The Chronological History of MMA |
With the inaugural PWFG event behind us, we now move on to the first offering from UWFI, and straightaway we can see the difference in the essence of these two promotions. While PWFG was about presenting a product heavy on realism, and thus lacking in entertainment value, we see no such qualms here. In fact, this is the exact opposite approach: Entertainment First! Yes, this is much stiffer than your standard pro wrestling fare, but we will see that entertainment is the foremost concern here. While this was definitely the flashiest/least realistic of the shoot style promotions, it was by far the most important in the evolution of MMA, thanks to it's leader Nobuhiko Takada. We can all laugh now with the benefit of hindsight having seen this man completely embarrass himself in an MMA ring, but at this point in time he was THE STAR. Akira Maeda was already towards the end of his career (and towards the end of having a usable knee), Fujiwara was never going to be more than a cult figure, and while Shooto was producing great fighters, even in 1991, it wasn't going to produce any well known stars. Yes, Takada was the face of "real" fighting in this era, at least until Yoji Anjoh ruined everything and issued a challenge to Rickson Gracie that he had no chance of backing up.
We now find ourselves, once again, at the infamous Korakuen Hall, home of all things MMA and wrestling in Japan. We are treated with the best theme song to ever come out of Japan (the UWF theme, of course!), and no Japanese event would be complete without the entire card of wrestlers coming out to the ring to be introduced to their enamored public. Right away, we see a big contrast with the production values of this and the PWFG, whereas both used a fairly small venue in the Korakuen hall, this has the feel and presentation of a big event, were the PWFG felt like it had three hours to spare in a high school gymnasium.
We are now treated to an introduction to the rules, courtesy of two random hands that were probably fatching gatorade and towels just 20 minutes prior. Still, thanks to their sincere efforts, we learn that the UWFI will not be home to such tomfoolery as headbutts, elbows, kicks to the head of a downed opponent, and head stomps. The thirst for Pride rules has not quite caught on yet, it seems.
Leading off is one of the greatest pro wrestlers of all time, and a very solid, underrated, MMA fighter, in Kiyoshi Tamura. He was by far a better pro wrestler than Sakaraba, and a better overall MMA fighter than Sakaraba as well, although that opinion might get be tarred and feathered in some parts. Really, his only downfall was that he seemingly had the personality of wet bread, whereas Sakaraba was always humorous and engaging.
Things start off quick with Tamura and Masahito Kakihara feeling each other out, and it's not long before Kakihara lays in a very nice stiff combination of palm strikes to Tamura, who instantly shoots in as a response. Kakihara pulls guard, while attempting a guillotine choke, but Tamura quickly passes guard, goes to a side mount, and wastes no time attempting an armbar.
The armbar attempt didn't work, so after being stood back up by the ref, Kakihara goes right back into some suprisingly crisp striking, and Tamura shoots in again, after eating a palm. We are already seeing a nice match that establishes Tamura as the better grappler and Kakihara as the superior striker. Where PWFG started things off with a very realistic, albeit dry, opening, we are instantly getting a highly entertaining bout that must have played very well to a naive audience that didn't yet know what a shoot really looked like.
The seesaw battle continued for the duration of the match until Tamura was able to secure an ankle lock. The match was always fast paced and very stiff. In fact, this was much stiffer than I expected it to be. It also contained lots of beautiful Tachi-waza from Tamura. While it being a work was never in question, this was a very entertaining match, and a great way to kick this promotion off.
Kazuo Yamazaki was a wonderful pro wrestler that never really became the star that he should have. He was one of the very first of the shoot-style guys to really incorporate a lot of feints and parrying into his style, and always made his opponent work for their offense, as opposed to the usual pro wrestling, "I'm just going to stand here and let you do what ever you want," style.
Yoji Anjo is familer to many of you for his many embarassing forays into MMA, but truthfully he was a great pro wrestler, and had some legit fighting skills. He had a background in judo and Muay Thai, and was considered by the rest of his UWF alum to be the best shooter they had (hence his going to Los Angeles to challenge Rickson Gracie). He also had cardio for days, as he seemed to prefer long matches, and never showed any signs of gassing out.
This being a tag-team match already strains credulity in and of itself, and again shows that this promotion was the most rooted in standard pro wrestling. RINGS probably never would have even considered putting up a tag team match, yet here we are. To be fair, this match was highly entertaining, but really it will just feel like stiff pro wrestling to a modern audience. Anjo & Miyato were the winners via KO at 22:57.
Tom Burton was a journeyman pro wrestler having worked for various American promotions (including the WWF) before really finding a bit of a home in Japan. His greatest accomplishment was perhaps a non-title victory via knockout against Kazushi Sakaraba at the 1994 Best of the World Tournament. He unfortunately passed away in 2010.
Here we are introduced to him via a promo where he says that American wrestling is the best, and he is unimpressed with the Japanese wrestlers, specifically Nobuhiko Takada. He comes across like a much more genteel Mark Coleman, and like Coleman, will probably not be allowed a victory over Takada.
Apparently Takada did not deem it necessary to get into fighting shape here, instead opting for a more muscular dad bod.
Both fighters come out to a light muzak synth beat, that would be great in any elevator from the '90s, and after the referee did his due diligence by checking for foreign objects, we get underway.
The match starts off with Burton executing some basic mat wrestling to good effect, while Takada unsuccessfully tries to pepper Burton with high kicks. After one such failed kick, Burton takes Takada down and goes for an awful looking armbar (which is probably my biggest gripe against Shoot-Style is the plethora of mediocre armbars), which is promply dismissed and turned into an ankle lock counter.
This forces a rope escape, in UWF-I both fighters start with fifteen points, with 3 deducted for each rope escape or knockdown and 1 for getting suplexed.
Burton then takes him down again and tries to Americana his way to victory with all the horse-meat rage he can muster, only to have it reversed on him, leading to another rope escape. Takada then throws some more useless high kicks, which allow Burton to take him down again, and go back to some basic mat work before busting out the realest of real submissions: the camel clutch!
This most fearsome of holds causes Takada to take his first rope escape, in which he promptly returns the favor with some kind of wrist-lock armbar combination. He then starts to unload on Burton with thigh kicks and palm strikes, landing quite a few before being taken down to the mat again. Takada then did something that I actually thought was a cool technique, he kept hip escaping until he was able to torque himself into the right angle to attempt a toe hold. This actually looked like something that might be doable in a real Jiujitsu match, under the right circumstances, and will probably be one of the few times I will witness impressive waza from him.
They continue in a back and forth fashion for a while, until Burton hits a couple of nice suplexes on Takada, only to simply walk over and slap on the laziest single leg Boston crabs I have ever witnessed.
Not to be undone there, he then attempted a slightly less lazy double leg Boston crab, which of course gets a rope break.
Takada then decides he's had enough, and after slapping his opponent a few times, executes a super flashy suplex, followed by a much better looking Boston crab to win the fight. This was a rather silly, but entertaining match, that basically showed Takada in a nutshell. A charismatic pro wrestler that really gave the impression that he had no idea how to really fight.
In closing, Fujiwara and Aikira Maeda were both Pro Wrestlers that never fought for real, but both at least seemed like they had a good understanding of fighting, and could probably handle themselves against most people that lacked serious martial arts training. We could also see why this promotion was such a hit in Japan until Takada and Anjo foolishly exposed themselves by insisting on challenging Rickson Gracie, as it had undeniable entertainment value. Like PWFG, the roster was a bit thin, but everyone here could have a fun match, and it showed.
Mike Lorefice's thoughs:
Though UWF split into three different promotions, what you really ended up with is Maeda doing his own thing, Fujiwara maintaining his top proteges, and UWF just reopening under slightly different name with a style that was even friendlier to both pro wrestling fans and to top star Nobuhiko Takada. UWF-I obviously missed the name value of Maeda, who was the #1 player in the sport, as well as the promise of Funaki, who had quickly cracked into their top tier and had seemingly unlimited potential both as a fighter & as a draw, but there should never have been any real doubt that they would succeed, at least in the short term.
There was enough depth on the UWF-I roster with two of the UWF's three top fighters in Takada & Yamazaki, two of the most promising young fighters in Tamura & Kakihara, and you still had the solid, good working mainstays such as Anjo & Nakano that had made the UWF a promotion of hard workers that you watched from opening bout to final. That's not to say they didn't have issues though, as they were simply short a few wrestlers. While they could fill out the cards with random foreigners, these guys weren't even names in America much less Japan, and you couldn't just throw your every day stomper & eye gouger into this style, it was a paired down style, but that often made it tougher to do rather than easier. While the first year of PWFG was likely the best in the history of the promotion, the first year of UWF-I was rough because they neither did anything useful with their best worker, Yamazaki, nor built any other native into that #1B role he needed to fill if they wanted to actually promote big shows & keep fans showing up. Instead, they just had everyone toil in the midcard while Miyato rolled out Takada vs. some random foreigner on top, which was often really the worst situation for both Takada and the foreigner as the fans wouldn't take the opponent seriously & while Takada did flashy pro wrestling things extremely well, he wasn't the sort of highly adaptive opponent you wanted to be leading you through a "new" style.
Giving their brightest new lights the opportunity to usher in the new era of shootfighting was a great way to start the new promotion. Tamura and Kakihara did themselves and the promotion proud with a crisp and energetic contest. As is always the case with the early shoot style, the standup was a lot more credible than the mat because kickboxing and muay thai were well established sports, while judo and amateur wrestling had their place in the Olympics, but had never been deemed entertaining enough to be ticket selling sports, and thus the fighters were probably less encouraged to fully utilize what knowledge of them they had or really develop those styles. Instead, they just incorporated the spectacular end game of the throw rather than teaching the audience to be patient while they set one up. When all else failed, they could always get the bout to the canvas with a good old fashioned leg scissors, as Kakihara did here.
This was a good match but obviously nowhere near their best work. One has to keep in mind that Tamura was out from 10/25/89 when sloppy Maeda accidentally fractured his orbital with a knee until the final UWF show on 12/1/90. Then there were no shows for the next 6 months as everyone reorganized, so this was only the 7th match of Tamura's career, which still put him 2 ahead of Kakihara, who debuted on 8/13/90. What Kakihara had right from the outset was a very infective, wild passion. He may not have been cut out for real fighting, but if he were, he would have been one of those high risk all action fan favorite fighters who goes for bonuses and finishes, one way or the other, rather than just trying to win safe. Kakihara certainly had his routine, but he may have been the only wrestler that, no matter how many times you saw him engage in those rapid fire palm barrages or wild kicks, you still felt his match was legitimately getting a bit out of control. Tamura was a good compliment to him because he could ground him just enough that they could strike a balance between an out and out highlight real and a technical fight.
22 years before Scott Smith failed to become one half of MMA's first tag team champions in Gladiator Challenge, UWF-I debuted the doubles style. While tag team wrestling obviously differentiated them from their rival shoot leagues, it mainly just made the promotion seem that much more like the plethora of rival pro wrestling leagues, with the whole ring position & exchange game largely just being a credibility straining distraction. There's just an odd tension when the goal is sort of to get on top of your opponent, except since there's no real ground control you'll lose that position and be in danger of submitting almost as fast as you gain it, and then wish you were standing so you could make the tag. Kazuo Yamazaki & Tatsuo Nakano vs. Yoji Anjo & Yuko Miyato otherwise sounds good on paper, as none of these four are less than good workers, but while not dull, it never seemed like anyone's match or found its rhythm. Miyato was a much better wrestler than booker, and you already saw things going greatly awry as instead of Yamazaki being set up to finally getting his wins over Takada so they'd have two main stars and a lights out main event program, Yamazaki, who basically only lost to Maeda & Takada in UWF, was already jobbing to a perpetual midcarder in Anjo. Having an upset on the first show to shake up the old pecking order & establish new challengers is not a bad idea, but Anjo proceeded to lose to Nakano on the next show, and went on to post a whopping 1-5 record in singles that year.
Having grown up a dedicated daily viewer of GWF on ESPN despite it pretty much only being good for the Lightning Kid vs. Jerry Lynn or Chaz Taylor matches in the early stages of the promotion, I was shocked to learn that the "brother" of Mike "I'm Not Crazy" Davis headlined the first UWF-I show, and was considered a serious tough guy in Japan. Burton was an amateur wrestler who was trained professionally by 2-time Olympic wrestler Brad Rheingans. His background allowed him to just be thrust into a UWF-I match, but it's likely he was the only fighter on the show with legitimate training in the discipline, so it didn't really help him as much as newer fight fans who are used to wrestling being the prominant discipline in real fighting would suspect. This match was okay, definitely better on paper than in actuality as the strategy of Burton controlling by grounding Takada but Takada thrilling the crowd with a flashy flurry of kicks when he could get back to his feet was sound, but the work was just so loose and no one took Burton the least bit seriously. Takada gave Burton a lot of control time, but there isn't much drama when one guy is basically toying with the other and will win when they got bored.
In other news:
Rorion Gracie was working tirelessly to spread and market BJJ, here is a transcript from a letter he sent to Black Belt Magazine. It was published in the April '91 issue. "What made Gracie Jujitsu the worlds most effective form of self defense was the strong determination of my father, Helio Gracie. to perfect a system that would satisfy his self defense needs in spite of his small stature. The simplicity and effectiveness that resulted from that quest have changed the lives of thousands. Bigger and stronger opponents have provided a realistic and necessary testing ground for over half a century. The techniques that my brothers and I share have been successfully proven and we have absolute confidence in them. That's the only reason we teach them. The Gracie challenge is a belief that we are indeed teaching the best system in the world. Consequently we have a moral responsibility to ourselves, as well as our students, to keep the Gracie Challenge standing. The fact is we are not cocky or boastful, like some jealous characters describe us, but instead we feel the need to alert people interested in finding out about a truly effective form of self-defense. They can use the Gracie challenge to put pressure on their incompetent instructors, who should have the dignity and courage to admit how limited their systems really are. Unless, of course, those instructors want to step forward and prove us wrong. Nothing worries the rats more, than the cats meow."
Kung Fu Magazine ran an article on the worlds first real fight promotion, Satoru Sayama's Shooto, then called "Shooting", mentioning the goal was to combine all the martial arts into one competitive sport and that two schools in Southern California had begun training students for competition.