The Chronological History of MMA
Chapter 13: UWF-I Moving On Sapporo 9/26/91 Sapporo Nakajima Sports Center
By Michael Betz & Mike Lorefice 6/12/20

We find ourselves back at the Nakijima Sports Arena, about to witness the UWF-I's attempt to bottle lighting twice, as Bob Backlund makes his return into the shoot-style arena. Backlund first faced off against Takada at the 12/22/88 Newborn UWF Heartbeat event, and while the action may seem antiquated in the lens of modern jaded eyes, there is no denying the absolutely electric atmosphere of that evening, as Japan was witnessing their hero face off against an amateur wrestling champion who became the flagbearer of pre-circus WWF wrestling. It may have been a fantasy, but the tension permeating Osaka that night was palpable.

Before we draw upon the well of past glories, we are to first drink from the refreshing streams of known sources, as our favorite footfighting phenom, Makato Ohe is set to face off against New Mexico newcomer Rafael Aguilar. Little is known about Aguilar other than he is NOT the well-known drug cartel leader who met his demise in 1993 after being shot to death in Cancun, Mexico. It's always a treat to see Ohe in action, but hopefully Aguilar brings some more game to these proceedings than the last couple of competitors did, who were woefully out of their league against our favorite Shootboxing Alum.

The fight starts and Aguilar's footwork seems in place, but Ohe wastes no time in pressing the action. Aguilar weakly checks a thunderous leg kick, and responds with a sidekick, to which Ohe simply grabs his leg and blasts him with a left right down the pipe. Aguilar continues to press forward, but is tied up in a long clinch with Ohe, who methodically takes his time and throws some powerful knees here and there, compared to a voluminous amount of weak shots to the midsection that Aguilar put forth. After a break, Aguilar manages to hit Ohe with a nice uppercut, but is caught right back into a tight clinch, and this does not seem to be a comfortable place for him to work. Unlike what we would later see in K-1 (the clinch was supposed to be broken up within 5 seconds) the UWF-I ref seems content to allow plenty of time for the fighters to work before calling for a restart.

Round 2 was fairly uneventful as Aguilar was able to fire off some decent punches when he was able to create some distance, but was completely neutered whenever the fight got into a Muay Thai range. Ohe was able to land hard knees throughout the round, but hasn't seemed to put Aguilar in any real danger.

Both fighters turned up the volume for round 3, and while Aguilar took a beating with plenty of nasty knees and some hard punches, he was able to land several stiff uppercuts, which seems to be his number one weapon, and one that Ohe isn't too keen on dealing with. As lopsided as the scoring of this bout is right now in favor of Ohe, there is a chance for Aguilar if he can keep sneaking those uppercuts in.

Round 4 saw Aguilar take it up a notch, and while he still had no good answers for the clinch, he was able to work his boxing a lot more in this round, and is starting to look competitive here, although he is so far behind in points there is no way he is going to win a decision. You could tell that Aguilar really wanted to go for broke in round 5, but Ohe was having none of it, and grabbed a clinch whenever he could, and wasn't about to take any chances. Aguilar did his best to fire off a shot whenever he could get a ref break, but it wasn't enough, and it went to decision.

I enjoyed this fight, and I think that whatever shortcomings Aguilar had were more to do with where American kickboxing was at the time than a lack of raw potential on the part of Aguilar. Aguilar seemed to be a fine practitioner in whatever style he was familiar with, but having to take a crash course in Muay Thai against such a seasoned veteran in Ohe would be a tough job for anyone. If the UWF-I continues to feed Americans to Ohe, then we might get to see an upset yet, as straight boxing seems to be the biggest weakness in Ohe's game and could potentially be his downfall.

ML: Aguilar was an 80's style American kickboxer going against a Muay Thai fighter who was out to exploit the rules differences at every turn. Aguilar could land one shot from the outside, but then Ohe would take the Thai clinch & work him over on the inside where Aguilar wasn't used to having to fight. Aguilar adjusted in the 2nd half, working body punches on the inside. Ohe hurt Aguilar in the 3rd, dodging a right & countering with a clean left, but otherwise this was mostly a grind.

Tatsuyo Nakano vs. Kiyoshi Tamura. When we last saw Tamura in a singles bout against Yuko Miyato, he put an absolute clinic on display for us all, and showed us both the hidden beauty of the shoot-aesthetic and also how far ahead of his contemporaries he was at displaying it. Miyato is a pliable force and can be molded to serve whatever purpose the moment needs, but I do not have as high hopes for Nakano. One thing is for certain however, and that is Nakano has had about 13 trips to his local Viking Buffet since he last stepped foot into a ring.

After refusing to shake Nakano's hand, Tamura wastes no time in trying to get a single leg from a clinch, which Nakano successfully stuffs, and tries to counter with a guillotine of his own. Tamura quickly turns the corner and is able to both edge out of the choke, and take Tatsuyo down at the same time, but Tatsuyo is able to quickly get back to his feet. It's already incredible to see the fluidity and velocity of Tamura's movements, and we aren't even a minute into this fight yet. Both men are able to utilize excellent circular movement, with Tamura having a clear speed advantage, but Nakano is simply too strong to be pinned or threated with Tamura's submission or positional offense for too long.

Nakano is able to shrug off a sloppy armbar attempt and secure a rear chinlock, which forces Tamura to take his first rope escape. The match then continues in a stalemate fashion until Tamura shot in for a lighting quick single leg, only to get countered by a stiff knee to the chest/midsection of Tamura, in what was a cool sequence that cost Tamura more points via a knockdown. With nothing left to lose, Tamura finally unleashes the palm strikes, but Tatsuyo counters with some sluggish knees, and long before this became all the rage within the BJJ instructional scene, Tamura counters a single leg effort from Nakano with a kimura/wristlock entry. This would have been absolutely breathtaking, but unfortunately it wound up being a gaping hole in the credibility of the match as Nakano was a little slow in applying it, thus giving Tamura plenty of time to fiddle with the arm as he just let it hang out. Still. It's amazing to see how much of what we would think as new grappling tech can be found in the layers of early shoot-style wrestling. The match continues it's back and forth flow with Nakano having the upper hand in most of it, until Tamura catches a thigh kick and turns it into some kind of STF/Ankle Lock submission victory.

Conclusion: A bit of a disappointment considering the blockbuster that he had with Miyato when we last witnessed him, and possibly Tamura's weakest singles match so far, due to the rushed nature, and throwing all the striking towards the end. However, this shouldn't be taken as too strong of a criticism, as it's still a Tamura match, and is thus worthy of our attention.

ML: Nakano is probably the second worst of the UWF-I natives on the mat, leading only Takada, and his lack of speed & flexibility is part of it, but mostly it's that he works really slowly on the mat & relies upon a lot of fake pro wrestling positions & holds that should be getting removed from his arsenal by now. I love that when Nakano went into that should be side mount, but instead I just lie across you sideways not bothering to actually control the trunk or lower body, Tamura immediately just squirms free to avoid humiliation. I wish there was more of this, as Tamura lets Nakano get away with a lot of lazy positioning, and Nakano really doesn't seem to want to do anything. This never really feels like a Tamura match, it seems like Tamura is waiting for Nakano to make a move when he has the advantage, but Nakano just lays there, so Tamura never has the opportunity to use his fast reaction oriented style to make something cool happen. Even though Tamura slows & tones things down considerably for Nakano, when something does happen, Nakano's cooperation is definitely more obvious than the others. As the bout progresses, Tamura seems to get frustrated with the lack of activity, and decides to force Nakano to counter by giving him gaping holes that he simply can't ignore. Nakano is, not surprisingly, more into the standup, and there's a great spot Tamura tries for a single, but Nakano drops him countering with a knee. There's not really a lot of striking though, apart from a flurry at the end where Nakano no sells a suisha otoshi & winds up dropping Tamura with a high kick while Tamura is still getting back up. It's clear that Tamura was actually supposed to catch the kick & counter into the ankle lock for the win, and after some indecision, Nakano throws kicks until Tamura catches one & forces him to tap. This was by far the worst Tamura singles match so far, I'd go so far as to suggest that Nakano is pissed that he has to put over the young stud, and just sabotaged the match in protest. In any case, it at least clarifies that Miyato can go when he wants to, especially if there's someone to carry him, and Nakano is the one who is holding their matches back & keeping them in a holding pattern.

Next up is newcomer Gary Albright and veteran Yuko Miyato. During our prior encounter with Albright we saw him terrorizing everyones favorite zebra-clad warrior in Yoji Anjo, but if Anjo was the zebra, then surely Miyato is but a lovely gazelle, frolicking in the pasture, unaware of the impending doom to come. Albright comes out to quite possibly the worst entrance music that a man of his size could hope to, entering the ring to an instrumental that would be well served as the theme music to a NES RPG, if that RPG happened to have a sequence where the hero was expected to buy margaritas at a beach resort after a hard day of adventuring.

Taking one look at these two, it would be easy to just expect Albright to toss Miyato into the rafters, and be done with it, but surprisingly they start things off with a bit of kickboxing, feeling each other out. The footfighting doesn't last too long before Albright ragdolls Miyato with a huge suplex, causing a knockdown. Miyato, then wisely continues to fight from the outside, landing some kicks to Albright's thighs and midsection, but it doesn't take long for the Yeti to close the distance and slam his prey with reckless abandon. This ends the fight, and puts the gazelle out of his misery, and this could have just as easily been featured on National Geographic.

ML: Welcome to UWF-I Superstars of Wrestling. This wasn't even a match, just a bodyslam in between two suplexes. Todd Pettengill might claim it was the greatest match of all time though, until the next match...

Next up, Satoru Sayama's favorite padawan, Kazuo Yamazaki, must face fashion ace Yoji Anjo, in a bout that I must admit excites me with anticipation. Things start with Anjo offering his hand in the spirit of camaraderie, only to be met with empty disgust on the part of Yamazaki. Anjo has his revenge moments later, as Anjo gets the better of the initial kick exchange by grabbing Yamazaki's leg and kicking out the other, causing his opponent to fall.

So far, a few mins into this match, and it is incredible in terms of the energy and atmosphere that these two are able to generate. Yamazaki plays it off, like a thuggish veteran that refuses to give any respect to the upstart Anjo, but Anjo keeps delivering fire and intensity, which is really resonating with the Japanese crowd. There is a great sequence in which Yamazaki is working over a leg, trying to take a basic ankle lock, and turn it into a more sinister heel-hook, which causes Anjo to panic and fly towards the ropes like his life depended on it. Yamazaki wasn't able to relish this for too long, as not long afterwards, Anjo nailed him with a beautiful high kick to the ribs of Yamazaki, immediately prompting a knockdown.

It continues to go back and forth, but Yamazaki can't seem to catch a break, as whenever he is able to land a submission on Anjo, he is forced to pay a hefty price, being lit up like a Christmas tree in the standup portions. Yamazaki is able to somewhat abruptly win the match with what I can only describe as an emergency single-leg Boston crab that he had to pull out of nowhere, after taking a volley of palm strikes from Anjo. Excellent contest. Despite having to end the match with the worst thing to come from Boston since tariffs, this was totally awesome, and easily the best match that Yamazaki has had so far in the UWF-I.

ML: Both a story match and an attempt at a more realistic bout in between two cartoon jobber matches. Though Yamazaki is normally one of the better strikers, here Anjo shows his superiority early, and Yamazaki shifts to being strategic, gambling that the risks Anjo is taking with his big strikes will eventually outweigh the rewards. Despite Anjo throwing some bombs, this isn't a particularly flashy match, as it's more about Yamazaki's patience & craftiness trying to see his strategy through. It's not nearly as reductive as I may be making it sound, with Anjo still being able to do things on the ground & Yamazaki still scoring in standup, but the general thrust is Anjo wants to make something happen & is thus willing to take chances, while Yamazaki wants to grab him, and ultimately that usually means taking a few shots. Even then, it doesn't always work, for instance Anjo pulls ahead when Yamazaki catches a middle kick, but goes down on delay before he can capitalize. They work with this idea of whether Yamazaki can seize the opportunity to take the offensive once he sacrifices himself to get the catch, but the match ends rather abruptly just when it's finally beginning to take off. Considering it's sandwiched in between two matches whose combined time was less than 4 minutes, you'd think they could have given these guys 15 minutes to work with. Had the kickboxing shoot not gone the distance, this show wouldn't even have lasted an hour. ***

Next up is Bob Backlund vs Nobuhiko Takada, and while I don't have high hopes for this being good, in any nominal sense of the word, I am quite intrigued, and wondering if this is in fact, some shrewd booking. When I last saw Backlund in the Shoot-Sphere, he had two matches in the Newborn UWF, with Takada and Funaki respectfully, and while he gave me the impression that he would have been good in this style, had he came up in it, and become more familiar with it, he still had too many goofy mannerisms that needed to be shed from his American style. Still, he absolutely electrified the atmosphere when he fought Takada the last time, so that may be all that is needed here tonight.

We are now greeted to an interview with Backlund, in which he tells us that he can't guarantee a win, but that he does promise to give it his absolute best, and that he loves the Japanese fans. This came across as surprisingly heartfelt and grounded. Unfortunately, once the wrestling begins, Backlund seriousness is nowhere to be found, and he is back to his old WWF tricks of constantly making overexaggerated facial expressions for anything that happens, which somewhat robs him of the credibility that he does bring to the table.

The match starts with both men feeling each other out, and trading strikes. Backlund takes a stiff leg to the thigh, and responds by backing Takada up in the corner, and firing off some stiff forearm strikes, which leads to Takada backing off to the center of the ring, and getting suplexed. The match restarts and Backlund tries to land some very weak knees to Takada, and Takada responds with his own knee to the midsection, which starts a ten-count, that Backlund doesn't recover from, and the match is over at 1:15.

Ok, I'm flummoxed by this. This was terrible, and I'm not sure what purpose this served. Takada is already over, so there isn't any need to try and have a squash match, and Backlund didn't come off credibly at all. I have no doubt that had he put some effort to really study and train in this style, that he could pull off a good match, but his cornball antics (which compared to his contemporaries like the Ultimate Warrior and Paul Bearer look totally straight) only serve for him to look like completely out of place. What's worse is that this entire show only clocks in at a little under 1 ½ hours, so there isn't any purpose for rushing through some of these matches.

ML: I don't get this at all. I mean, granted this isn't the sort of match you want to go long, but Backlund certainly doesn't look any better by losing immediately to some random fake injury, he looks like an old broken guy who couldn't hold up at all & should have just stayed retired. Now, I can't see there isn't a part of me who doesn't enjoy seeing one of the longest reigning kings of comedy wrestling simply made a fool of, but from a business perspective, this booking not only makes the rematch less viable in my opinion, but takes away most of the desired sting from Takada's shocking quick win. Albright winning quickly, sure, he just ran through the poor bantamweight, but this loss is more Backlund not being up to snuff than Takada being too amazing, as the one thing Takada did, whatever it exactly even was, certainly wasn't impressive looking if we see beyond the official story. As far as the match itself went, Backlund overexaggerated everything, still acting like it was WWF theater. He sort of landed a lame elbow & some super fake knees on the inside, one missing by a country mile, before taking this kick that took him out. The injury was really unclear as well because Backlund's selling was terrible to the point I was hoping for a fake explanation of what supposedly happened to him (the camera angle wasn't good to begin with). At first, I thought he was trying to convince Tirantes to come out & DQ Takada for a low blow, then I thought he might have a broken hand. It would have worked better if his body shut down from a liver kick, but the kick was too central for that. The whole thing was just a disgrace.

Final Thoughts. If we can overlook the terrible ending, this was entertaining and enjoyable. Yamazaki shined, Ohe delivered once again, and Tamura could wrestle the Taiku Center's janitor and still get a good match, so that outweighs the botched opportunity that was the main event.

ML: This show was okay, but we're starting to see the many flaws in Miyato's bad booking, mainly that Takada & Albright just destroy everybody, leaving the rest of the promotion to via for the scraps, which basically consist of having good undercard matches to work their way up to putting these guys over in the main event.

*Kakutogi Supplemental*

We at Kakutogi headquarters were recently able to dig deep inside the catacombs underneath our offices, and unearth a buried treasure, a long-forgotten relic, languishing away under shadows and dust. It is a glorious artifact that brings me great honor to talk about today, in what is probably the very earliest piece of taped Shooto history (and an incredible document in the scope of MMA history). It was a tape that Satoru Sayama put forth in 1988, simply called "Satoru Sayama: The Shooting" presumably released in an effort to share with the world what his new sport would be, and to attract attention to his Super Tiger Gym.

Super Tiger Gym had already been involved in what would be considered MMA training by at least 1985 when they had famous Japanese kickboxer Toshio Fujiwara (who had instructed at the Mejiro Kickboxing Academy in the Netherlands) as the resident Muay Thai coach, in addition to all the Catch-Wrestling and submission training that Sayama was providing his students. As we will later see in later early 90s Shooto events, this cross training paid off, as your average Shooto guy was probably 10-15 years ahead of the curve, skill wise, then his American counterpart in the early-mid 90s.

Like encountering hieroglyphics for the first time, that is what we must imagine the UWF landscape of the late '84 to have been like. As people like Sayama, Akira Maeda, and Yoshiaki Fujiwara were learning that there was more to this strange language of combat sports than what they could have possibly perceived when they first started breaking into Professional Wrestling. One has to wonder what it had to be like, to have so many concepts and ideas ready to burst forth, but no canvas or medium in which to express them. Surely that is where Sayama must have been at in late '85, after his falling out with Maeda, and departure from the original UWF promotion. His desire, and quest, to capture the true essence of real fighting (or "Shooting" in Pro Wrestling parlance), with a sport that fully utilized all aspects of the fight realm. This concept is perhaps best summed up with an early promotional tagline that Shooto used, "Punch Kick Throw Submission." Simple, but like chess, underneath the simplicity of the premise, is a vast and unsearchable galaxy of possibilities and variations, therein. Sayama was determined to see his vision through, even if his vision hadn't completely coalesced by this point, and like any trailblazer he simply took a leap into the unknown and started promoting what he had.

Things start off with Sayama demonstrating some neat moves, like flying armbars and rolling kneebars (all the more crazy considering this is 1988) before we are taken to the lush Japanese countryside where Sayama is refreshing his mind and nurturing his spirit underneath a serene waterfall. He then takes his students for a brisk jog, before conducting sprint drills, and we could only wish that American Pro Wrestling schools were half has cool as this.

After this pleasant warm up, we are taken to a monastery that wouldn't have been out of place in a '70s era Shaw Brothers Film, where they begin to do what any reasonable group of aspiring warriors would. they proceed to frog jump up a giant stone staircase, but only Sayama is hardcore enough to forgo shoes.

After this, we go inside one of the buildings to cover takedowns, throws, and submission entries. This is absolutely fascinating as this entire approach is very comprehensive, and light years ahead of its time. The only missing ingredient from a more modern approach is the positional sensibilities that BJJ brought to the fore. There is no real concern about finding and keeping positional dominance, but rather the mentality seems to always seek the submission, and what to do if you're caught in a compromising situation.

After going over several submission entries, we are brought to the infamous Korakuen Hall, where Sayama brings out his students, and this scribe is able to see future Shooto star and grappling wizard Noburu Asahi within the group. Sayama then talks to the crowd about his new sport and goes over the rules and judging. My understanding of Japanese is woefully meager, but from what I can glean, it would seem that all Shooto fights will be judges with standard amateur wrestling takedowns being given a much lower score than successful judo throws, and near submissions being given a high score as well. Just like modern MMA, a fight is won either by submission or KO, though there is a standing 10 count in place for knockdowns. It's scary how in the 80s Sayama came up with a better idea than our current 10 point must system.

Sayama then talks about the rules, and it would seem that most strikes are legal while standing, sans elbows, and that you are allowed to punch, kick, knee, etc, a grounded opponent below the face, if they are on the ground, but soccer kicks to the face are not legal. Punches to the face of a grounded opponent do not appear to be legal either. Later on, we will see a fighter kick another fighter in the face while they were both on the ground, so I'm not sure if that's a loophole, or if it just wasn't noticed.

Even in our current ultra-polarized world, there are a few things that we can all come into agreement on, and that is that the '80s gave us perhaps the finest subgenre of film in the Post-Apocalyptic genre (of which I am partial to 2020 Texas Gladiators), and to honor this, Sayama forced his amateur fighters to wear headgear that celebrated this, which is only meet and right. Yes, one glace at these amazing contraptions, and we see that we are indeed headed to new, and unforeseen vistas in the world of Martial Arts.

The tournament goes off without a hitch, and I am amazed at the pure essence of it all. No point fighting, no gaming the rules, lay and pray, wall and stall, etc. Every fighter is constantly pushing forward with kickboxing, throws, takedowns, and diving for submissions. Not that it would be against the rules to try and work a closed guard, or stall with a takedown, but that doesn't even seem to be a concept with these fighters, and this is also encouraged with rules that reward submissions, and action. There was guard work on display here, but anytime someone was using their guard it was in an aggressive fashion, going for submission attempts.

All the fights here are fast paced and entertaining, even though it's hard to distinguish who's who, with the elite headgear, and we are all able to witness that Sayama has something very special on his hands here. Sadly, like most innovators throughout history, Sayama didn't get much credit for his trailblazing, and like people such as Tesla, Antonio Meucci, and Alfred Russel Wallace, the little credit that they do get is only after their inventions become part of the common lexicon of the populace. To add insult to injury, just aproximentaly 8 years after this demonstration Sayama would have a falling out with the Shooto board of directors, and he wound up leaving his creation.

Perhaps, much like Icarus, he flew too high to the Sun, playing with forces he did not understand. Using pro-wrestling jargon like "Shooting" when trying to promote a new sport probably didn't help matters either, as it served to both confuse anyone not familiar with the term, and the few people in America that knew who he was from his Tiger Mask days, probably didn't know what to make of actual MMA, or a video catolog that had "Sayama's Shooting Vol 12."

Probably no one came closer to achieving the pure essence of Modern MMA more than Sayama. While a case can certainly be made for the Brazilian Vale Tudo Challenge matches throughout the years that preceded this, that was never really the same, both in intent, nor in execution. Usually such things were just an excuse for a Jiu-Jitsu practitioner to show the superiority of his style against an inferior opponent that had little chance of succeeding. Even the early UFC events were set up to be infomercials for Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, and were never intended to be a test that they knew they wouldn't be able to pass.

Also, what constituted for pre-UFC MMA was usually people in two distinct styles, with very little overlap, or cross training. Here we see the first fighting system/sport that is truly geared on being as complete as possible, covering in depth all the aspects of fighting (within what Sayama understood at the time). You had an emphasis on conditioning, good striking, submissions, throws, takedowns, etc, with the only real missing component being the BJJ positional hierarchy that came to Japan later on. You also had the first MMA teams in Shooto as different dojos would train up their best prospects and send them to prove themselves and announce their name/affiliation right before the start of the fight. Similar things were not really seen in American MMA until Ken Shamrock's Lions Den. Semantical arguments aside, there is no question that Sayama is a pioneer that we here at Kakutogi HQ, wish to thank, and shed some light on, for introducing such a great sport to us all.