a program with me, and if I can do something to change, or help them, then that is really rewarding.
MB: Absolutely. Now, what was the philosophy behind Kingdom? To me, when I look at Kingdom, I see the shoot-style taken to its extreme, and probably pushing that concept as far as it could go, without getting into full-blown vale tudo. Did any of you guys prefer to be shooting at this time… *pauses* I guess what I’m trying to say, is that Kingdom was still mostly worked right? There was still a lot of pre-determined outcomes?
BS: If anything was pre-determined, I didn’t know about it. As far as I know, it was a straight shoot.
MB: Ok. Let me put it this way. Funaki left Fujiwara because he wanted to shoot. And towards the end of his run in the PWFG, they were going hard, and for lack of a better word, I would say doing what I like to call a ¾ shoot, where they are sparring, and not everything is choreographed, but there is still a pre-determined finish, and they still chose who they were going to put over.
BS: Anything that has to do with money, and I don’t care what it is, if it’s baseball or basketball, or whatever, if it has to do with big money, there is going to be some kind of fix, or setup, at some time or another.
MB: Sure, even pro wrestling, going back to the 20s, was real, until they figured out that they could make more money by controlling the outcomes. But Funaki started Pancrase, because he wanted to be in an environment where he could shoot, and Shamrock was the same way, he thought that what they were doing in the PWFG was fun, but he really wanted to test himself, and other guys like Takahashi, and Fuke, and some of those other guys, also left. It seemed like they wanted to prove themselves. Did anyone in any of these other promotions, that you know of, feel the same way? Did you guys ever feel like you really wanted to just go out there and go 100%?
BS: Let me put it like this. You had Tamura, and Sakuraba, and Nakano, and when they trained, they TRAINED. Let me put it like this, when we went to Israel, they brought a female Judo player, who I think was a gold medalist ( possibly Yael Arad? ) We were at a TV Show where they were interviewing us, and when they interviewed her, she said that she really doubted that some of the throws, or some of the things that we were doing could be done, and when they asked me what I thought of that, I told them, that even though she was very talented, that anyone can do different things at different times, and just because she can’t do it, doesn’t mean that others can’t do it. But there were things that were set up, and there were fixed fights…
MB: I’m not saying “worked” in a derogatory way at all. To me, part of this project is trying to see how this all started and how it morphed into where it is now. A good example would be RINGS. When it first started, with a few exceptions, it was mostly worked, until about 95, and then from 95 forward, they would have at least one, and sometimes more, shoots on every card and then by the time 98-99 rolls around it’s a whole new promotion, but there was that entire weird evolution where it went from one thing to another.
BS: Well, it’s like this. When they started doing fights around here, I had amateur fighters, and we would go to different venues, and the regulations are a lot better today then it was then, as back then sometimes you would show up to an amateur fight, and the other guy would have no training at all, and was probably going to get hurt, but they wanted to have tournaments, they wanted to structure it in a way that pleased the crowd.
MB: I remember reading, that one time the Dynamite Kid, when Sayama was talking about his shooting concept with him, told him that no in in their right mind was going to pay just to see them shoot, and roll around on the floor, and from what I understand, Funaki, and Shamrock were told the same thing, that no one would pay to see people shoot.
BS: Do you remember when that one guy came down? *Pauses and things* I think he was a WWF world champion…
MB: Bob Backlund?
BS: Yes, Bob Backlund. Do you remember when he came down, and faced Takada?
MB: And the fight lasted a minute? Yes, that was horrible.
BS: Yeah, it was horrible.
MB: They almost rioted, didn’t they? Didn’t Yamazaki have to go out, and calm them down?
BS: Yes, it was. They had to send out Yamazaki to kill it. I think that might have been one of my first times over there. I remember it happening, and it goes to show that they expected more, and they got less, just like when Takada and Gracie were fighting, you expect more, but you got less.
MB: Sure, but at the same time, I suppose they got more with Sakuraba, because no one could have expected him to become a superstar Gracie-killer.
BS: No, but he would do crazy stuff like cartwheels, or stuff just because he could.
MB: Yes, he was very creative.
BS: Yes, very creative. He would do things, and you would be like, “Why the hell did he do that?” Like just chopping somebody. *Motions with a double karate chop* Just clowning around.
MB: What are your thoughts on current MMA? Do you like it, or do you watch it?
BS: I watch it sometimes, but I don’t buy the PPVs. Sometimes I see fighters, or fights that I’m really impressed with, but I don’t pay to see it. I like Bellator better than the UFC.
MB: Do you think that Japanese MMA could ever be big again?
BS: I think it could, but when the UFC bought out Pride, it would have made more sense for the UFC to keep Pride around (as) the Japanese equivalent to the UFC , and have them build up their fighters throughout the year, and at the end of the year have the champions from the UFC and Pride face each other. That would make money.
MB: Sure! Of course, there was the Yakuza scandals… Were you aware of the Yakuza in your UWF-I days?
BS: Yeah, you could see them. Definitely. Anytime you were at a big event, or anytime there was money involved, you could see them. Or you would be at a venue, and they would say that it’s sold out, but it’s only ¾ full, and you wonder where everybody is at, and then you go outside, or go somewhere to get something to drink, and they are out there scalping tickets, so yeah, it was a big thing over there.
MB: Ok, so when Kingdom was trying to get off the ground, they had a brief partnership with the UFC, for the first UFC Japan event, and from what I understand Hiromitsu Kanehara was supposed to be in the tournament that night, but was injured in training, so they substituted him with Sakuraba. Did you know about any of this, or did they approach you, and ask if you were interested in being part of this?
BS: No, I didn’t know about any of that. I knew that Sakuraba had a fight over there, against Conan, right?
MB: Yes, he fought Conan (referring to Marcus “Conan” Silveira) in one of the strangest occurrences in MMA history, because as he was fighting Conan, Conan was really laying some hard punches into him, and honestly to me it looked like he was going to put Sakuraba away. As Sakuraba was getting wailed on, he dropped for a low single leg, like he always did, and the referee John McCarthy thought he was knocked out, and he called the fight. Then Tank Abbott wound up breaking his hand on Yoji Anjo’s face, so he couldn’t continue either. It was just a big mess, so they wound up putting Sakuraba back in there against Conan again, and this time he armbars Conan, no problem.
BS: That was pretty much how he got started wasn’t it?
MB: Yes, although it wasn’t his first MMA fight. His first MMA fight was against Kimo Leopoldo, at a Shootboxing event, of all things, and Kimo pretty much dominated him, but that isn’t taking anything away from Sakuraba, as Kimo was huge, and roided.
BS: And that’s another thing, is you have people say that was his first shoot. It may have been his first shoot in the UFC, but there have been many a shoot between those guys over the years.
MB: Yeah, losing to Kimo, who outweighed him by a ton, is no shame, but yes, UFC Japan was his first claim to broader MMA fame.
BS: Oh yeah. I remember seeing that, and I thought it was awesome. He was given an opportunity, and he made the best of it.
MB: Well, thank you for your time. It was an absolute pleasure!
If any of you out there would like to learn from someone that was a direct disciple of catch-wrestling legend Billy Robinson, then please go check out his gym, located in Smith’s Grove KY at 126 N Main St, Smith’s Grove KY.
He can also be reached for seminars at (270) 392-6759