I've been going through the old UFC shows back and forth between my VHS collection and whats on the UFC Fight Pass this month. I have been posting about the shows in the random thread in History of Wrestling but figured I'd go ahead and keep a thread going here. I finished UFC 9 from May 1996 this morning. 

So the UFC started with UFC 1 in November 1993, had 8 more pretty great shows through 1994, 1995 until this UFC IX show that took place in Detroit in May 1996. This was where we got the rematch between Ken Shamrock vs Dan Severn where they both danced around each other for 35 minutes doing nothing, with the crowd booing and throwing garbage at the Octagon. This show pretty much killed the vibe the early UFC had going. I think each show after this seen the fanbase shrink down, they got banned from PPV and banned across the country in most states as far as live events. There were barely any shows at all in 1998 and went into a "Dark Ages" in 1999 that lasted even after new owners Zuffa bought the company and pumped millions into it in 2001-2002. 

Watching the Detroit Dance today and the full UFC 9 event, what stands out to me is that the big excuse for this fight sucking so bad was that the city of Detroit imposed a bunch of rules for this event. They threatened to arrest anybody that hit anyone with a closed fist, so Shamrock and Severn both pawed at each other with open hands. I don't know if I can buy this because the co-main was Don Frye vs Amouri Bettetti in what was a pretty brutal fight. Frye landed plenty of closed fists, even elbows to the back of the head/neck, downward elbows to the spine, knees to the head on the ground. So there were no problems with being violent in that fight it's crazy that Shamrock and Severn put on such a stinker. 

Anyways I will post some notes here from old shows I am rewatching. I'm not up for full reviews like I used to do back in the day but I still have a few Pride reviews saved on this PC I'll post when I get to them. Feel free to chime in with any memories or favorites or thoughts on anything old you happen to watch or think about! 

Up to UFC 9:

Greatest fights 
1. Tank Abbott vs Oleg Taktarov UFC 6
2. Marco Ruas vs Paul Varelans UFC 7
3. Royce Gracie vs Kimo UFC 3
4. Royce Gracie vs Keith Hackney UFC 4
5. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
6. Marco Ruas vs Remco Pardoel UFC 7
7. Steve Jennum vs Melton Bowen UFC 4

Ultimate Knockouts/Finishes
1. Gary Goodridge vs Paul Herrera UFC 8
2. Pat Smith vs Scott Morris UFC 2
3. Dave Beneteau vs Asbel Cancio UFC 5
4. Tank Abbott vs John Matua UFC 6
5. Gerrard Gordeau vs Telia Tuli UFC 1

Ultimate Submissions
1. Ken Shamrock vs Dan Severn UFC 6
2. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
3. Ken Shamrock vs Pat Smith UFC 1
4. Tank Abbott vs Steve Jennum Ultimate Ultimate 95
5. Dan Severn vs Joe Charles UFC 5
6. Royce Gracie vs Dan Severn UFC 4
7. Royce Gracie vs Ken Shamrock UFC 1

Greatest tournament performances
1. Marco Ruas UFC 7
2. Dan Severn UFC 5
3. Royce Gracie UFC 2
4. Tank Abbott UFC 6
5. Don Frye UFC 8

Possible Worked Fights(with percentage of how sure I am it was a work)
Oleg Taktarov vs Anthony Macias UFC 6(100%, confirmed)
Royce Gracie vs Dan Severn UFC 4(50%)
Dan Severn vs Paul Varelans Ultimate Ultimate 95(90%)
Oleg Taktarov vs Dave Beneteau II Ultimate Ultimate 95(65%)

Getting my way through UFC X this afternoon and it hits me just how many fucking legit bad ass tough guys were tapping out to strikes back then. Gary Goodridge, Pat Smith, Brian Johnson, also some others guys like Christophe Lieninger, a few others that would just tap out when they got in a bad position without getting hit yet, so crazy to see.

Jul 13, 2024 20:39:43 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Getting my way through UFC X this afternoon and it hits me just how many fucking legit bad ass tough guys were tapping out to strikes back then. Gary Goodridge, Pat Smith, Brian Johnson, also some others guys like Christophe Lieninger, a few others that would just tap out when they got in a bad position without getting hit yet, so crazy to see.

And then there was Don Frye, cut from a completely different fucking cloth. Watched UFC 10 yesterday afternoon from Summer of 1996. It ends up with Don Frye and the debuting heavyweight monster Mark Coleman in the finals of the tournament. Coleman hulks over Frye and had the wrestling pedigree just dominates him to win the tournament. Going into this fight through Frye was on top, 6-0, UFC 8 tournament winner, beat Bittetti at UFC 9, won 2 fights to make it back to his second finals, undefeated, one fight away from winning 2 tournaments and going 7-0. Had he won this fight man, he would have been the king of the sport. But Coleman just ragdolls him, smashes his face up bad with headbutts, and gives him one of the biggest beat downs. 

But that is the thing though, after seeing all the guys that would tap out to strikes or tap when they got in a bad position, then you run up on this fight where Frye gets nearly killed and refuses to tap or give up even with the Brock Lesnar of 1996 on top of him headbutting his face into hamburger meat. Frye just didn't have the word quit in his soul. He was different. A real legitimate American bad ass tough guy. He proved it here in losing his first loss in the Octagon, what an inspiring performance. 

UFC 10 was a decent tournament for the rise of Coleman, a new king arrived and he was just a fucking dominant powerhouse. 

Going back to UFC 9, it's a shame that Severn vs Shamrock II was such a disaster, because honestly the rest of the show was actually pretty good. Frye vs Bittetti was dramatic, there were several other exciting scraps. The lack of the tournament was a buzzkill but still a decent undercard. 

Watching UFC 11, what a fucking bad ass Mark Coleman was and so awesome to see him just hit the UFC like Goldberg or something, completely dominates from the start with a whole new level of ground and pound style. He runs the table and beats Goodridge and Frye the same night to win UFC 10, then the guy he fights in the first round of UFC 11 tournament looks like he's about to shit his pants, defeated before the fight even starts. He is just an awesome presence in the Octagon, his entrance, all very awesome.

So Coleman wins the semi-finals and advances to the finals but due to an injury in the other semi-final bout they have to call upon one of the alternates that won earlier in the night before the PPV went on air. The guy chickens out and wants no part of Coleman and Coleman wins UFC 11 by forfeit in the finals. He had that aura at this point, back to back UFC tournament wins UFC 10 and 11, undefeated force with the traps of Sid Justice. And with this we see the complete takeover of the UFC by the NCAA wrestlers with the ground and pound style, just dominate the next several events. Good stuff.

Finally finished the December 1996 “Ultimate Ultimate’96” UFC last night, this show was the 3 year anniversary show of the UFC, the end of the no rules tournament era, and really the peak of old school UFC. This was another all-star tournament. They brought in Ken Shamrock, Don Frye, Tank, Kimo, Goodridge, and a few other tough vets for the best most stacked tourny they ever did. Mark Coleman was supposed to be in the tourny but got sick and had to pull out.

Shamrock comes back from the Severn/UFC IX debacle and redeems himself with probably his peak performance(his final UFC fight before signing with WWF a couple months later). Hes probably at his most jacked ever, and just mauls his opponent with ground and pound. He breaks his hand and has to back out of the rest of the tourny. Would have been amazing to see him in this form against Frye, Tank, or Coleman that night.

Frye ends up running the table to win his second tourny. He beats Tank in the finals in what has to be the best fight in UFC history up to this point, the first real fight where both guys stood their ground and went toe to toe standing up. To me though the MVP of this show was Tank. It was pretty much confirmed that Fryes second round fight vs Mark Hall was a fixed fight. So Frye had an unfair advantage vs Tank. Tank in his first round win tries to become the first guy to throw his opponent out of the Octagon in a wild win, then the second round has one of the greatest knockouts ever, then puts on an all time classic vs Frye in the finals.

This is an amazing old UFC event and must watch for fans of the UFC, true classic.

Up to Ultimate Ultimate 96(the first 3 years):

Greatest fights 
1. Tank Abbott vs Don Frye Ultimate Ultimate 96
2. Tank Abbott vs Oleg Taktarov UFC 6
3. Marco Ruas vs Paul Varelans UFC 7
4. Royce Gracie vs Kimo UFC 3
5. Royce Gracie vs Keith Hackney UFC 4
6. Mark Coleman vs Don Frye UFC 10
7. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
8. Tank Abbott vs Scott Ferrozo UFC 11
9. Kimo vs Paul Varelans Ultimate Ultimate 96
10. Don Frye vs Gary Goodridge II Ultimate Ultimate 96
11. Marco Ruas vs Remco Pardoel UFC 7
12. Steve Jennum vs Melton Bowen UFC 4

Ultimate Knockouts/Finishes
1. Gary Goodridge vs Paul Herrera UFC 8
2. Tank Abbott vs Steve Nelmark Ultimate Ultimate 96
3. Pat Smith vs Scott Morris UFC 2
4. Dave Beneteau vs Asbel Cancio UFC 5
5. Tank Abbott vs John Matua UFC 6
6. Gerrard Gordeau vs Telia Tuli UFC 1

Ultimate Submissions
1. Ken Shamrock vs Dan Severn UFC 6
2. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
3. Ken Shamrock vs Pat Smith UFC 1
4. Tank Abbott vs Steve Jennum Ultimate Ultimate 95
5. Dan Severn vs Joe Charles UFC 5
6. Royce Gracie vs Dan Severn UFC 4
7. Royce Gracie vs Ken Shamrock UFC 1

Greatest tournament performances
1. Tank Abbott Ultimate Ultimate 96
2. Mark Coleman UFC 10
3. Marco Ruas UFC 7
4. Dan Severn Ultimate Ultimate 95
5. Dan Severn UFC 5
6. Royce Gracie UFC 2
7. Tank Abbott UFC 6
8. Don Frye UFC 8
9. Don Frye Ultimate Ultimate 96
10. Royce Gracie UFC 4
11. Royce Gracie UFC 1
12. Pat Smith UFC 2
13. Mark Coleman UFC 11

Possible Worked Fights(with percentage of how sure I am it was a work)
Oleg Taktarov vs Anthony Macias UFC 6(100%, confirmed)
Don Frye vs Mark Hall II Ultimate Ultimate 96(100%, confirmed)
Royce Gracie vs Dan Severn UFC 4(50%)
Dan Severn vs Paul Varelans Ultimate Ultimate 95(90%)
Oleg Taktarov vs Dave Beneteau II Ultimate Ultimate 95(65%)

Updated this, this is complete for the first 3 years of the UFC, which you can encapsulate this perfectly into it's own era. This first 3 years from UFC 1 to the Ultimate Ultimate 96 it was no rules, no gloves, no weight classes, openweight tournaments where a guy had to win 3 fights in one night. One observation was just how strikingly often guys would tap out to panic/exhaustion, tap out to strikes, or tap out for being in a bad position. Guys like Gary Goodridge and Brian Johnson did it in multiple fights. 

Some more notes on my mind after watching through this era again now with old eyes: 

Poor Brian Johnson look at the guys he fought, Ken Shamrock, Mark Coleman, and Don Frye all in their primes, jesus christ. 

Pat Smith deserves recognition for his performance in UFC 2, the 16 man tournament, even though he lost(tapped out to strikes to Royce Gracie) in the finals, he still murdered 3 guys including one of the most gruesome knockouts in UFC history. 

Royce Gracie's UFC 2 performance was legit bad ass. He beat 2 jobbers in the first 2 rounds of the tournament but his submission win over 260 pound Remco Pardoel(that leg sweep takedown was awesome) and his win over Pat Smith were legit and he deserves all the credit in the world for winning those, beating 4 guys in one night is pretty amazing as a one time ever accomplishment in UFC history. He deserves legendary status while I feel like the current gen fans/UFC kind of discredit him and what he did for the sport, like it wasn't real or didn't really count, weird kinda. To me he's the all time legend Jim Thorpe of the UFC and somehow doesn't seem to get that level of respect. 

Mark Coleman UFC 10 performance really stands out to me after this watchthrough. Think about it, Don Frye fought 10 fights in the UFC with some of the toughest performances ever, the ultimate tough guy, and Coleman was the only guy that was able to beat him(not only did he beat him he put him in the emergency room). And he also beat Gary Goodridge and another jobber the same night, underrated tournament performance for sure. 

Tank Abbott to me is the MVP of this era. It bothers me that he lost in the finals of both of those tournaments to guys that got there by winning worked fights. At UFC 6 Oleg Taktarov won a worked fight in the semis to get to the finals and outsurvived Tank in a 30 minute war in high altitude to win it. Don Frye won a worked fight in the semis of Ultimate Ultimate 96 and then beat Tank in a war in the finals. Both fights Tank almost killed the guys that won, Oleg looked dead and was sent to the emergency room, Frye's face looked like hamburger meat. I feel like had Tank won these 2 tournaments maybe that glory would have pushed him to take the training and conditioning more seriously and his career would have been different. But he just settled into the role of the gatekeeper. He brought the violence. His performance in the Ultimate Ultimate 96 was just fucking wild, pure entertainment in all 3 fights, including the GOAT fight up to this point and arguably the ultimate knockout ever up to this point. To me he really defined this era of wild no rules fighting. He had technique also, he could wrestle, and he used philly shell boxing style to send Don Frye across the cage with that jab at the start of their fight(also used it against Steve Nelmark), the jab coming from the hip in that stance is legit. 

After this final show of 1996(the best show up to this point and perhaps one of the best UFC's ever still), here is how the sport started to change and lose it's whole vibe: 

UFC 12 they stopped doing the 8 man open weight tournaments, instead they would do 2 tournaments with 4 men each, a lightweight tourny and a heavyweight tourny. @ness mentioned in the King Of The Ring discussion recently in HOW how the whole deal lost it's vibe when they dropped from an 8 man to a 4 man tourny, same applies to these UFC tourny's the party was over and it just lost it's effect for a guy to win 2 fights instead of 3. 

UFC 15 I believe is when they started introducing a lot of the modern rules, no more headbutts, mandated gloves so no more bare fists. The whole UFC really lost it's vibe big time and it took a while for me and other fans to really get over this change. It was for the best, but still some type of magic was gone after that Ultimate Ultimate 96 tournament. That show was unbelievable. Never appreciated how good of a scrap the rematch between Frye vs Goodridge was in the first round, also the Kimo vs Varelans was a fun war. Then that show also had peak Shamrock, the 3 wild ass Tank fights including the epic vs Frye. UFC peaked there and it took several years to rebuild it's vibe into something else.

But Pride 1 happened just a few weeks prior to UFC 15 and started it's own vibe that carried the sport. To me Pride took that torch and kept that magic going with their own twist on it all. 

Sometime in 1998 the UFC dropped the tournaments altogether and just switched to the modern day format with a full fight card. There were some good shows in 1998 but this was when the sport was at it's lowest and almost dead, there were only 2-3 shows the whole year of 1998 I believe(one was in Brazil). The UFC came back strong in 1999 but it was all lower level bush league, all the big name stars were gone to Pride in Japan, there were a few good shows but it all had a minor league almost ECW level feel to it as the company was still trying to rebound from being nearly banned entirely. 

2000 the UFC hit rock bottom, it felt even lower level than ECW, like a regional indy fed was basically what it was. A lot of really bad shows that year. Zuffa bought them out in early 2001 and the rest is history. 

Whoops, accidentally edited this post with my final thoughts on 1997 damn, meant to just copy and paste

I honestly wasnt sure I wanted to keep watching these shows in chronological order once I got through the 1996 UFC events, but I'm glad I did. I made it through 1997 this week finishing up December's UFC Japan show tonight, I'm watching Randy Couture vs Maurice Smith UFC Heavyweight Championship now. I never realized or appreciated it at this scale/scope that I did on this rewatch just how much the sport evolved in 1997, it had to reinvent itself and find a new identity, and it did with Mark Kerr, Vitor Belfort, Randy Couture starting a new era where it all grew up and evolved into a legit sport. The Mark Coleman vs Maurice Smith fight at UFC 14 is such a huge pivotal moment in the evolution of the UFC and entire sport, to me this is the first modern MMA fight where it all came together. Even though it may not have aged all that great as a great fight, still with the stakes so high with the Heavyweight title on the line, you seen the sport grow up in a single fight where it all came together, all 3 fighting archetypes in one fight, the modern fitness and training/conditioning of Smith coming into play, this was big time.

Then a few days before UFC 15 everything changed with Pride 1 in Japan. I found some of my old Pride reviews I doubt the links still work anymore but I'm going to post what I got.

I wrote this review in 2016-2017 around the 20 year anniversary, sorry for all the broken links I may try to fix those:

Pride.1
October 11th 1997
Tokyo Dome(Tokyo Japan)

I've written a few reviews for Pride shows from their prime later years, Pride.25, Pride.26, Total Elimination 2003, and Bushido 1 all from 2003. Now that we are approaching the 20 year anniversary of the beginning of Pride, and the 10 year anniversary of it's demise, I figured I'd start reviewing the shows from the start. Pride 1 is a pretty historic landmark MMA event. It can't be stressed enough how critical the Japanese fight scene was to the overall rise of MMA, the sport was on it's ass in North America for so long, while it thrived in Japan as a world class presentation where top level fighters could make enough money to make something happen, open and finance gyms, quit their jobs and train full time, the infrastructure of North American MMA was built on Japanese MMA money. As far as Japanese MMA goes, Pride 1 was like Wrestlemania III.


You can't review Pride 1 without going over the backstory for the show, and it's a long winded backstory that goes back over 20 years before the show. The series of events that led to Pride 1 actually stretches back even further to Rikidozan and his top proteges Inoki and Baba. After the death of Rikidozan Inoki and Baba went their separate ways to start their own promotions, with Inoki starting NJPW and Baba starting AJPW. Baba's AJPW had access to top foreign stars that NJPW didn't, so they became the more popular promotion. Inoki had to resort to freak show "Wrestler vs Martial Artist" hybrid style special attraction matches, such as his infamous bout against Ali in 1976. Inoki vs Ali was a huge debacle but it gave NJPW a lot of recognition and was pivotal in the promotion's rise to popularity. Inoki took on other martial artists in mixed rules bouts in NJPW, including martial artists like Willie Williams, Willem Ruska. The concept of pro wrestling being it's own legit martial art being pitted against top ranked Judo, Karate, Boxing, and Kickboxing stars was a concept taken to the next level when some of the NJPW undercard wrestlers broke off to start UWF. Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Akira Maeda, Nobuhiko Takada, and the original Tiger Mask Satoru Sayama broke away from NJPW in the wake of a political controversy within the promotion, starting UWF in 1984. The first incarnation of UWF started out with more of a traditional pro wrestling style but eventually as ownership of the company changed hands they evolved into a much more realistic shoot style of wrestling based on the stuff they trained in the dojos, catch wrestling passed on to them from Karl Gotch.

^Antonio Inoki vs Karl Gotch, the original feud that New Japan was built on. Karl Gotch was a legit master shooter in submission wrestling, a student at "The Snake Pit" catch wrestling dojo in Wigan England. Gotch trained New Japan wrestlers in legit shoot style wrestling, one of his finest students was Yoshiaki Fujiwara. Fujiwara was Inoki's right hand man because of how legitimately dangerous he was, Fujiwara was in Inoki's corner for the fight against Ali. Later on Gotch and Fujiwara went to UWF and were influential in their move to more of a legit shoot style of wrestling product. Gotch and Fujiwara went on to start "Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi" in 1991 after the death of UWF Reborn. Gotch was instrumental in training Minoru Suzuki, Masakatsu Funaki, and Ken Shamrock, the trio that broke away from PWFG to start Pancrase in 1993 about a month before UFC 1.

The original UWF only had a small but diehard fanbase as most Japanese wrestling fans found the more realistic shoot style hard to digest. The original UWF fizzled out and died in 1985. In the aftermath Satoru Sayama went on to found Shooto, the first real MMA promotion. Shooto was designed by Sayama to be it's own fighting style, with a system of dojos all working together and competing against each in amateur(and later pro) competitions to refine their techniques. Shooto was a primitive form of MMA in the 1980's, starting out as a hybrid style of Karate and Judo, by the early 1990's they were incorporating more submissions and ground techniques. As Sayama gave up on the wrestling business to set up Shooto his UWF contemporaries Takada, Maeda, and Fujiwara all went back to New Japan for a huge UWF shooters vs NJPW angle. The UWF shooters exposed the realistic shoot style of wrestling to a much broader fanbase in NJPW in 1986-1987 through this invasion angle. Akira Maeda came out as the biggest star as they built up to a Maeda vs Inoki match that never happened due to the heat between the two. Maeda had the infamous showdown with Andre The Giant in 1986, then the "kick heard round the world" where he broke Riki Choshu's face in 1987 which bolstered his shooter gimmick and put him over with fans as a legit rogue bad ass.


Nobuhiko Takada also became super popular with Japanese wrestling fans through this angle as he often teamed with Maeda in tag team matches. Maed and Takada won the IWGP Tag Team Championship at some point during the angle. By 1988 Maeda and Takada broke off from NJPW again to restart a new UWF, this time it was a much bigger deal because of their run in NJPW in 86-87. The first Reborn UWF show in 1988 sold out in just 15 minutes. Every UWF show sold out in 1988, including a show at the Osaka Baseball Stadium. Maeda was the superstar of the promotion, being booked similarly to Inoki in the 70's facing off against martial artists in mixed style matches, taking on guys like Karate fighter Gerrard Gordeau, Sambo fighter Chris Dolman, and a match in 1989 against Judo master Willie Wilhelm. Maeda's match with Wilhelm set a record with 40,000 tickets sold in the first day they went on sale, eventually selling over 60,000 and drawing a live gate for the Tokyo Dome with $2.9 million, all records for pro wrestling at the time. The UWF realistic shoot hybrid style of pro wrestling was over like a motherfucker. Akira Maeda was one of the hottest tickets in Japanese wrestling, with Takada being built up to be just as hot. One of Takada's biggest wins in UWF was his victory over Bob Backlund. Takada was elevated into one of the biggest stars in UWF Reborn when Maeda put him over clean in one of their head to head matches.

^Akira Maeda vs Nobuhiko Takada in UWF Reborn. They wrestled each other countless times in the original UWF in 84-85, with Maeda winning every match. They also teamed together a lot in tag team matches in the original UWF, as well as in New Japan after the death of the original UWF where they won the IWGP Tag Team Championship together. To put it into context of how big it was for Takada to defeat Maeda clean in UWF, Maeda's total win/loss record in UWF Reborn from 1988 to 1990 is 26-3, two of those losses were to Nobuhiko Takada(the other one was to Fujiwara).

Even though business was strong the second UWF fell apart due to politics at the end of 1990. The "Three Emperors" of UWF, Fujiwara, Maeda, and Takada all went their separate ways and tried to keep the loyal fanbase alive by started their own vanity promotions built in the image of UWF. Maeda started Fighting Network Rings, Fujiwara started Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi(Suzuki, Funaki, and Ken Shamrock broke off from PWFG in 93 to start Pancrase), and Takada started UWFI, all three promotions launched around the same time in early 1991. Takada's UWFI was the most popular, even though it was straight up worked pro wrestling(shoot style) they claimed that it was 100% real, more real than any other Japanese pro wrestling promotion. Takada had big time matches in UWFI, such as his rematch against Bob Backlund, American wrestlers Dan Severn and Gary Albright, heavyweight boxer Trevor Berbick, and former Sumo champion Koji Kitao. UWFI followed something that the original UWF of 84-85 used in that they would issue boisterous challenges and grandstanding stunts to champions from other promotions to get their gimmick of authenticity over with the fans. UWFI made a challenge to New Japan champion Masa Chono at one point for him to face Takada. The big angle for UWFI was when they were able to bring WCW Champion Vader over for a huge match against Takada, with Takada winning by submission.

^One of Takada's biggest matches in UWFI was against WCW World Champion Vader in December 1993 in front of 46,000 fans in a Tokyo Baseball Stadium.

In 1994 UWFI issues a $1 million dollar challenge to all the champions around the world to enter their Best in the World tournament. This got a lot of press in Japan, Shinya Hashimoto the IWGP Champ from New Japan blasted UWFI in the media but never accepted their challenge. Genichiro Tenryu from WAR gave a public excuse for why he couldn't enter the tournament. Maeda from Rings put UWFI on the spot and challenged them back in a grandstanding stunt of their own. During all of this UWFI was making offers to Rickson Gracie, the baddest dude in the Gracie family with an urban legend fighting record of 400-0 in bareknuckle no rules matches. As the UFC tapes became a cult underground hit in Japan, Rickson Gracie became a hot commodity. Rings, Pancrase, and UWFI all began making offers for Rickson to come fight and put their promotion over as the premier bad ass fighting league on the planet Earth. UWFI came the closest to bringing Rickson over to face Takada but Rickson was ultimately turned off by the thought of doing a worked match, instead he opted to sign with Sayama's Shooto, setting up one of the biggest landmark events in Japanese MMA history at the Budokan on July 29th 1994, the "Vale Tudo Japan '94" tournament. This was the first ever full contact MMA event ever in Japan. This was basically Japan's UFC 1, except instead of Royce Gracie using it as an infomercial for Gracie Jujitsu, it was his half brother Rickson Gracie who ran the table and defeated 3 men in one night, further solidifying his aura of invincibility in Japan.


By October 1994 UWFI was making challenges to the Gracie family for either Royce or Rickson to come to Japan to face Takada in a cage match. The Gracie family got the inside scoop on UWFI from Sayama and wanted no part of their worked matches. By November 1994 UWFI was hosting press conferences where Takada Dojo/UWFI wrestler Yoji Anjo claimed he could beat Rickson Gracie in under 1 minute. In December 1994 UWFI took it one step further with the biggest grandstanding stunt of them all, sending Yoji Anjo to Rickson Gracie's dojo in California to challenge him to a fight! At approximately 11:10 AM on December 7th 1994 Anjo took a Japanese news film crew into Rickson's dojo unannounced and called Rickson out. The idea was that Rickson would turn the fight down and that it would make UWFI look strong but it backfired in their faces in the worst possible way. Rickson wasn't even in the gym that morning he was at home with his family. When his students called him to inform him that Anjo was there calling him out, Rickson immediately made his way there, taping his fists along the ride. When Rickson arrived he accepted Anjo's challenge and destroyed him for about 7 minutes before choking him out behind closed doors in front of about 20 of his students.

It was a punch to the gut for UWFI at a time when Pancrase, Rings, and Shooto were thriving. What made it look bad for UWFI was that Takada never showed any interest in getting revenge against Rickson for what he did. Meanwhile Rickson would return to Japan to win another Shooto hosted tournament in the Spring of 1995 when he again choked out 3 opponents in one night to win the Vale Tudo Japan '95 tournament(the subject of the excellent documentary, "Choke"). As UWFI struggled with sagging attendance they went to New Japan for a co-promotion angle, a pseudo invasion storyline that inspired the NWO angle in WCW. The UWFI vs New Japan storyline made huge bank. Takada eventually won the IWGP Championship during this angle and headlined 3 Tokyo Dome shows with crowds of over 54,000 in the span of six months. When it was said and done this turned out to be a disaster for UWFI as all of their top stars were jobbed out by submission to far less realistic pro wrestlers from New Japan. UWFI struggled through the later months of 1996, eventually holding their final show in December at the Korakuen Hall(the home arena for the original UWF).


One of the fat cats that bankrolled UWFI in it's final days was Hiromichi Momose. Momose along with a man named "Ishizaka"(Kim Dok Soo) were deeply intertwined with multiple factions of the Japanese Yakuza, these two men were part of the group of investors that put together "Kakutougi Revolutionary Spirits" in 1997 to promote the very first ever Pride event in the Tokyo Dome. The sole purpose of this event was to promote the dream match between Nobuhiko Takada vs Rickson Gracie, the fight that fans had been wanting to see for years. The event drew substantial attention from the media in Japan, with a crowd of 47,860 fans packing in to see the first ever martial arts event in the Tokyo Dome. The fight was also the first ever pay per view fight in Japan. The event itself was a major spectacle with a grandiose performance by a popular magician/music act in Japan, complete with a live tiger! To put it into context this event took place just about 6 days before UFC 15, which went down in front of a crowd of about 2,000 in a casino in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. I read in the Observer that Pride and UFC actually had some meetings in September 1997 where they agreed to help each other out(UFC was planning on debuting in Japan in December 97). Just a week after those meetings Pride stole away 2 key fighters from the UFC 15 card, including the main event challenger to the UFC Heavyweight Title.


Before we get to the matches there was 1 fight that was never put on the home video release, Igor Meindert a big 6-8 and 286 pound wrestler beat Hiroki Kurosawa in what was implied by the Observer to have been a worked match(a bad one), with Meindert winning in the third round by Tko/injury. As far as rules for this show they all vary from fight to fight, there is a kickboxing match on this card, as for the MMA fights they are wearing the standard modern day fingerless gloves, some fights have different rounds, knees and stomps to a grounded opponent were not legal yet, and there are no judges so if the fights go the distance they are automatically ruled a draw. Lets do this:


Kazunari Murakami vs John Dixson


This is one of those early Pride fights that is generally thought to have been a work. Watching it again for this review the only thing that looked obviously worked was the finish, the way Murakami takes the top position on the ground and punches Dixson to the body, then it's like Dixson gives him his arm for an armbar. Everything up to that point kind a looked like a shoot. I think it's possible this was not a work but most likely it was indeed a work. Either way it's nothing special, Murakami lands a pretty good Judo throw then takes the arm for the submission 95 seconds into the match.


Gary Goodridge vs Oleg Taktarov


This is a fight between UFC veterans. Gary Goodridge was originally signed on to fight in the UFC 15 heavyweight tournament on the October 17th, he was set to face Mark Kerr in the first round of the tournament but he was stolen away by Pride for this fight as they offered him $20,000 and he jumped on it. This fight takes place about 3 months after Gary Goodridge's ball squeezing incident at the first IVC show in Brazil(I reviewed that a few years ago). Oleg was the tough Russian Sambo master that won UFC 6 tournament with an epic fight against Tank Abbott, also lost in the semi finals of UFC 5 and the finals of the Ultimate Ultimate 95 tournaments, losing both fights to Dan Severn.


Oleg comes out and makes this a boxing match. He actually connects with some stiff punches that stun Goodridge early but Goodridge recovers and outbrawls Oleg, knocking him down with some wild flurries. Goodridge connects with a monster overhand punch that drops Oleg face first to the mats. Gary follows up with some scarry looking shots until the ref finally stops it at about 4:57. Pretty brutal knockout.

That knockout is dark comedy at it's finest, nothing really funny about a man getting concussed like that but the way he lands face down and then the kicker is the way the towel comes flying into the ring WAY too late, I can't help but laugh every time. It helps knowing that Oleg was just fine and went on to star in movies like Air Force One, 15 Minutes, Rollerball, Bad Boys 2, and countless other movies and tv shows. Pretty big win for Big Daddy Gary Goodridge though.


Renzo Gracie vs Akira Shoji


This was the best fight on this card. Renzo Gracie is Royce Gracie's cousin, not as much of a bad ass aura as Rickson but a little faster and more athletic than Royce. Renzo actually fought with more of a traditional boxing style stance and movement compared to the other Gracie fighters from back in the day. This fight always stood out to me because at one point Renzo lands a fucking perfect textbook hip heist sweep. I remember when me and my brother were getting ready for our first fights, we had like 6 days notice so I wanted to go over some basic Jujitsu stuff with my little bro so he wouldn't get embarrassed. He absolutely hated rolling around on the ground, as I was trying to teach him this sweep he threw up his hands and said fuck this bullshit, this shit will never work in a real fight. I actually learned this sweep from Renzo Gracie's instructional Jujitsu book(Mastering Jujitsu, great book co-authored by John Donaher).


I always use this fight as a reference to show the hip heist sweep in action because Renzo executes it perfectly here in this fight. What I noticed watching this fight on this go around was the beautiful way he sets it up using a high rubber guard with his right leg. He nails the sweep to take the top mount position but Shoji almost immediately escapes out the back door. Shoji shows a lot of character and emotion in this fight. He goes the full distance and they rule the fight as a draw. Honestly I think if I were a judge I would give the fight to Shoji, he lands some good leg kicks through the fight and just seemed much more active with offense. Just like Kimo and Yoshihisa Yammamoto, Akira Shoji is a made man here just for surviving against a Gracie the way he did.


Koji Kitao vs Nathan Jones


This is another fight that is generally thought to be a work, even in Meltzer's review of the show in the Observer. Kitao is a former Sumo champion in Japan and a veteran of UWFI worked matches. Kitao also wrestled in a tag match at Wrestlemania VII in 1991. Jones is a huge dude from Australia that also had a run in the WWE several years later, after I stopped watching WWE so I honestly don't know much about him. I do know that he's a really big bad ass looking dude. He comes out and throws some surprisingly athletic kicks, a spinning crescent kick that misses by a mile but still looked nice being thrown by such a big dude. Kitao ends up taking him down and finishing him with a top wristlock/keylock submission at just 2:14.


Kickboxing Bout:
Ralph White vs Branko Cikitic


This is a kickboxing rules match but they are wearing some really weird gloves, instead of boxing gloves they are wearing some really big open finger gloves like the ones Bruce Lee wears in the opening scenes of Enter The Dragon. Branko is a famous kickboxer that won the very first K-1 Grand Prix. I really don't know who Ralph White is but his cornerman here is Dale "Apollo" Cook, the trainer out of Oklahoma that was prominently featured in the Rickson Gracie "Choke" documentary where he cornered the guy that was fighting to fund his Olympic bobsled career.


This fight doesn't last long before White slips and falls down and Branko takes a cheap shot kick to the head while he's down. This results in a big scene where White's cornermen argue with the referees for several minutes while a huge knot swells on the side of White's head. The commentators for the show here are Bas Rutten and "The Fight Professor" Stephen Quadros and they really shine here, telling stories about Branko's wars with Don "The Dragon" Wilson where Branko was undefeated but Don knocked him out even after breaking both of his hands. They joke about the huge knot that swells on White's head, saying that it looks like something from a Sigourney Weaver movie, like there is an alien about to pop out of it. I'm fairly certain that Bas and Quadros' commentary for these early Pride shows was recorded in a studio several years after these shows actually happened. Their commentary during these early Pride shows is one of the highlights as they really talk about a lot of shit and have a certain chemistry together where it almost feels like an MMA version of Mystery Science Theater 3000. As for this fight they finally call it off as a no contest after only about 2 minutes.


Kimo vs Dan Severn


This fight has an interesting backstory to it because it was originally planned to be Kimo vs Tank Abbott. Tank got into some trouble with the law about a month before the fight and was not allowed to leave the country, so they pulled him and replaced him about 2 weeks out from the event with Dan Severn. Severn was set to fight Maurice Smith for the UFC Heavyweight Championship on the October 17th UFC 15 show. According to the Observer Pride offered Severn $40,000 to fight Kimo so he took it. Severn intended to fight in both shows just six days apart but he injured his hand in this fight and was unable to fight at the UFC show a week later. The UFC ended up asking a bunch of different guys to take Severn's place on just a day or two notice but the only one that would do it was Tank Abbott. Tank ended up fighting Mo Smith for the UFC title at UFC 15 on very short notice. So here with Goodridge and Severn you have Pride stealing away 2 of the UFC's biggest draws for their UFC 15 show with some huge money offers.


I remember when I bought this DVD back in the day this was the fight that I bought it for, and man what a disappointment it was. This is a dream fight between two of my favorite UFC fighter, when I seen this listed in the description for the DVD I marked out, surely this has to be an awesome fight but it turns out to be a total disaster. For the longest time I always considered this the worst fight in major league(Pride/UFC) MMA history. Watching it again here for this review I actually didn't find it to be that bad. It is definitely a shitty fight but I've seen more boring fights in modern day UFC. Bas and Quadros shit all over this fight on commentary, Quadros at one point calls it a marathon of inactivity. Both Severn and Kimo keep it standing for almost all of the fight but they just kind of throw really sloppy punches at each other, neither man ever really connects with anything, both guys fight with their hands down and lunge in towards each other with their chins high up in the air. A decent boxer would have knocked both of these guys out pretty easily here the striking is such amateur level. Finally at the end of the fight Severn lands a takedown and we get a small amount of action but it's too little too late, the fight ends in a draw. If I were to judge the fight I'd probably give it to Severn. Just to give you an idea of how much of a letdown this was the crowd was actually booing this fight at times, something that is rare for Japanese MMA crowds.


Nobuhiko Takada vs Rickson Gracie


This fight was the big one, the one that everybody paid to see. This is pretty much a 1997 version of CM Punk vs Mickey Gall, except way more of a mismatch. The story for this is that Takada actually went to USA to train with Bas Rutten for a short period of time, according to Bas he had white belts and blue belts that were tapping him out pretty easily. Prior to the fight they play the Brazilian national anthem while Rickson puts his hand over his heart and sings along to the Brazilian flag. Then we get a female singer come along to sing the Japanese national anthem. Yoji Anjo is there in Takada's corner for this. They talk on commentary about how Takada is the Hulk Hogan of Japan. They say that he is a wildly popular pro wrestler, then Stephen Quadros tells the story of Anjo storming Rickson's dojo as they wrap up the national anthems.

Takada comes out and circles around Rickson who just marches him down like a robot. This goes on for a solid minute as Takada runs circles around Rickson. Rickson lunges in with some sloppy straight punches that miss. Takada responds with a low kick that gets the Tokyo Dome all worked up into a frenzy. Rickson finally closes the distance with a straight push kick. They tie up in the ropes but the ref stops them and separates them for a restart. Rickson looks pissed about it. They tie up again but Takada kind of overpowers Rickson back to the center of the ring. Takada throws a knee to Rickson while he's down but Rickson scoops him up and slams the shit out of him. Rickson immediately moves into the full mount and starts to ground and pound Takada. Rickson sets up the armbar and finishes it with the submission at about 4:47. The Gracie family celebrates in the ring as the show closes, Rickson is presented a huge trophy and celebrates with his sons. I read in the Observer that they did a weird pro wrestling style set up after the fight where a Marco Ruas representative came into the ring and challenged Rickson to fight Marco, nothing ever became of it though as they never fought.


So that is Pride 1. Not a very good show at all but still hugely important for Japanese MMA as it was the beginning of something really special. This show was enough of a success that KRS financed some follow up Pride shows, they just kept building from show to show until Pride was bigger than anything else in Japan or anywhere else in the world. UFC compared to Pride was like ECW compared to WWF in the 90's to put it into perspective how much bigger of a deal Pride was in the grand scheme of MMA. Pride was truly the Super Bowl of martial arts, they swallowed up all the best fighters from Shooto, Rings, Pancrase, UFC, K-1, and even pro wrestling, as much as it grew throughout it's decade of existence, it never really wandered off too far from it's roots in Pro Wrestling. Something that was said to describe Pride in the Japanese book "Pride: Secret Files" was that Pride was a "dream stage" where the strongest pro wrestlers from Japan could test their might against the best fighters and martial artists around the world. That was pretty much what Inoki's fights against Ali was, that was pretty much what UWF was, and it was exactly what Pride was here starting with the first show. Pride would eventually grow into what UWF would have been had it not died in 1990. This was just the beginning.

Made it through the 1997 shows, UFC 12, 13, 14, 15, and Ultimate Japan. Already alluded to this in the previous post but the UFC really had to reinvent itself and evolve in 1997, the old days were dead and gone by December 1996's Ultimate Ultimate 1996 event, that was a definitive end of an era show. The 8 man tournaments were gone, Ken Shamrock was gone, Don Frye was gone, now you had weight classes, by UFC 15 you had all of the modern day rules in place. You had the rise of new stars that were the new generation of the sport, Randy Couture, Mark Kerr, Vitor Belfort, Tito Ortiz, and by the final show in Japan in December we got the debut of what to me was really the prototype modern day MMA fighter; Frank Shamrock, somebody who was about 8-10 years ahead of their time in 1997 in MMA.

UFC 12 was the beginning of a new era. You could split the eras of the UFC up from 1993 to 1996, from 1997 to 2000, from 2001 to 2004, then from 2005 to whenever the UFC started to branch off of Spike TV onto premium cable channels 2009-2010ish(maybe UFC 100 was the pinnacle of that era). But it was very cool to watch through this evolution of the sport that it went through in 1997, when the UFC had it's back against the wall and was fighting just to survive being outlawed across the nation and taken off of PPV. UFC 12 had the debut of The Phenom Vitor Belfort with some of the best boxing/punching speed the UFC had ever seen yet. UFC 13 seen the debut of Tito Ortiz and master strategist Randy Couture. You also seen the takeover of the powerhouse NCAA wrestlers by UFC 14 with Mark Kerr and Kevin Jackson winning the middleweight and heavyweight tournaments.

UFC 14 they really had to do some selling to push Maurice Smith as a worthy challenger to Mark Coleman's title. He had a losing record of 5-7 in MMA at this point, had lost some key kickboxing bouts, was basically a mid-card jobber in Pancrase with losses to Shamrock and Rutten, but they made him out to be like an all time legend on the PPV. I've already sold the Coleman vs Smith fight as an all time classic in an above post.

UFC 15 takes place just days after Pride 1 and even though Pride screwed this show over by stealing away Severn and Goodridge, this was really a phenomenal show and I appreciate it much more after watching it today(it was a far better show than Pride 1). This was a really modern feeling show where the UFC felt like it had grown up. All of the modern day rules were in place for this show, gloves were now mandatory, the only thing that hadn't taken place yet was the institution of rounds. But there were some very modern feeling fights here compared to the events before this. Dave Beneteau vs Carlos Barretto is a highly underrated classic that I really enjoyed revisiting today. That was a war that had just about everything including a hot crowd throughout the fight. Randy Couture upsetting Vitor Belfort in that fight will never get old, using strategy to beat the younger, faster, more athletic fighter is really what the sport is all about. Then I always appreciated Tank Abbott stepping in to take on Maurice Smith on like 5 days notice, and he fought really well before tapping out to exhaustion in his lone heavyweight title shot ever.


Up to UFC Ultimate Japan '97(the first 4 years of the UFC, 1993 to 1997):

Greatest fights
1. Tank Abbott vs Don Frye Ultimate Ultimate 96
2. Maurice Smith vs Mark Coleman UFC 14
3. Tank Abbott vs Oleg Taktarov UFC 6
4. Marco Ruas vs Paul Varelans UFC 7
5. Royce Gracie vs Kimo UFC 3
6. Dave Beneteau vs Carlos Barreto UFC 15
7. Randy Couture vs Vitor Belfort UFC 15
8. Royce Gracie vs Keith Hackney UFC 4
9. Mark Coleman vs Don Frye UFC 10
10. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
11. Tank Abbott vs Scott Ferrozo UFC 11
12. Kimo vs Paul Varelans Ultimate Ultimate 96
13. Don Frye vs Gary Goodridge II Ultimate Ultimate 96
14. Marco Ruas vs Remco Pardoel UFC 7
15. Tito Ortiz vs Guy Mezger UFC 13
16. Steve Jennum vs Melton Bowen UFC 4

Ultimate Knockouts/Finishes
1. Gary Goodridge vs Paul Herrera UFC 8
2. Tank Abbott vs Steve Nelmark Ultimate Ultimate 96
3. Pat Smith vs Scott Morris UFC 2
4. Dave Beneteau vs Asbel Cancio UFC 5
5. Tank Abbott vs John Matua UFC 6
6./7. Vitor Belfort vs Tra Telligman/Scott Ferrozzo UFC 12
8. Mark Kerr vs Gret Stott UFC 15
9. Gerrard Gordeau vs Telia Tuli UFC 1
10. Tito Ortiz vs Wes Albritton UFC 13

Ultimate Submissions
1. Ken Shamrock vs Dan Severn UFC 6
2. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
3. Ken Shamrock vs Pat Smith UFC 1
4. Frank Shamrock vs Kevin Jackson Ultimate Japan
5. Tank Abbott vs Steve Jennum Ultimate Ultimate 95
6. Dan Severn vs Joe Charles UFC 5
7. Royce Gracie vs Dan Severn UFC 4
8. Royce Gracie vs Ken Shamrock UFC 1
9. Kazushi Sakuraba vs Connan Silveira Ultimate Japan
10. Guy Mezger vs Tito Ortiz UFC 13
11. Enson Inoue vs Royce Alger UFC 13

Greatest tournament performances
1. Tank Abbott Ultimate Ultimate 96
2. Mark Coleman UFC 10
3. Marco Ruas UFC 7
4. Dan Severn Ultimate Ultimate 95
5. Vitor Belfort UFC 12
6. Dan Severn UFC 5
7. Royce Gracie UFC 2
8. Tank Abbott UFC 6
9. Don Frye UFC 8
10. Don Frye Ultimate Ultimate 96
11. Randy Couture UFC 13
12. Royce Gracie UFC 4
13. Kevin Jackson UFC 14
14/15. Mark Kerr UFC 14/UFC 15
16. Royce Gracie UFC 1
17. Pat Smith UFC 2
18. Mark Coleman UFC 11

Also just loving all of the extras here on these Fight Pass versions, all kinds of stuff that was cut out of these shows on the VHS tapes that I have that I grew up watching, including alternate fights, vignettes, etc.

For UFC 14 they go through a recap of the two weight classes who the top contenders were, saying that Don Frye was doing pro wrestling in Japan but was planning on returning in January 1998(he never did fight in the UFC again), also that they were negotiating to bring Marco Ruas back at UFC 15.

Also after watching Mark Kerr interviews at UFC 14-15, im having an extremely hard time imagining The Rock pulling the role of Kerr off in the role of his upcoming movie. Kerr had a really high pitched almost mousy, articulate voice that I cant picture The Rock pulling off without it being comical.

Getting into 1998 this morning just finished UFC 16 from March of 98. There were only 3 UFC events this year as they were just about shut down by the government, banned just about everywhere and kicked off of most PPV providers, so you only had UFC 16 in March, UFC 17 in May I believe, then Ultimate Brazil later in the year in October and that was it. But all 3 shows were really good, the sport continued to evolve and step up and grow into it's own after a transition period in 1997. You can spot Dave Meltzer cageside for this show as I believe he was one of the judges for the event and he raved about this show as one of the best in UFC history in his writeup for the Observer. It was a very solid show and so interesting to see how the sport had evolved so much just since the 1996/early 1997 era up to this point. But I feel like it wasn't quite as good as UFC 15, which had some classics and the Mark Kerr knockout(with the Just Bleed guy moment=epic). 

UFC 16 was really good. You had the debut of the Welterweight 170 pound weight class with Pat Militich winning the 4 man tournament. This has to be the most underwhelming tournament performance of any of the winners up to this point. Mikey Burnett from Ken Shamrock's Lions Den steals the show in this tourny with his finish of Eugenio Tadeo in their quarterfinal match but withdraws from the finals with a broken hand. Militich wins it with 2 pretty underwhelming fights.

But the rest of the card was nice. Olympic Gold medalist Kevin Jackson loses via armbar again to another Lions Den guy Jerry Bohlander in a good fight, then they brought back Kimo who loses to Rings fighter Tsuyoshi Kohsaka. Then the main event you get one of the best finishes ever with Frank Shamrock knocking out Igor Zinoviev with a slam in 24 seconds. So Frank is the man in the UFC at this point, he was smaller than his older brother Ken but was so much better at everything, so much more dynamic, he was like taking a MMA fighter from 2008 back in time to 1998, way ahead of his time. So far up to this point he wins the Light Heavyweight title in his debut at UFC Japan with an armbar in 21 seconds then defends it here in his second fight with a slam knockout in 24 seconds against a guy that would go on to become Jeffrey Epstein's bodyguard. What a phenom.



It's interesting at this point that Frank is the new face of the company, Randy Couture was the Heavyweight Champion but doesn't fight at all in 1998 after a contract dispute he goes on and loses some fights in Japan in Rings around this time. Vitor Belfort after blazing onto the scene at UFC 12 and 13 loses the upset to Couture at UFC 15 and wins a pretty underwhelming fight over a jobber in Japan so his star had already kind of fizzled out that fast. Mark Kerr was also gone after UFC 15, while guys like Ken Shamrock and Don Frye were gone for good, while Mark Coleman struggles to bounce back from his loss to Maurice Smith is out for over a year but is set to comeback at UFC 17. So the UFC is transitioning into Frank Shamrock being the face of the company while pretty much being blacked out on PPV and banned everywhere.

Up to UFC 16(March 1998):

Greatest fights
1. Tank Abbott vs Don Frye Ultimate Ultimate 96
2. Maurice Smith vs Mark Coleman UFC 14
3. Tank Abbott vs Oleg Taktarov UFC 6
4. Marco Ruas vs Paul Varelans UFC 7
5. Royce Gracie vs Kimo UFC 3
6. Dave Beneteau vs Carlos Barreto UFC 15
7. Randy Couture vs Vitor Belfort UFC 15
8. Royce Gracie vs Keith Hackney UFC 4
9. Mark Coleman vs Don Frye UFC 10
10. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
11. Tank Abbott vs Scott Ferrozo UFC 11
12. Kimo vs Paul Varelans Ultimate Ultimate 96
13. Don Frye vs Gary Goodridge II Ultimate Ultimate 96
14. Marco Ruas vs Remco Pardoel UFC 7
15. Tito Ortiz vs Guy Mezger UFC 13
16. Steve Jennum vs Melton Bowen UFC 4

Ultimate Knockouts/Finishes
1. Gary Goodridge vs Paul Herrera UFC 8
2. Frank Shamrock vs Igor Zinoviev UFC 16
3. Tank Abbott vs Steve Nelmark Ultimate Ultimate 96
4. Pat Smith vs Scott Morris UFC 2
5. Dave Beneteau vs Asbel Cancio UFC 5
6. Tank Abbott vs John Matua UFC 6
7./8. Vitor Belfort vs Tra Telligman/Scott Ferrozzo UFC 12
9. Mark Kerr vs Gret Stott UFC 15
10. Gerrard Gordeau vs Telia Tuli UFC 1
11. Tito Ortiz vs Wes Albritton UFC 13

Ultimate Submissions
1. Ken Shamrock vs Dan Severn UFC 6
2. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
3. Ken Shamrock vs Pat Smith UFC 1
4. Frank Shamrock vs Kevin Jackson Ultimate Japan
5. Tank Abbott vs Steve Jennum Ultimate Ultimate 95
6. Dan Severn vs Joe Charles UFC 5
7. Royce Gracie vs Dan Severn UFC 4
8. Royce Gracie vs Ken Shamrock UFC 1
9. Kazushi Sakuraba vs Connan Silveira Ultimate Japan
10. Guy Mezger vs Tito Ortiz UFC 13
11. Enson Inoue vs Royce Alger UFC 13

Greatest tournament performances
1. Tank Abbott Ultimate Ultimate 96
2. Mark Coleman UFC 10
3. Marco Ruas UFC 7
4. Dan Severn Ultimate Ultimate 95
5. Vitor Belfort UFC 12
6. Dan Severn UFC 5
7. Royce Gracie UFC 2
8. Tank Abbott UFC 6
9. Don Frye UFC 8
10. Don Frye Ultimate Ultimate 96
11. Randy Couture UFC 13
12. Royce Gracie UFC 4
13. Kevin Jackson UFC 14
14/15. Mark Kerr UFC 14/UFC 15
16. Royce Gracie UFC 1
17. Pat Smith UFC 2
18. Mark Coleman UFC 11
19. Pat Miletich UFC 16

Wrote this around 2017 and was able to save it, sorry for any broken links:

Pride.2
March 15th, 1998
Yokohama Arena(Yokohama, Japan)

Here we go with Pride 2, which at the time was officially called "KRS Pride Two". KRS was "Kakutougi Revolutionary Spirits", the parent company that financed the first Pride event in the Tokyo Dome. Some of the key figures in KRS were Hiromichi Momose and a somewhat mysterious character named "Ishizaka"(Kim Dok Soo), also Nobuyuki Sakakibara was involved with KRS in some capacity. All three men were neck deep in the Yakuza, with Momose having connections with Takada and UWFI in their dying days in 1996 and being one of the main guys that put the first Pride events together. KRS was successful in promoting Pride 1 with over 45,000 in the Tokyo Dome and decent enough business on Japanese PPV that they decided to keep promoting these events. The big thing they were trying to work their way towards for later 1998 was a Rickson Gracie vs Nobuhiko Takada revenge match at the Tokyo Dome, which I believe had already been announced for October 98 before this show even took place.


One of the major things about this show is the Pride debut of Kazushi Sakuraba. Sakuraba was one of the undercard pro wrestlers in UWFI(and later Kingdom Pro Wrestling with all of the UWFI cast offs after UWFI went out of business in December 96), a student at the Takada Dojo where he trained under Billy Robinson along with names like Kiyoshi Tamura, Hiromitsu Kanehara, Yoji Anjo, Kazuo Yamazaki among others. Sakuraba made a splash in the MMA when he was a late minute fill in for the 4 man heavyweight tournament at the UFC Ultimate Japan show in December 1997. They threw Sakuraba into a fight against the 250 pound Gracie Jujitsu black belt "Connan" Silveira. The referee Big John McCarthy was instructed by Japanese UFC promoters and matchmakers to try to protect Sakuraba from taking too much damage since he was just a small 190 pound pro wrestler. So in the fight as Connan went after Sakuraba with punches, Big John prematurely stopped the fight as Sakuraba dropped levels to shoot for a takedown. This caused a huge scene where Sakuraba tried to take the microphone from Bruce Buffer to protest the stoppage. They ended up working it out backstage for an immediate rematch later on that same night, in the finals of the 4 man tournament after the winner of the other match(Tank Abbott) backed out of the finals with a broke hand. So they set Sakuraba up against Connan again later that night and Sakuraba tapped him out and almost broke his arm in under 4 minutes. After the event at the press conference Sakuraba said his famous quote, "In fact, pro wrestling is quite strong" in response to the news headlines "Pro Wrestling Is Weak" in Japan in the wake of Takada's loss to Rickson Gracie two months prior at Pride 1.

^Sakuraba in action in UWFI wrestling Bad News Allen on the undercard of the Takada vs Vader event in December 1993

^Pretty sweet video chronicling Sakuraba's break out night at UFC Ultimate Japan 97 in December that year. They used Sakuraba and Yoji Anjo in that tournament because they were cheap local fillers from the Kingdom Pro Wrestling shoot wrestling promotion. Connan Silveira was a guy they had high hopes for in the fledgling heavyweight division, he outweighed Sakuraba by roughly 50 pounds and was a black belt in Jujitsu under Carlson Gracie. Sakuraba proved that night that real pro wrestling, the style that was passed on to him by Karl Gotch and Billy Robinson, was indeed a legitimate martial art that should be respected. It was such a huge huge victory for pro wrestling after Takada was embarrassed by Rickson Gracie a few months prior at Pride.1.

The big story about this show was that it was supposed to be Royce Gracie vs Mark Kerr in January 1998 but Royce backed out of the fight at the last minute. This forced Pride to cancel the entire show and move it back two months with a new opponent for Kerr. They replaced Royce with Branko Cikitic, a Croatian kickboxer that was somewhat of a star for K-1(won the first ever K-1 Grand Prix in 1993). Kerr himself was a true monster for the time, coming off of dominant wins in the UFC 14 and UFC 15 heavyweight tournaments where he just looked absolutely invincible. Pride signing Mark Kerr for $90,000 to come fight at Pride 2. This got Kerr into some hot water with the UFC. UFC sued Mark Kerr for taking the fight but they settled out of court, the end result was that Kerr was never brought back to the UFC. So with the first Pride show they stole Dan Severn and Gary Goodridge from the UFC 15 pay per view(which took place 6 days after Pride 1), and here now with Pride 2 they have taken what was sure to be the UFC's biggest heavyweight attraction they probably ever could have had(at least up to that point). Not to mention Sakuraba, who made his name at the UFC tournament in December 97 and could have been a major factor in the UFC's (failed)attempt to break into Japan.


According to the Observer the announced attendance for this show was 11,860 but it was an inflated number, the real attendance was closer to around 5,600 with the paid attendance being around 3,000. The rules of this event vary from fight to fight. Some fights have no rounds, some fights have 10 minute rounds, some fights are fought under kickboxing rules. I believe that none of these fights had any type of time limit so the fights with rounds were set with an infinite amount of rounds, which results in some pretty long and boring fights and one hell of a sleepy show. There are no big introductions or fighter intros for these shows yet, we just open up with the fighters in the ring for the opening fight.


Royler Gracie vs Naoki Sano


Royler Gracie is the younger brother of Rickson and Royce Gracie. He's only fought 2 other MMA fights up to this point but he's won a few Brazilian Jujitsu World Championships. Naoki Sano is a pro wrestler from New Japan and SWS, he wrestled some critically acclaimed matches against Jushin Liger, [URL="http://"]including the WON Match of the Year for 1990[/URL]. He also wrestled a fucking excellent shoot style pro wrestling match against Wayne Shamrock in Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi in 1991, probably one of the best shoot style wrestling matches I've ever seen. Sano eventually jumped to Takada's UWFI and trained at the Takada Dojo, I believe he was a part of the UWFI contingency that invaded New Japan during that co-promotion angle in 1995.


Sano outweighs Royler by roughly 50 pounds here. Takada is in Sano's corner and Rickson is in Royler's corner, and they constantly show their faces on camera throughout the fight to build up their rivalry. I get a kick out of Stephen Quadros(commentator) calling Takada the Hulk Hogan of Japan. There is no time limit or rounds for this. This fight is a long slow grind that a normal person would probably find to be super boring. I've always kind of had a thing for these no time limit Gracie fights through because of the strategy at work, this fight is a great example of it. Royler uses some pretty beautiful open/butterfly guard work throughout this fight, including a nice butterfly sweep early on. Royler takes the full mount pretty quick but Sano is able to overpower him to turn him over. Nothing really happens for like 20 minutes of this fight, Sano's strategy here is pretty bizarre as he NEVER throws a single strike and he never tries to go for any submissions. I'm not sure but I'm assuming there was a deal made to make up for the 50 pound weight difference, I don't think Sano was allowed to throw any strikes. Sano's whole gameplan here looks to be just to survive.


The crowd chants for Sano early on but as the action stalls out they go completely silent. Royler never throws any strikes until the final minutes, he pretty much just smothers Sano with a constant grappling attack for the early parts, just wearing him down by constantly working to advance his position. What makes up for the lack of action in this fight is the commentary by Quadros and Rutten. To me they are the best commentary duo in the history of MMA, they are so informative and educative, they don't really try to hype or sell anything it's more like two friends relaxing and watching fights together, but they are just absolutely loaded with knowledge about combat sports and pretty funny too. Royler's strategy here is to just wear Sano out with grappling, taking the full mount and grinding his forearm into Sano's throat. This fight goes over 30 minutes with very little happening until the final minutes. Royler opens up and destroys Sano with strikes and upkicks fro the bottom, bloodying his nose. Royler turns up the offense slowly and gradually through the fight, finally after 33 minutes Sano is completely exhausted and bloodied, Royler overpowers the bigger man to take the full mount and snatch his arm for an armbar submission at 33:14.


Akira Shoji vs Juan Mott


Shoji is coming off of a pretty good performance against Renzo Gracie in a draw at Pride 1. Juan Mott is a Brazilian that I don't know much about. These guys circle around each other throwing low kicks for a while before Shoji uses a jab to close the distance and clinch up to take the fight to the ground with a leg trip. Shoji lands in the full mount. Mott tries to make a move but Shoji keeps his position and takes his back, sinking in the rear choke for the tapout at 3:47.


Kickboxing Bout:
William Van Roosmalen vs Ralph White


This is a standard kickboxing rules match but they are wearing the Bruce Lee Enter The Dragon gloves with open fingers. The fight is split up into 3 minute rounds. Roosmalen is a dutch kickboxer with a flabby physique. Some pretty decent striking technique from both guys in this fight, nice low kicks, clean punches and some good clinch work. Nothing really special about the early rounds as both guys fight somewhat conservatively. Roosmalen starts to really chop White's legs with low kicks in the 3rd round. The finish comes when Roosmalen nails White with a knee to the chest in the clinch. White drops for the full 10 count, Roosmalen wins by KO in round 4. Not a bad kickboxing match at all.


Kazushi Sakuraba vs Vernon White


Here we have a UWFI vs Pancrase matchup as Sakuraba is a vet from UWFI and Vernon White was a regular guy in Pancrase who has fought Suzuki and Funaki multiple times(beat Suzuki by decision in 1996). White is from Ken Shamrock's Lions Den. Something interesting that was going on during late 97 as the UFC was actually trying to make a deal with WWF to allow Ken Shamrock to fight Nobuhiko Takada at the UFC Ultimate Japan '97 event that December(similar to what happened with Brock Lesnar for UFC 200 last Summer). They were in serious talks to make it happen but I believe Vince Mcmahon backed out of it and called it off. So with this fight you have UWFI vs Pancrase but also Takada Dojo vs Lions Den. This is only Sakuraba's 3rd MMA fight while it's Vernon White's 31st fight(though he had a losing record of 11-20, he was pretty much a jobber in in the early days of Pancrase).


This is a really really good fight. Vernon White comes out and lands a big punch early but Sakuraba kind of rolls with it and immediately drops down to take a single leg takedown. Some pretty good scrambles on the ground here in this first round, Sakuraba goes for a lot of double wrist locks and almost catches a straight armbar later on but Vernon White gets out of it. This feels like a worked match, similar to a worked Pancrase or PWFG match where it's not necessarily choreographed or anything, it's a stiff intensity to where they are really going for the submissions but there isn't this sense that they are trying to kill each other like what you get in a real fight, it feels like what goes down in a dojo training sparring session. Some of the strikes Vernon lands are stiff but no more stiff than some of the shots you would see in shoot wrestling matches in PWFG/Rings/UWFI matches from the early 90's. One particular spot comes near the end of the first round where Vernon takes Sakuraba's back, he's wide open to just destroy him with strikes but it's like he hesitates and throws a pulled punch before giving up the position and standing up.


The fight is split up into 10 minute rounds. The second round Vernon comes out with some pretty stiff doubled up jabs that pop Sakuraba in the face. They take it to the ground pretty quick. Both guys land some pretty light ground and pound strikes. Pretty good spot there where Vernon takes Sakuraba's back standing and Sakuraba catches his arm with a reverse double wrist lock, with a roll that spins Vernon to the mat. They tie up in a weird position with their legs tangled up as Sakuraba has the double wrist lock on the ground. In the third round they both come out trading kicks to the legs and body. Sakuraba takes Vernon down and mounts him. They go back and forth with some good escapes and counters until Sakuraba catches Vernon's arm and cranks it with the cross armbreaker.

I really think this fight was a worked shoot style wrestling match, the way they hit each other with the strikes. I'm not going to rule out the possibility that this was a legit shoot but from what I've seen, this really felt like a PWFG or UWFI match, with just enough stiff strikes to make it look legit. There were multiple times where they could have taken each other out where they didn't, even the finish Sakuraba could have probably broken Vernon's arm but he kind of held back with it. I don't know but I'm leaning towards a work here, a very good one, probably 3 & 3/4 Stars. Some damn good technique here from both guys even if it was a work, some legit scientific mat wrestling on display.


Renzo Gracie vs Sinae Kikuta


Kikuta trained at one of Satoru Sayama's gyms when he was in the 6th grade, he was a really good Judoka, he also trained in the NJPW dojo and at times trained with the UWFI and Rings gyms. Years later after this fight Kikuta would have a lot of success in Pancrase and the ADCC grappling competition, he was also the founder of the Grabaka gym in Tokyo which produced a lot of talented MMA/grappling fighters. As far as Kikuta's fights in Pride go he is absolutely one of the most boring fighters of all time. This fight is set up with unlimited 10 minute rounds, going into the 6th round with 50:43 minutes of fighting with very little action at all. Most of this fight Kikuta spends laying in Renzo's guard just holding him. The commentators bring up some interesting points during this fight about the aura that the Gracie family had at this time, there was a certain fear of the unknown when it came to the Gracie's. A lot of fighters were just scared to do anything in their fights against them, it was considered a victory just to survive.


The first two rounds of this fight are not that bad. There is some decent action as they fight in the clinch, Renzo even lands a pretty nice left jab early in the 2nd round. Very little happens in round 3 or 4 other than the scrambles in the clinch at the beginning of the rounds. Once they take it to the mats Kikuta just lays on Renzo trying not to get swept or submitted. Early in the 5th round Renzo catches Kikuta in a standing guillotine and lands some great knees right on the nose. Once Renzo tries to drop down and sink in the choke Kikuta slips his head out and we are right back to the stalemate in the guard. Renzo lands light punches from his back to try to get Kikuta to do something but he won't budge. The finish comes early in the 6th round as Kikuta scrambles to take it back down, Renzo sinks in a guillotine with the arm in, forcing the submission for the win. Bas and Quadros are thanking god that it's finally over. Gracie Jujitsu wins again.


Kickboxing Bout:
Tasis Petridis vs George Randolph


Another Enter The Dragon gloves kickboxing bout. Randolph is a big 6' 6" guy that towers over Petridis, but Randoph is the much better striker. So you got like a David vs Goliath. I don't know anything about either of these guys but Quadros talks about some of Petridis' opponents, Rob Kamen, Manson Gibson. Petridis is also Australian according to Quadros on commentary. This is actually a good match as Randoph just constantly advances forward trying to use his size advantage. Petridis lands some really good combos to set up his kicks. The longer the fight goes the more and more Petridis picks Randoph apart, landing a huge right hand and an uppercut to the body early in the 4th round that hurts him. The big man just won't go down though, he ends up grinding this out to go the full 5 rounds. Tasis wins a decision. Pretty fun fight.


Gary Goodridge vs Marco Ruas


One of the main things that drew me to Pride was how they would put together these types of fights that should have happened in the UFC. This was something they would later do with Rings and Shooto fighters in the early 2000's. Another UFC dream match put together here by Pride as UFC 7 tournament champion takes on UFC 8 finalist, "Big Daddy" Gary Goodridge, who after losing his last couple of UFC fights kind of started a career resurgence in 1997, winning the IVC 1 tournament in Brazil followed by the brutal knockout of UFC 6 champ Oleg Taktarov at Pride 1. Now Goodridge gets his chance to knockout another UFC tournament champ. Marco Ruas has his young protege Pedro Rizzo in his corner for this one. This is a damn good fight. A great camera shot happens early in the fight as Goodridge backs Ruas into the corner of the ring and just unloads with a furious flurry of punches, just the way the camera angle catches it, the positioning in the ring, you don't get these kind of shots/moments in the UFC cage fights. Ruas survives and flips Goodridge to the ground after a clinch. Goodridge takes the top side mount position. We get a little color with a cut in the corner of Ruas' eye from Goodridge's flurry of strikes earlier.


Goodridge manages to posture up in the half guard and drop some ridiculously heavy punches, even without any real leverage Goodridge drops such heavy bombs just with pure arm strength. Ruas survives and works his way to the full guard but Goodridge starts cranking on his neck. Ruas pushes out of the neck crank and works some really good wrist and bicep control to nullify any type of offense. You can see Goodridge's gas tank start to run out here as Ruas is working some really good Jujitsu from his back, constantly trapping the wrists and making him work. The end of this fight works out like a pro wrestling match as they take it back to the standing position, Gary goes after Ruas with murderous punches in the corner. Ruas evades Goodridge's strikes and causes him to slip. Goodridge scrambles back up and sells the knees. Ruas ties up with him and gets flung to the mats but Ruas goes right after his hurt knee and wins it with a heel hook to force the tap at 9 minutes. The battle for the heel hook was a pretty sweet looking spot. Great fight.

Mark Kerr vs Branko Cikitic


Mark Kerr if you've never seen him is quite a specimen, he's about 255 pounds with like maybe 2% bodyfat, a NCAA Division 1 Champion at Syracuse, he's coming off of 2 UFC tournament wins going into this fight, he's pretty much the Brock Lesnar of 1997 MMA except he was undefeated. Kerr was on track to becoming the biggest star in the UFC until Pride stole him away for this fight, which more or less ended Kerr's UFC career after a lawsuit. This is a pretty pure grappler vs striker match here as Branko is a K-1 kickboxer. Kerr has Bas Rutten in his corner for this, he also looks a lot more slimmed down compared to his previous fights before this one. Something that gives away the commentary being recorded after the fact is that Bas is shown on camera cornering Kerr while also talking on commentary at the same time.

This fight turns out to be a huge debacle as Kerr shoots in with such a beautiful double leg takedown only for Branko to cling to the ropes with a death grip while dropping downward elbows into the back of Kerr's head. Holding the ropes is illegal in Pride so the referees stop the fight and restart it standing. They restart the fight and the same thing happens, only this time Kerr goes crazy berserk mode and starts wailing away at Branko while the referees are trying to pull them apart. The fight gets called off and Branko gets disqualified for holding the ropes. The crowd is furious about it. Kerr cuts a promo saying that he's sorry and he wanted to make a good first impression for his Japan debut.


So that's Pride 2. The kickboxing bouts were ok, Sakuraba vs Vernon White and Ruas vs Goodridge were both really good but for the most part this was one long sleepy ass show that will knock you right out on the couch on a lazy afternoon. You can start to see with this show how KRS was losing money, paying Kerr $90,000 for a fight that turned out to be a disaster and sent the crowd home pissed off. I don't think I would recommend this whole show to somebody that is curious about Pride but I still kind of liked it, some good fights and even the boring fights were interesting to watch just for Quadros and Rutten's commentary. Sakuraba's ascension begins here and he gradually becomes Pride's biggest star. Pride also stole the top heavyweight in the world away from the UFC in Mark Kerr so things were starting to come together.

Just wrapping up UFC 17 from May 15th 1998. This has always been one of my favorite UFC tapes and watching it now in chronological order I can say with confidence that this was really the first true modern day UFC event. What a great card from top to bottom.

To open the show Mike Goldberg on commentary basically pleads with viewers to call their cable companies and demand them keep the UFC on their PPV. This would be the last UFC event until October 1998 and one of only 3 events that whole year. Also one of the things that was cut from my VHS copy of this show that was on the Fight Pass version was a Joe Rogan backstage interview with SEG figurehead Campbell Mclaren(the guy who designed the Octagon for UFC 1), they were promoting a new branch of the company SEG Motorsports with some kind of car racing, "Extreme Street Racing" pay per view events they were promoting. I wonder how much money they lost on this.

But just take a look at this show, such an underrated UFC event, easily one of the best up to this point and like I said really has to be the first real modern era show of the UFC.

Middleweight tournament with Dan Henderson, Alan Goes, and Carlos Newton. Newton pulls off what I believe was only the 2nd triangle choke in the UFC and the first since Gracie tapped Dan Severn at UFC 4 with one if Im not mistaken, great finish. Then both Dan Henderson fights are great, I think maybe he should have lost the Alan Goes decision but it was still a really close fight. Then he beats Newton in the finals in another phenomenal fight, maybe one of the best in UFC history up to this point(he wins a split decision and Frank Shamrock on commentary felt like Newton should have won), both fights honestly could have been ruled a draw they were that close. Great tournament, the best of the 4 man era.

Then you also had a fun heavyweight scrap with Mike Van Arsdale vs Brian Pardoe, then you had what is my favorite Tank Abbott fight with him at his peak. He takes out hyped Brazilian Hugo Duarte with a straight clobbering in a matter of seconds. Tank came in in his best shape of any of his fights with a nasty attitude and was in peak prime form here, this finish got my blood going just watching it. I fucking love Tank Abbott, to me he was the MVP of the first 3 years of No Holds Barred era of the UFC, also the intro when he's walking out there they say he's had the most UFC fights of anybody up to this point. He gets out of a choke and an armbar attempt and just mauls this guy with punches, excellent finish, adrenaline flowing.

Also on this card is Chuck Liddell's debut as he fights in the alternate fight for the Light Heavyweight tournament beating Noe Hernandez. Also Frank Shamrock defends his title in a fun scrap with a submission win over Jeremy Horn, who gives him a surprising challenge on the ground, maybe giving him his toughest fight in his entire UFC career now thinking about it. Never realized before how good this fight was, some really good grappling here going back and forth. Neither the Chuck fight or the Frank Shamrock fight were on the PPV or VHS for this event. The Frank Shamrock fight they filmed to air on the "Night Of Champions" pay per view that aired in July that was like a UFC's greatest hits show.

The Chuck Liddell vs Noe Hernandez up until last year was a long lost UFC fight. This fight was falsely advertised on cover of the VHS box with both guys names on the bottom with all the rest of the fighters. They also falsely advertised it on the cover of a 2007 Chuck Liddell DVD the UFC put out and it's also falsely advertised on the UFC Fight Pass description for the event, but it's nowhere to be found on any of those. The fight was not even on the UFC fight pass at all the last time I checked. It was finally uploaded to Youtube last year and I am just now seeing it finally at this moment. Really good scrap with Hernandez being a Pat Miletich guy he actually gets the better of Chuck standing up forcing him to take it down. I would say Hernandez wins the first five minutes of this putting pressure on Chuck keeping him backing up with punches. Chuck keeps working leg kicks to set up a HUGE right hand but Hernandez eats it and keeps going forward. 8 minutes into the fight both guys left eyes are swollen shut, this is a stand up war for the first 7 minutes but the pace drags once both guys get tired. This is a fight that would have benefited from rounds. Chuck finishes strong keeping him pinned up on the fence with knees and elbows to win a decision. Fun fight.

And then there is the classic main event, Mark Coleman returns from his upset title loss at UFC 14 and was set to take on Randy Couture for the UFC Heavyweight title. But Couture gets injured at the last minute and has to pull out, so they put in young 20 something year old Pete Williams from Ken Shamrock's Lions Den as a huge underdog making his UFC debut. This is a phenomenal fight and a huge upset. I never realized until this watch how Coleman had this fight in the bag. There were still no rounds yet but they just fought for 12 minutes, then had a break then a 3 minute overtime. Coleman dominated the 12 minute regulation. But he was gassed out for the overtime, while Pete came out fresh and went right at him, knocking him out with the first ever high head kick knockout in UFC history. The Lions Den(including Ken Shamrock, who I believe was on the poster for that month's WWF Over The Edge PPV?) storm the Octagon in celebration. I've always loved this fight and moment. This was such a devastating loss for Coleman who at one time appeared invincible.



This was a spectacular show from top to bottom really, it had it all, the UFC had grown up by this point but you still had prime Tank violence, some great technique, great fights. I'd say this was in the running for the best UFC event overall up to this point either this one or the Ultimate Ultimate 96 show.

Up to UFC 17(May 1998):

Greatest fights
1. Tank Abbott vs Don Frye Ultimate Ultimate 96
2. Maurice Smith vs Mark Coleman UFC 14
3. Tank Abbott vs Oleg Taktarov UFC 6
4. Marco Ruas vs Paul Varelans UFC 7
5. Royce Gracie vs Kimo UFC 3
6. Dan Henderson vs Carlos Newton UFC 17
7. Pete Williams vs Mark Coleman UFC 17
8. Dave Beneteau vs Carlos Barreto UFC 15
9. Randy Couture vs Vitor Belfort UFC 15
10. Frank Shamrock vs Jeremy Horn UFC 17
11. Royce Gracie vs Keith Hackney UFC 4
12. Dan Henderson vs Alan Goes UFC 17
13. Mark Coleman vs Don Frye UFC 10
14. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
15. Tank Abbott vs Scott Ferrozo UFC 11
16. Chuck Liddell vs Noe Hernandez UFC 17
17. Kimo vs Paul Varelans Ultimate Ultimate 96
18. Don Frye vs Gary Goodridge II Ultimate Ultimate 96
19. Marco Ruas vs Remco Pardoel UFC 7
20. Tito Ortiz vs Guy Mezger UFC 13
21. Steve Jennum vs Melton Bowen UFC 4

Ultimate Knockouts/Finishes
1. Gary Goodridge vs Paul Herrera UFC 8
2. Frank Shamrock vs Igor Zinoviev UFC 16
3. Pete Williams vs Mark Coleman UFC 17
4. Tank Abbott vs Steve Nelmark Ultimate Ultimate 96
5. Pat Smith vs Scott Morris UFC 2
6. Dave Beneteau vs Asbel Cancio UFC 5
7. Tank Abbott vs John Matua UFC 6
8. Tank Abbott vs Hugo Duarte UFC 17
9./10. Vitor Belfort vs Tra Telligman/Scott Ferrozzo UFC 12
11. Mark Kerr vs Gret Stott UFC 15
12. Gerrard Gordeau vs Telia Tuli UFC 1
13. Tito Ortiz vs Wes Albritton UFC 13

Ultimate Submissions
1. Ken Shamrock vs Dan Severn UFC 6
2. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
3. Ken Shamrock vs Pat Smith UFC 1
4. Frank Shamrock vs Kevin Jackson Ultimate Japan
5. Tank Abbott vs Steve Jennum Ultimate Ultimate 95
6. Dan Severn vs Joe Charles UFC 5
7. Royce Gracie vs Dan Severn UFC 4
8. Royce Gracie vs Ken Shamrock UFC 1
9. Kazushi Sakuraba vs Connan Silveira Ultimate Japan
10. Carlos Newton vs Bob Gilstrap UFC 17
11. Guy Mezger vs Tito Ortiz UFC 13
12. Enson Inoue vs Royce Alger UFC 13

Greatest tournament performances
1. Tank Abbott Ultimate Ultimate 96
2. Mark Coleman UFC 10
3. Marco Ruas UFC 7
4. Dan Severn Ultimate Ultimate 95
5. Vitor Belfort UFC 12
6. Dan Severn UFC 5
7. Royce Gracie UFC 2
8. Tank Abbott UFC 6
9. Dan Henderson UFC 17
10. Don Frye UFC 8
11. Don Frye Ultimate Ultimate 96
12. Randy Couture UFC 13
13. Royce Gracie UFC 4
14. Kevin Jackson UFC 14
15/16. Mark Kerr UFC 14/UFC 15
17. Royce Gracie UFC 1
18. Pat Smith UFC 2
19. Mark Coleman UFC 11
20. Pat Miletich UFC 16

And I believe that was the final tournament ever in UFC history except for the Ultimate Fighter reality shows. From there on out it was just regular fight cards.

Tank Abbott was legit bad fucking ass

In between that long gap between UFC 17 and Ultimate Brazil in 1998 we got Pride 3 and Pride 4, this was my review for Pride 3 written back in 2017 I'm sure full or broken links. I plan on watching Pride 4 and working on a review for it I may move these to their own thread and try to review every show;

Pride.3
June 24th, 1998
Nippon Budokan(Tokyo, Japan)

The Nippon Budokan is the venue for this the third installment of KRS Pride, which is basically a build up show for the Rickson Gracie vs Nobuhiko Takada revenge match already signed and set for the Tokyo Dome for October 98. The Budokan is a pretty sweet venue, host to countless Judo, Sumo, and Pro Wrestling events and competitions going as far back as the 1964 Olympics. The Budokan also hosted a bunch of music concerts ranging from anyone from The Beatles to Ozzy.

^Nippon Budokan in Japan. This was a regular venue for UWFI events that usually sold the place out(16,000+ fans). Some of the biggest drawing matches for UWFI at the Budokan was Nobuhiko Takada's wins over Koji Kitao(1992) and Daniel Severn(1993). Takada also lost the "Best in the World" tournament finals(which was for the UWFI Championship) in a match against Vader at the Budokan in 1994. UWFI drew a sold out crowd of 16,000 to the Budokan for Takada's IWGP title defense against Shiro Koshinaka in prime days of the UWFI vs NJPW angle in 1996.

I went pretty deep into the backstory of Pride Fighting Championship with my review of the first show. Long story short the KRS company(which included some of the same people who backed UWFI in it's dying days) put together the first Pride show in October 1997 for the sole purpose of selling the Rickson Gracie vs Nobuhiko Takada match, which was big enough of a fight that it was the first ever pay per view on Japanese TV, it also packed 47,860 people into the Tokyo Dome. The first Pride show was such a big success that KRS decided to make Pride a series of events, with a Rickson Gracie vs Nobuhiko Takada rematch set up early on in 1997 to take place in the Tokyo Dome in October 1998(exactly 1 year after their first fight at Pride 1). The second show was held in March 1998 and was somewhat of a disaster with what had to be a disappointing turnout at the box office(Takada was not on the card), those that did show up were treated to two fights that turned out to be long snoozers that put the audience to sleep, then the main event ended on a schmozz DQ after only a minute. Even though the first Pride event was a financial success it still was not a very good show at all, certainly not as good as some of the MMA-style shows hosted by Rings, Shooto, and Pancrase around this time. The buzz was kind of wearing off after 2 poor shows as the announced attendance for this show was 8,000 but according to the Observer the paid attendance was around 4,500(Budokan seats 16,000).


The rules for these early Pride events vary from fight to fight, they've even had some kickboxing matches on the previous 2 shows(something that they would do often on UWF, Rings, PWFG, and UWFI shows, bringing in legit kickboxers for shoot kickboxing matches mixed into shoot style pro wrestling cards). This was standard rules for 1998 MMA, so no headbutts, groin strikes, everybody has to wear gloves, etc. There are no kicks or stomps to the head allowed to a downed fighter at this point. The time limits for the fights are all different, some fights just have 1 continuous round, some fights are split up into 10 minute rounds. There are no judges so if a fight goes the distance it is automatically ruled a draw.


As far as the presentation this is not quite the Pride FC that we would come to know and love later on, there are no big time intros or fighter entrances. The fact is that these first 8 Pride shows were never aired or released in North America until years after they happened(around 2000-2001), so the commentary by Bas Rutten and Stephen Quadros was most likely done in a studio somewhere. What we got for these shows were heavily edited versions of the Japanese PPV broadcast with the English commentary overdubbed. Speaking of the commentary I've raved about it in the previous Pride reviews but Quadros and Rutten were the absolute best, very beginner friendly, just a cool chemistry between the two of them that you aren't going to find on any other commentary duo, they call these events basically like they are doing a podcast or an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 or something, loose, funny at times, very educative with all kinds of side stories and technical/strategic analysis. If you are a young fighter looking to get into the sport or if you are a fan that is new to the sport I couldn't recommend these tapes enough just for the commentary, they definitely break things down and show you some things to look out for when watching an MMA fight.


Daijiro Matsui vs Akira Shoji


This is another super long old school Pride fight, going 4 full 10 minute rounds for a total of 40 minutes of fighting. Shoji is a rising star with a damn good performance against Renzo Gracie at Pride 1(the fight went to a time limit draw) followed by a quick submission win over Juan Mott at Pride 2. Daijiro Matsui is a young rookie out of the Takada Dojo making his MMA debut. The first round is pretty good action, both guys fight with a lot of energy early on with some good grappling sequences. Both guys seemed to have wanted to keep this fight standing, with neither guy really showing any worthwhile striking skills, almost every punch these guys throw misses. They also fight with their hands down low around their waist a lot. The action starts to wane through the second and third round as both guys get tired. It's mostly a stand up fight. They go into a 4th round, which I'm assuming is like an overtime round. They tie up and go through the ropes to the apron at one point in the 4th round. They go the distance and the fight is ruled a draw. Really long and uneventful fight.


Daiju Takase vs Emmanuel Yarborough


This is quite a freak show matchup here as Yarborough is well over 600 pounds and Takase is about 170, so you've got well over 400 pounds of weight difference here. Yarborough is a Sumo wrestler that fought Keith Hackney in UFC 3(pushed him through the door of the Octagon so hard it broke the deadbolt). Takase I believe trains at the same dojo as Akira Shoji. Yarborough was actually coming off of a win in Shooto over another Japanese welterweight named Tatsuo Nakano, I've never seen that fight but the results shows that he won by "Submission(smother)". As popular as Sumo wrestling was in Japan you really couldn't blame Shooto or Pride for booking stuff like this.

The crowd is really into this fight as Takase runs around the big man trying to wear him down, almost getting caught a few times. At some point Yarborough stops chasing him and just stands his ground in the corner but Takase won't do anything. Takase tries to get close but Yarborough swats him away like a fly. They go the entire 10 minute first round like this. Early in the second round Takase continues this strategy until we get our very first ever yellow card in Pride. This was the Pride warning system for being a boring fuck, I know later on they were deducting 10% of the fighter's pay for every yellow card they got in a fight, I'm not sure if that was the case for this event though. After the yellow card Takase tries to take Yarborough down with a single leg takedown! Yarborough drops down onto him and almost decapitates him. There is a pretty great struggle like something out of a horror movie as the big man tries to pull his way up on top of Takase as he struggles to try to get out of his clutches. Eventually Yarborough gets stuck and Takase batters him with punches, escaping to his feet and forcing the big giant to tap out to hammer fist strikes similar to what Hackney did to him at UFC 3. This was quite a spectacle, a silly matchup but it's one of those MMA fights that is so weird you can't take your eyes off of it, you would get a lot more freak show style matchups like this over the years in Japan.


After the fight we get an in-ring interview with Bas Rutten, who talks about his title shot against Randy Couture for the UFC Heavyweight Championship in October. He says after his UFC contract runs out he wants to come back to Japan to fight in Pride, against Rickson Gracie. Bas actually never gets his shot against Couture that October as Couture was having money issues with the UFC and decided to leave and go fight at the Shooto "Vale Tudo Japan '98" event instead, where he was promptly armbarred by Enson Inoue. Bas ended up winning the UFC Heavyweight strap in early 1999 and retiring soon after, he never did fight in Pride(they were negotiating for him to fight Wanderlei at the Pride/K-1 Shockwave 2002 event but talks fell through).


Kazushi Sakuraba vs Carlos Newton


This is a pretty critically acclaimed Pride fight, easily one of the best of the early days of Pride. It's probably easy to watch it today and not think much of it but for 1998 this was some extremely high level stuff. This is Sakuraba's 3rd fight in MMA in all actuality(his first fight against Kimo was a work, the two fights against Connan Silveira at UFC Ultimate Japan '97 should probably be counted as the same fight). As for Newton he made his big splash in MMA by winning his first fight over Erik Paulson in Shooto in 1997, finishing him with an armbar submission in just 41 seconds in what was a pretty major upset since Paulson was one of the top dogs in Shooto(former Lightweight Champ). Newton then went on to put in a pretty spectacular performance in the 4 man tournament at UFC 17 in early 1998 where he lost in the finals to Dan Henderson in a great fight. This is Newton's first fight since losing to Henderson just a little over a month prior to this show.


This is scientific mat wrestling. The subtle ways that Sakuraba moves in this fight, the cartwheel style whizzer he uses early on as Newton advances for a trip takedown, the way he works his way around Newton's body to go for that first armbar attempt, it's like poetry in motion to me, Sakuraba was an artist, I don't think Meryl Streep ever seen any of his fights. The crowd is hot for all of Sakuraba's submission attempts, cross armbreakers, figure four ankle locks. They throw very few strikes in this first round, Sakuraba lands a grazing blow on the ground at one point. They work their way back up and Sakuraba throws a knee while Newton fires an uppercut at the same time, neither strike lands cleanly. Second round features some excellent grappling sequences early on, this is where Stephen Quadros says the quote that I like, "If you want to learn about grappling, watch matches like this."


Newton takes Sakuraba's back and lands a knee to the body. This part of the fight makes me think it's possible this fight was a worked shoot style pro wrestling match. He lands one knee and then never does it again, he could have ended the fight there if he wanted to. Later on Newton takes Sakuraba's back again and opens up with a few more strikes but I got to tell you, from what I've seen of UWF, UWFI, Rings, PWFG worked matches I really am kind of leaning towards this match being a worked match like those. There's also one point where Sakuraba extends Newton's arm with an armbar, Newton escapes and there is a brief moment where they are talking to each other in Japanese(Newton was Canadian but he was fluent in Japanese). They roll around after that and then Sakuraba snatches Newton's leg in a knee bar for the submission. Damn good fight, especially for it's time. Quite possibly worked, if it was I'd go around 3 & 3/4 Stars being stingy with my stars.

Gary Goodridge vs Amir Rahnavardi


The backstory for this fight is that it was supposed to be Gary Goodridge vs Kimo but Kimo blew his knee out and pulled out of the fight at the very last minute. Amir was part of Kyle Sturgeon's cornermen when Pride asked him if he would take the fight with just 24 hours notice and he took the offer. Stephen Quadros spoils the results of the fight while telling the story of Amir calling him and telling him about losing it, giving away that this commentary was recorded probably years later. Gary opens up with uppercuts and knees to the body early on but Amir ties up and tries a Judo throw, only to get taken down into the half guard position. Gary tries to posture up and fire away with bombs but Amir catches him in a kneebar similar to what Sakuraba just won with in the previous fight. Gary manages to escape and work his way into Amir's full guard.


A pretty funny moment happens in this fight, Amir fires up at Goodridge with punches from his back, Gary mocks his punches, "CHILDS PLAY!". Amir hits him again and Gary just looks at him and taunts him, "AGAIN!". Amir hits Gary again and Gary just keeps screaming back at him, "AGAIN!, WHOOO!". Shortly after taking Amir's punches Gary drops bombs and just knocks him out cold about 7 minutes into the fight.

Gary uses a really nifty little ground and pound trick with the way he traps Amir's left arm behind his back. This is one of my favorite Pride moments, Goodridge was a hell of a character, his fights were the most entertaining fights on these first 3 Pride shows for sure. This was great.


Mark Kerr vs The Pedro


The Pedro is Pedro Otavio from Brazil, he's the guy that lost to Gary Goodridge in the finals of the first IVC tournament in Brazil by having his balls squeezed in what was by far one of the most bizarre and hilarious finishes to any fight in MMA history. Mark Kerr is the top heavyweight in MMA at this point at 8-0, he had just been stolen away from the UFC to make his debut at Pride 2 with a DQ win over Branko Cikitic. Kerr comes out and shoots in with such a beautiful double leg takedown, Pedro can do nothing to stop it and he's put straight to his back. Kerr eventually works his way into a double wrist lock but the referee stops the fight before he can really torque on it. Pedro throws a huge tantrum because he never tapped out, but I think it was a good stoppage as Kerr was probably about to rip his arm off his body. Kerr wins after around 2 minutes, moving his record to 9-0 without really being challenged by any of his opponents so far.


Nobuhiko Takada vs Kyle Sturgeon


This is a for sure 100% worked shoot style pro wrestling match. Takada is already signed to fight Rickson Gracie in the rematch at the Tokyo Dome a few months down the road, they needed him on this card to sell tickets but there was no way they were going to risk him losing and fucking up the Rickson fight. Sturgeon is a no namer from Joe Morreira Jujitsu school, they show some pics of him standing next to Kimo so I'm assuming he trained with him there at some point. They actually did a big press conference event in Japan for this show but Takada did not show up to it, which allowed Sturgeon to trash talk him about how much of a coward he is to hype up the match. They show a camera shot of the Budokan during the intros and there are a bunch of empty seats. Sturgeon comes out and throws a high kick that sends Takada bouncing into the ropes. Takada takes the center of the ring and challenges Sturgeon to do it again. Sturgeon throws another kick and this time it knocks Takada down to the mats. Takada sells his face and gets up more intense. Takada throws some low kicks before Sturgeon shoots in to take Takada down. Sturgeon bounces around a lot in a really animated way like he's trying to act like he's struggling. Takada ends up on top where he falls back and forces the submission with a heel hook at just 2 minutes. Not a very good match at all, just a squash really, and not a very good one. 1 & 1/2 Stars


Takada gets a big trophy for the celebration. This fight is definitely worked but it is recognized by all MMA record keeping databases as a legit MMA fight, you can even watch it on the UFC Fight Pass for just $9.99 a month!


So that's Pride 3 in the books. Still not that great of a show but a little better than the first 2, you had the freak show spectacle of Yarborough vs Takase, an excellent fight between Newton vs Sakuraba, a fun Goodridge KO, and a worked shoot main event. With this show you now had back to back money losers for KRS, the Pride series was not off to a very good start from a quality standpoint.

From last night and through today I was able to make it through the tri-fecta of major league MMA events from October 1998. You had Pride 4 on October 11th in the Tokyo Dome, UFC Ultimate Brazil 5 days later in Rio, then you had Shooto's Vale Tudo Japan super-show on October 25th.

I had Pride 4 on TV today mostly as background noise cleaning house, and I have always said this and still swear to it today there is something about these early Pride shows that will put your fucking ass out for the mega-naps of a lifetime. I don't think it was coincidence that the company that owned Pride was called Dream Stage Entertainment, put one of these shows on a Sunday afternoon and your ass is going to be lights out on the couch. It's almost like ASMR or whatever the fuck that is.

Pride 4 was the biggest of these 3 events, Rickson Gracie vs Nobuhiko Takada rematch in the Tokyo Dome almost a year after their first bout. It was massive all because of Nobuhiko Takada. If you took him off of this show it would have been in front of 5,000 people at best, but with Takada they are selling out the Tokyo Dome. Takada was 100% pro wrestling, there was nothing "Legit" about him or his background. I think he made so much money from UWFI in the 90's that he just got old and lazy, whatever athleticism he had in the 80's in UWF that made him a star was long gone. I don't think he ever took the shoot wrestling training seriously either because by all accounts his training for these Rickson Gracie fights was a joke, he was getting dominated by white belts in Jujitsu training in the USA(He worked at Bas Rutten's gym). So that should paint a picture of how big pro wrestling was to MMA, that the whole sport was surviving over in Japan with massive money on the line because of it.

Pride 4 was super sleepy show. Igor Vovchanchyn the Ukranian knockout artist made his debut with a standing knockout over Gary Goodridge. Sakuraba has an excellent fight against Alan Goes as his rivalry with Brazilian Gracie Jujitsu guys continues to grow. This was a spectacular fight that if I was a judge I would have given to Goes, but Sakuraba had some great grappling escapes. Goes upkicks off his back were excellent in this fight he got Sakuraba with some good ones and bloodied him. But Sakuraba surviving this fight only proved he was fucking legit and that pro wrestling was indeed quite strong.

Another flamboyant pro wrestler with no martial arts or legitimacy to him named Alexander Otsuka pulls off the biggest upset here in Pride 4 by beating Marco Ruas the UFC 7 tournament champion. This is pretty underrated now how big of an upset this really was. Ruas was bad ass. I've read and heard that Ruas was sick for this fight and taking meds that fucked him up, and also haven't ruled out that this was a worked match where Ruas was paid to lose. This was a big win for pro wrestling and further proof that Pride was really more of a pro wrestling fed than an MMA fed.

Pride 4 also had another Mark Kerr squash taking out Hugo Duarte the same guy Tank Abbott mauled at UFC 17. At this point Kerr is for sure the top heavyweight on the planet. Then Rickson takes out Takada in an entertaining 10 minute spectacle. Rickson just looked reckless in this fight like had he fought a more experienced fighter he would have been beaten or possibly suffered a crazy rogue knockout. He was a much more reckless fighter than Royce Gracie was. Royce was just more careful, conservative and calculated. Rickson was more aggressive. Could have been paid to carry Takada here to a longer fight, I wouldn't rule that out. Very pivotal show for the history of MMA and Pride though, I fell asleep for what felt like 2 or 3 hours and woke up and somehow this show was still going, just crazy. Some long and boring fights on this one for sure. Pride had yet to develop it's identity at this point or it's personality that I fell in love with. But still crazy interesting, shows like this are the link that prove that MMA and pro wrestling are connected blood relatives.

Then 5 days later down in Brazil you had a pretty solid UFC event in Ultimate Brazil. This show has a sweet look and feel to it almost like an ECW show, crazy Brazilian crowd helps the atmosphere this show has a great one. Correction this was not in Rio this was in Sao Paulo. What stands out to me looking at the card is just how great the matchups were from top to bottom. Every fight was an even and very interesting matchup. The two guys that had breakout debut performances at UFC 17 Jeremy Horn and Pete Williams both get beat here. Ebenezer Fontes Braga was an excellent well rounded Brazilian fighter from back then that has been forgotten about and his standing guillotine choke/neck crank on Horn is definitely worthy of the "Ultimate Submissions" ranking.

Pete Williams vs Rings mainstay Tsuyoshi Kohsaka was also a really intriguing heavyweight matchup for the time. Williams was coming off that dream upset knockout of Mark Coleman while Kohsaka had beaten Kimo at UFC 16. Kohsaka wins here with well deserved decision win to go to 2-0, so one of the top ranked heavyweights is a Rings pro wrestler.

We see the end of Tank Abbott's run as he gets knocked out by the debut of one of my all time favorites Pedro Rizzo in a wild fight that the crowd was nuts for. After Tank had lost 30 pounds and beat Duarte at UFC 17 he packed all the weight back on and looked way out of shape for this one and fought really dumb. But still every one of his fights he just brought the violence, win or lose he would get the crowd going nuts and this was no different. There was also a gatekeeper factor to him(and Gary Goodridge in Pride/UFC), if you wanted to see if a guy was legit put him up against Tank. Duarte was not legit and got TKO'd, while we see here that this Pedro Rizzo kid was for real.

Then you get one of my all time favorite finishes with Vitor Belfort taking out Wanderlei Silva with rapid fire punches, another adrenaline mover, and always thought this was just a crazy good matchup. These two should have fought again when Wanderlei was on top in Pride maybe they should have had a trilogy, crazy that they never fought again. But Wanderlei before this had come from the rough no gloves no rules IVC promotion in Brazil and was one of the toughest guys in the sport, so Vitor finishing him like this in seconds really brought his aura back after back to back disappointing performances.



We also got the first ever UFC Welterweight Championship fight here with Pat Miletich beating Mikey Burnett in what was supposed to be the finals of the UFC 16 tournament(Mikey had to pull out of the finals with broken hand). This was a bad decision that I feel like Mikey should have won, which further adds to Pat Miletich being one of the most overrated old school legends there was.

The main event is another dominant Frank Shamrock performance as he takes out John Lober, a guy that had beaten him earlier in his career in a smaller promotion. Frank dominates him and makes him tap out to strikes to move his record to 4-0, complete bad ass.

Best of the UFC first 6 years(1993 to 1998):

Greatest fights
1. Tank Abbott vs Don Frye Ultimate Ultimate 96
2. Maurice Smith vs Mark Coleman UFC 14
3. Tank Abbott vs Oleg Taktarov UFC 6
4. Marco Ruas vs Paul Varelans UFC 7
5. Royce Gracie vs Kimo UFC 3
6. Dan Henderson vs Carlos Newton UFC 17
7. Pete Williams vs Mark Coleman UFC 17
8. Dave Beneteau vs Carlos Barreto UFC 15
9. Randy Couture vs Vitor Belfort UFC 15
10. Frank Shamrock vs Jeremy Horn UFC 17
11. Royce Gracie vs Keith Hackney UFC 4
12. Dan Henderson vs Alan Goes UFC 17
13. Mark Coleman vs Don Frye UFC 10
14. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
15. Tank Abbott vs Scott Ferrozo UFC 11
16. Chuck Liddell vs Noe Hernandez UFC 17
17. Kimo vs Paul Varelans Ultimate Ultimate 96
18. Don Frye vs Gary Goodridge II Ultimate Ultimate 96
19. Marco Ruas vs Remco Pardoel UFC 7
20. Tito Ortiz vs Guy Mezger UFC 13
21. Steve Jennum vs Melton Bowen UFC 4

Ultimate Knockouts/Finishes
1. Gary Goodridge vs Paul Herrera UFC 8
2. Frank Shamrock vs Igor Zinoviev UFC 16
3. Pete Williams vs Mark Coleman UFC 17
4. Vitor Belfot vs Wanderlei Silva Ultimate Brazil
5. Tank Abbott vs Steve Nelmark Ultimate Ultimate 96
6. Pat Smith vs Scott Morris UFC 2
7. Dave Beneteau vs Asbel Cancio UFC 5
8. Tank Abbott vs John Matua UFC 6
9. Tank Abbott vs Hugo Duarte UFC 17
10./11. Vitor Belfort vs Tra Telligman/Scott Ferrozzo UFC 12
12. Mark Kerr vs Gret Stott UFC 15
13. Gerrard Gordeau vs Telia Tuli UFC 1
14. Tito Ortiz vs Wes Albritton UFC 13

Ultimate Submissions
1. Ken Shamrock vs Dan Severn UFC 6
2. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
3. Ken Shamrock vs Pat Smith UFC 1
4. Frank Shamrock vs Kevin Jackson Ultimate Japan
5. Tank Abbott vs Steve Jennum Ultimate Ultimate 95
6. Dan Severn vs Joe Charles UFC 5
7. Royce Gracie vs Dan Severn UFC 4
8. Ebenezer Fontes Braga vs Jeremy Horn Ultimate Brazil
9. Royce Gracie vs Ken Shamrock UFC 1
10. Kazushi Sakuraba vs Connan Silveira Ultimate Japan
11. Carlos Newton vs Bob Gilstrap UFC 17
12. Guy Mezger vs Tito Ortiz UFC 13
13. Enson Inoue vs Royce Alger UFC 13

Greatest tournament performances
1. Tank Abbott Ultimate Ultimate 96
2. Mark Coleman UFC 10
3. Marco Ruas UFC 7
4. Dan Severn Ultimate Ultimate 95
5. Vitor Belfort UFC 12
6. Dan Severn UFC 5
7. Royce Gracie UFC 2
8. Tank Abbott UFC 6
9. Dan Henderson UFC 17
10. Don Frye UFC 8
11. Don Frye Ultimate Ultimate 96
12. Randy Couture UFC 13
13. Royce Gracie UFC 4
14. Kevin Jackson UFC 14
15/16. Mark Kerr UFC 14/UFC 15
17. Royce Gracie UFC 1
18. Pat Smith UFC 2
19. Mark Coleman UFC 11
20. Pat Miletich UFC 16

The big thing about this show was that Randy Couture was supposed to be here to defend the Heavyweight Championship against newly signed Bas Rutten, but opted to fight at the Shooto Vale Tudo Japan event for more money instead. So they stripped Couture of the title here and it was now vacant, setting up a tournament(that was very poorly booked) set to take place over multiple shows starting at the planned January 1999 UFC 18 event.

Vale Tudo Japan 98 was the 5th event of this series held annually every year by the Shooto promotion and it was a huge deal for MMA. Shooto was founded by Satoru Sayam the original Tiger Mask after he left the original UWF in the mid-80's. Shooto was the first MMA promotion, setting up a network of dojos all to compete against each other in hybrid rules of the striking arts mixed with the submission wrestling game that Sayama learned from the UWF dojos from Karl Gotch and Yoshiaki Fujiwara. I have a DVD from Japan "The History Of Shooto" with footage of some of the fights from the 1980's and early 90's and it was high level stuff that was way ahead of it's time. The first two Vale Tudo Japan shows were basically like Japan's UFC 1 and 2, held in 1994 and 1995 both were one night no rules MMA tournaments, both won by Rickson Gracie. Vale Tudo Japan 96 they switched to single fight card, both the 96 and 97 events had some of the best and most advanced fighers in the world at the time.

Vale Tudo Japan 98 was on the Fight Pass and I watched this show this afternoon. Randy Couture goes into this show as the reigning UFC Heavyweight Champ and gets caught in an armbar by Shooto's top heavyweight Enson Inoue within just 2 minutes. So the linearity of the UFC Heavyweight title is broken here, you could say that at this point Inoue is the man, but I would say Kerr was really the top heavyweight on the planet at this point at the end of 1998. The thing about Shooto at this event was the focus on smaller more dynamic and more technical guys that were under the 170 pound limit, Hayato Sakurai, Frank Trigg, Ruminata Sato, and Andre Pedernieras all looked really advanced on this show. This was the highest level of skill and technique out of all 3 major leagues shows that October.

Also just now realizing that that Vitor Befort starching of Wanderlie at Ultimate Brazil was Vitor's final UFC appearance until the Zuffa era. Just like that the phenom was gone to Pride in Japan along with Mark Kerr.

Thinking about it after watching through this era, it is crazy how hamstrung the original UFC owners were. Zuffa gets all of this credit for launching the sport into the stratosphere but they had nowhere near the challenges to overcome. I really believe that had the UFC been on cable sometime in 1998 the whole sport would have exploded just the same as it did in 2005. Had they been able to lock down Kerr and Belfort to long term exclusive contracts it would have been massive. Think about it they couldn't afford to sign Ken Shamrock and lost him to the WWF over money.

Also it's just as crazy to me that none of the cable networks in 96-97-98 wanted anything to do with the UFC. It was the 90's, shit was extreme, controversy creates cash, but apparently UFC was just too extreme and controversial. No doubt about it had the UFC had a show on USA Network showcasing Frank Shamrock and Mark Kerr and Vitor Belfort after Raw on Monday nights it would have exploded like an atomic bomb.

I'm enjoying your writeups a lot. I remember (and you probably do too) when I went through the same journey and reviewed all these shows. Sakuraba was always my favourite, but I loved Carlos Newton, Gary Goodridge.

The Ruas/Varelans match always stood out to me.

So did Rickson Gracie and his machine-like presence. I find Rickson scarier than anyone else in that generation of fighters. He's unbelievably stoic, so confident in himself. He's not the biggest or the most muscular. He doesn't need to look like he wants to fuck you up. He'll just fuck you up, keeping that same blank expression on his face.

I made it through UFC 18 from January 1999 this morning(watched some of it Friday night). This event took place around the same week as ECW Guilty As Charged 99, the one where Taz finally won the ECW World Title. I was such a mark for Taz that I legit believed he could have taken anybody on this UFC card. It's interesting to think about both of those shows because much like ECW with that PPV, this UFC 18 kicked off 1999 for the company where it felt like they had a renewed vigor and ambition like 1999 was going to be a big year for them. 1998 was kind of down years for both ECW and UFC, especially for UFC since they were just about outlawed(only had 2 events in the US all year, 3 total live PPV events with one being held in Brazil). Both UFC and ECW were set to begin a new bi-monthly PPV schedule in 1999, with UFC at this event hyping up a "9 in '99" tagline like they were going to have 9 PPV's(they had 6 live events and I believe 3 of them were "Best Of" specials). Within 2 years of 1999 one of these companies would be dead and gone while the other would get bought by rich millionaires that took it to mainstream Fox/ESPN/network television/millions of PPV buys.

This was a really interesting watch on the Fight Pass. I have had the VHS tape of UFC 18 for a long time but seen some extra stuff on the Fight Pass version I have never seen before. The big thing was a lot of hype for Vitor Belfort coming back for UFC 19 in March. They had a big interview with Vitor challenging Frank Shamrock to face him for the Middleweight title at UFC 19 but they were also saying that if Frank didn't accept the challenge, they were going to strip him of the belt and the winner of the Jerry Bohlander vs Tito Ortiz fight would face Vitor for the new title. I also just discovered that they had Vitor on the event poster for UFC 19. Of course he would pull out of that event entirely for some reason and would be fighting in Pride instead.

We got the impressive debut of future Middleweight Champ Evan Tanner here taking out Daryl Gholar in a fun fight. Mikey Burnett also returns to beat Townsend Saunders in what should have been the finals of the UFC 16 Welterweight tournament since Saunders really should have got the decision over Militich(and Burnett backed out of the finals due to hand injury). They go the distance and I'm just now kind of realizing that they still haven't implemented the modern round system yet. It's interesting because it's just a 12 minute regulation, with a 3 minute overtime period. I believe title fights had a 15 minute regulation period with 2 overtimes at 3 minutes each.

They brought Tito Ortiz back and thrust him into a big high profile fight in only his second UFC appearance, and it had been like a year and a half since he lost that UFC 13 finals bout to Guy Mezger in 1997, almost 2 years actually. And they were hyping this fight up like the winner was getting a shot at Vitor Belfort at UFC 19 for the title. It's interesting that they obviously seen great things in Tito and wanted to push him. Interesting to see the next generation of guys start to work their way up in these 1998-99 shows. Of course Tito has his big breakout here by completely mauling Jerry Bohlander for the decision victory, starting his rivalry with Ken Shamrock(who has been in WWF for 2 years at this point) by taking out one of his senior fighters. This was a huge win because Shamrock's Lions Den was really on top of the sport at this point.

Pat Miletich defends his Welterweight title agianst a smaller opponent Jorge Patino(who would go on to be a big time coach for some modern day greats), who was probably 10 pounds smaller in this fight. And it was a snoozer of a fight. Miletich on paper looks like a Hall Of Famer and one of the all time greats but man, revisiting the fights now his career was really so underwhelming, bad matchups, bad decisions, boring fights.

The name of this show was "Road To The Heavyweight Title" because they were beginning a tournament to crown a new champ. This was really where the UFC started to fall into the dark ages with how this all played out. Randy Couture wins the title from Maurice Smith at UFC Japan in December 1997, then pulls out of his scheduled title defense vs Mark Coleman at UFC 17 in May 1998. Then he had contract dispute and chooses to not take the offered fight vs Bas Rutten(who I'm sure he would have beaten) at UFC Brazil in October 98. He chooses instead to take a bigger payday to go fight at the Shooto "Vale Tudo Japan '98" where he loses to Shooto Champion Enson Inoue via armbar in like 2 minutes in October 1998.

So their solution to this was to book this long drawn out tournamen to crown a new Champ. It supposedly started at UFC Brazil in October with Pete Williams vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka fight, won by Kohsaka. That win earned him in this 4 man tournament that started here at UFC 18, with Mark Coleman vs Pedro Rizzo and Kohsaka vs debuting Bas Rutten. The winners were supposed to face off at UFC 19 to crown the new Champion in March. But it gets convoluted because Rizzo beats Coleman here at UFC 18, while Bas wins over Kohsaka, setting up Rutten vs Rizzo for the strap. Well they never would fight each other because they were friends and sometimes training partners. Which has me questioning why they bothered putting both of them in this tournament to begin with if they knew fighting each other was off the table?

So it gets stretched out all the way to UFC 20 in May of 1999 where Rutten ends up winning the title(in a controversial decision over Kevin Randleman, which I thought he should have lost). Only for Rutten to turn around and immediately drop the title in plans to drop to the Light Heavyweight weight class(he never would, would end up retiring due to injuries). So they finally end up with Randleman vs Pete Williams to finally crown a heavyweight Champion in November 1999 in Japan at UFC 23, which is really the beginning of the "Dark Ages" of the UFC, where nobody gave a shit about it, they stopped putting tapes out at video stores, and the company barely survived from show to show as like a C-level event.

So it was bad booking. After Couture was stripped of the belt at UFC Brazil in October 98 they should have just put the title on the line that night for Tsuyoshi Kohsaka vs Pete Williams fight. Williams had just scored the huge upset over Coleman in spectacular fashion and Kohsaka was high ranked fighter from Rings that had beaten Kimo earlier at UFC 16.

But we got what we got. Rizzo vs Coleman at UFC 18 was a fun fight, and I still feel like Coleman was robbed of the decision. It's interesting that Coleman trained with Ken Shamrock at the Lions Den for this fight. It's a shame we didn't get any footage of them 2 going at it. Shamrock was in Coleman's corner for this fight while Marco Ruas was in Rizzo's corner for this fight so that's an interesting matchup of coaches. Coleman dominates this fight for nearly the first full 10 minutes, then fights back enough in the rest that I feel like he should have got the nod here. But the judges(one of them Dave Meltzer) give it to Rizzo, handing Coleman his 3rd loss in a row in the UFC and basically ending his UFC career after at one time looking like an invincible Brock Lesnar/Goldberg type unbeatable force. This was really like a better version of Coleman vs Maurice Smith, Coleman paces himself and doesn't get as tired, Rizzo shows some better technical kickboxing, while Coleman lands some surprising stand up himself fighting back in the end. Even though technically a better fight than Coleman vs Smith it just didn't have the high stakes of the belt on the line and wasn't as instrumental in the evolution of the sport. 

In the main event we get a pretty great fight with Tsuyoshi Kohsaka vs Bas Rutten. I never got access to all the Japanese shoot wrestling tapes back in the day to appreciate the full scope of how this was basically a Rings vs Pancrase dream match. So that was cool to factor into this now knowing what I know about those two promotions and where they came from(UWF Japan shoot style pro wrestling). And how it was all connected, pro wrestling and MMA, this was a huge fight for the UFC with Bas coming in with a ton of hype from the hardcore fans at the time. He was what you would call an Indy darling back then.

Kohsaka grounds Rutten and dominates most of this fight until the overtime, Bas has his cornermen signal for the final minute where he just comes alive and goes for the kill, finishing Kohsaka in spectacular fashion with stand up strikes with seconds left in the fight. Excellent stuff.

This was another damn good old school event with some fun breakout performances. It's still interesting to see it all evolve. From UFC 1 to UFC 5 it was like a hybrid of martial arts Mortal Kombat/Bloodsport/Street Fighter II with a pro wrestling element with the costumes and fabricated backgrounds. From UFC 6 to UFC Ultimate Ultimate 96 it started to evolve into something else, it was extreme violence cranked up to 10, but the techniques and training was starting to evolve into another phase. From UFC 12 to UFC 14 you seen it taking baby steps up to where the Coleman vs Smith fight was like a turning point into the modern day, then from UFC 15 to UFC 16 to UFC 17 you seen it basically evolve into what we have today just at a more primitive form(with UFC 17 to me being the first real modern day UFC event). After that the evolution is kind of broken with the sport almost being killed in 1998 but it comes back with a strong push with these 1999 shows, the new generation starts to take over after the company loses all the big stars that had been built up in 97-98 to Pride. Fun, fun.

Best of the UFC up to UFC 18(Jan 1999):

Greatest fights
1. Tank Abbott vs Don Frye Ultimate Ultimate 96
2. Maurice Smith vs Mark Coleman UFC 14
3. Tank Abbott vs Oleg Taktarov UFC 6
4. Marco Ruas vs Paul Varelans UFC 7
5. Royce Gracie vs Kimo UFC 3
6. Dan Henderson vs Carlos Newton UFC 17
7. Pete Williams vs Mark Coleman UFC 17
8. Dave Beneteau vs Carlos Barreto UFC 15
9. Randy Couture vs Vitor Belfort UFC 15
10. Frank Shamrock vs Jeremy Horn UFC 17
11. Royce Gracie vs Keith Hackney UFC 4
12. Dan Henderson vs Alan Goes UFC 17
13. Mark Coleman vs Don Frye UFC 10
14. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
15. Pedro Rizzo vs Mark Coleman UFC 18
16. Tank Abbott vs Scott Ferrozo UFC 11
17. Chuck Liddell vs Noe Hernandez UFC 17
18. Kimo vs Paul Varelans Ultimate Ultimate 96
19. Don Frye vs Gary Goodridge II Ultimate Ultimate 96
20. Marco Ruas vs Remco Pardoel UFC 7
21. Tito Ortiz vs Guy Mezger UFC 13
22. Steve Jennum vs Melton Bowen UFC 4

Ultimate Knockouts/Finishes
1. Gary Goodridge vs Paul Herrera UFC 8
2. Frank Shamrock vs Igor Zinoviev UFC 16
3. Pete Williams vs Mark Coleman UFC 17
4. Vitor Belfot vs Wanderlei Silva Ultimate Brazil
5. Tank Abbott vs Steve Nelmark Ultimate Ultimate 96
6. Pat Smith vs Scott Morris UFC 2
7. Dave Beneteau vs Asbel Cancio UFC 5
8. Tank Abbott vs John Matua UFC 6
9. Tank Abbott vs Hugo Duarte UFC 17
10. Bas Rutten vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka UFC 18
11./12. Vitor Belfort vs Tra Telligman/Scott Ferrozzo UFC 12
13. Mark Kerr vs Gret Stott UFC 15
14. Gerrard Gordeau vs Telia Tuli UFC 1
15. Tito Ortiz vs Wes Albritton UFC 13

Ultimate Submissions
1. Ken Shamrock vs Dan Severn UFC 6
2. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
3. Ken Shamrock vs Pat Smith UFC 1
4. Frank Shamrock vs Kevin Jackson Ultimate Japan
5. Tank Abbott vs Steve Jennum Ultimate Ultimate 95
6. Dan Severn vs Joe Charles UFC 5
7. Royce Gracie vs Dan Severn UFC 4
8. Ebenezer Fontes Braga vs Jeremy Horn Ultimate Brazil
9. Royce Gracie vs Ken Shamrock UFC 1
10. Kazushi Sakuraba vs Connan Silveira Ultimate Japan
11. Carlos Newton vs Bob Gilstrap UFC 17
12. Guy Mezger vs Tito Ortiz UFC 13
13. Enson Inoue vs Royce Alger UFC 13

I started UFC 19: Young Guns last weekend and just finished it earlier today, the event from March of 1999. This is the second show of what feels like a new promotion trying to get off the ground as the UFC kind of reset itself going into 1999 once they were able to get back on PPV. It's interesting to me is that nobody really cared about the UFC, as much effort as they were trying to put into themselves, it was no longer a blood and guts spectacle it was now a legit sport. But it might as well have been pro wrestling, ESPN, mainstream media outlets, cable networks, nobody gave a shit about UFC or wanted anything to do with it at this point. It survived on an online underground small fanbase that stayed loyal to the company much like what a pro wrestling fanbase would for a smaller fed.

Interesting thing about this show was that they were set for Vitor Belfort vs Guy Mezger, but Vitor pulled out at the last minute and Tito Ortiz took his place. This gave us the rematch from the controversial finish back at UFC 13 where Guy Mezger was getting elbowed into oblivion, the doctors stopped the fight to check the cut, then upon restart Guy caught Tito in a guillotine choke for the win. Tito returned at UFC 18 and took out Guy's training partner from Ken Shamrock's Lions Den in an experienced guy named Jerry Bohlander. So now he's up against his second Lions Den fighter in just 3 months. Guy was also King Of Pancrase going into this fight.

Tito just completely manhandles and dominates Guy for a win with Big John stopping it around 10 minutes. Ken Shamrock is in Guy's corner for the fight and is pissed about the stoppage(even though it was justified). Tito makes the most of his spotlight and flips double middle fingers right at the entire Lions Den, prompting Ken Shamrock to jump on the fence and scold him in one of my favorite little moments in old school UFC. This sets up their big feud with them finally fighting each other in 2002 in what was the biggest fight after Zuffa had bought the company(and really the fight that kickstarted the UFC's rise to where it is now).

One fight I was really amused by on this show was the heavyweight freak show showdown between the returning Gary Goodridge vs the big indian guy Andre Roberts. Watching this fight it I realize the evolution that Gary Goodridge went through from when he debuted in 1996 with that freak elbow knockout. He lost in the finals of that tournament to Don Frye, then was dominated by Mark Shultz(yes that one from Foxcatcher) at UFC 9, then lost in the semi's to Mark Coleman at the next show UFC 10, then lost in the first round of the Ultimate Ultimate '96 tournament in the rematch to Don Frye. In all of his losses except for the Shultz fight he tapped out to exhaustion or being put in a bad position. So he had questionable heart. He goes and has a career resurgence outside of the UFC in 1997-98, winning the first ever IVC no rules tournament in Brazil, knocking out Oleg Taktarov at the first Pride event. He lost to Marco Ruas in Pride in early 98 then had another entertaining knockout at another Pride show. He comes back to the UFC here a different fighter in 1999, no longer wearing the black gi', more experienced, better conditioned fighter. He finishes Andre here quickly with vicious punches forcing him to tap out standing.

I don't believe Gary ever fought in the UFC again after this, he would go on to be a regular that fought on almost every Pride event from here on out. He was a Pride guy, somewhere I read that they were paying him like $40,000 guaranteed for every fight plus travel expenses, something the UFC couldn't compete with during these years. But I'm wondering how he would have done in this heavyweight division of the UFC at this point in 1999, against guys like Pete Williams, Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, Kevin Randleman, Pedro Rizzo et. al.

Andre Roberts the guy he beats I'm thinking should have gotten into pro wrestling, he would have been a great bodyguard/enforcer for Tatanka kind of like how Big Sal was to Guido type of role.

Chuck Liddell returns for this one and gets choked unconscious by Jeremy Horn with an arm triangle choke. I believe this was the first time ever that anybody had been choked completely unconscious in UFC history if I'm not mistaken. This was a nice matchup for the time with both of these guys young, striker vs grappler dynamic. They would rematch in a big main event years later in 2005 when Chuck was the biggest star in the sport and at that point it was a big mismatch in Chuck's favor(Horn was basically a safe opponent for Chuck at that time since he was nowhere near a top contender at that point, just the revenge factor was what sold that PPV), Chuck would get the win with a TKO to avenge the loss.

Kevin Randleman the protoge of Mark Coleman makes his debut here and just completely annihilates Maurice Smith, rolling him up in a ball and beating the life out of him to avenge his mentor's loss at UFC 14. This was a hell of an athlete. The UFC Heavyweight Championship match was now set for UFC 20 with Randleman vs Bas Rutten being built up for the rest of this show.

Evan Tanner scores another impressive win here and even more impressive is just his respect and humility after the bout. He was just a different type of dude. When they ask on the post fight interview about how he felt about the big win he just put his opponent over saying that the guy worked a full time job and lived an hour away from where he trained, while Evan admitted this was what he did full time. Evan would go on to be UFC Middleweight Champion sometime in 2005 and would end up dying in a sad freak hiking incident in 2008.

Pete Williams scores a submission win here over a jobber. His career is something. He debuts with the awesome Mark Coleman head kick knockout at UFC 17 and looks like a future star pulling off the big upset. Then he never lands another high head kick again for the rest of his career, and strings along a bunch of boring fights, wins over jobbers where the UFC was trying to build him up, then he just fell off and lost a lot before disappearing.

What an interesting show. Some major seeds where planted here in a show where SEG was struggling to make something happen to get the UFC going again, seeds that were sown by the Zuffa ownership as they were able to capitalize on Tito vs Shamrock and Chuck vs Jeremy Horn rematch, plus future champions in Evan Tanner and Kevin Randleman. Young Guns is a great and very apt name for this event. Always thought this was a cool UFC show. SEG didn't know it yet but they were really onto a lot of things with this show.


Best of the UFC up to UFC 19(March 1999):

Greatest fights
1. Tank Abbott vs Don Frye Ultimate Ultimate 96
2. Maurice Smith vs Mark Coleman UFC 14
3. Tank Abbott vs Oleg Taktarov UFC 6
4. Marco Ruas vs Paul Varelans UFC 7
5. Royce Gracie vs Kimo UFC 3
6. Dan Henderson vs Carlos Newton UFC 17
7. Pete Williams vs Mark Coleman UFC 17
8. Dave Beneteau vs Carlos Barreto UFC 15
9. Randy Couture vs Vitor Belfort UFC 15
10. Frank Shamrock vs Jeremy Horn UFC 17
11. Royce Gracie vs Keith Hackney UFC 4
12. Dan Henderson vs Alan Goes UFC 17
13. Mark Coleman vs Don Frye UFC 10
14. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
15. Pedro Rizzo vs Mark Coleman UFC 18
16. Tank Abbott vs Scott Ferrozo UFC 11
17. Chuck Liddell vs Noe Hernandez UFC 17
18. Kimo vs Paul Varelans Ultimate Ultimate 96
19. Don Frye vs Gary Goodridge II Ultimate Ultimate 96
20. Marco Ruas vs Remco Pardoel UFC 7
21. Tito Ortiz vs Guy Mezger UFC 13
22. Steve Jennum vs Melton Bowen UFC 4

Ultimate Knockouts/Finishes
1. Gary Goodridge vs Paul Herrera UFC 8
2. Frank Shamrock vs Igor Zinoviev UFC 16
3. Pete Williams vs Mark Coleman UFC 17
4. Vitor Belfot vs Wanderlei Silva Ultimate Brazil
5. Tank Abbott vs Steve Nelmark Ultimate Ultimate 96
6. Pat Smith vs Scott Morris UFC 2
7. Dave Beneteau vs Asbel Cancio UFC 5
8. Tank Abbott vs John Matua UFC 6
9. Tank Abbott vs Hugo Duarte UFC 17
10. Bas Rutten vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka UFC 18
11./12. Vitor Belfort vs Tra Telligman/Scott Ferrozzo UFC 12
13. Mark Kerr vs Gret Stott UFC 15
14. Gerrard Gordeau vs Telia Tuli UFC 1
15. Tito Ortiz vs Wes Albritton UFC 13

Ultimate Submissions
1. Ken Shamrock vs Dan Severn UFC 6
2. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
3. Ken Shamrock vs Pat Smith UFC 1
4. Frank Shamrock vs Kevin Jackson Ultimate Japan
5. Tank Abbott vs Steve Jennum Ultimate Ultimate 95
6. Dan Severn vs Joe Charles UFC 5
7. Royce Gracie vs Dan Severn UFC 4
8. Ebenezer Fontes Braga vs Jeremy Horn Ultimate Brazil
9. Royce Gracie vs Ken Shamrock UFC 1
10. Kazushi Sakuraba vs Connan Silveira Ultimate Japan
11. Jeremy Horn vs Chuck Liddell UFC 19
12. Carlos Newton vs Bob Gilstrap UFC 17
13. Guy Mezger vs Tito Ortiz UFC 13
14. Enson Inoue vs Royce Alger UFC 13

Watched Pride 5 this morning getting some rest, this was from April 29th 1999 just about 6 weeks after UFC 19. This was the first Pride show under new ownership Dream Stage Entertainment, who took over from KRS that started it(though I believe some of the same people from that group were involved in DSE, including one of the major figureheads Nobuyuki Sakakibara).

DSE made some rule changes that made this the best Pride show yet up to this point. They did away with the long sleepy ass boring 45 minute fights and now have rounds, 10 minute rounds. This was a fun show with only 2 fights going to a decision and both of those were good.

The event takes place at Nagoya Rainbow Hall, a regular venue for NJPW in the 80's and 90's. UWFI did a joint show here with War in their dying days in 1996 with a card that seen Kazushi Sakuraba and Nobuhiko Takada on the card. The main event here is Nobuhiko Takada taking on former UFC Heavyweight Champ Mark Coleman and it looks like this sold out the venue as the place is packed. Coleman is coming off of the 3 losses that ended his UFC career after he looked unbeatable in 1996.

This show has a different feel from the first 4 Pride events. This was a fun show with only 2 fights going to a decision and both of those were great scraps.

Both opening fights are over via TKO within 5 minutes, Francisco Bueno and Egan Inoue finish their Japanese opponents.

Igor Vovchanchyn returns from his standing KO victory over Gary Goodridge at his debut in Pride 4 to take on Akira Shoji in a fun scrap. Shoji shows some incredible heart in this fight in what on paper looks like a massive mismatch and potential gruesome squash. Igor was one of the most heavy handed strikers in the early days of MMA and at one point would go on to be one of(if not THE) top heavyweights in the sport shortly after this fight. But Shoji stands his ground and trades punches with him and gives him some problems with his speed. The first round is a tossup as Shoji lands some good shots and almost actually drops Igor at one point. Igor is hesitant at times and has problems with Shoji's speed but takes control to finish strong to win a decision. This is one of the fights that would earn Shoji a spot in Pride basically for life from here on out, he fought on just about every Pride event even though he would lose most of the time(and there were some crazy fights where they threw him to the dogs in insane mismatches). To Japanese Pride fans it didn't matter if the guy lost, what mattered was his heart.

I forgot about this but this is also the Pride show where they have a Gracie Jujitsu exhibition during the intermission with Rickson and Royler Gracie showcasing some moves. This was really a beautiful segment the type of stuff that separates Pride from other MMA shows, I don't think they ever did anything like this again but it would have been cool if they did this for other martial arts. Before the showcase Japanese Judo gold medalist and pro wrestler Naoya Ogawa presents both Gracies with a bouquet of flowers in a showing of respect. During the exhibition they show these great cinematic shots of Ogawa and other Japanese pro wrestlers watching the Gracies to build up that rivalry. I believe they were really aiming to set up an Ogawa vs Rickson mega fight but it never happened.

Another big debut here is Enson Inoue, the Shooto heavyweight Champion that had just beat UFC Heavyweight Champ Randy Couture with an armbar in like 2 minutes at the October Shooto Vale Tudo supercard. So Enson is basically like the lineal Heavyweight Champion of the sport at this point, and they put him against a literal jobber, 0-0 overweight guy wearing an Aikido pants. The fight is over in seconds. This was a straight up pro wrestling style booking jobber squash. MMA fans rip on Pride for these type of matchups not understanding the nature of what exactly Pride was. I'm not a fan of mismatches in MMA either but it's interesting to me how Pride was booked like a wrestling fed.

The big fight on this card is Kazushi Sakuraba taking on Vitor Belfort. Just weeks after Vitor pulled out of UFC 19 main event at the last minute, he shows up in Pride for this fight. Sakuraba at this point has been on a roll, winning the UFC Japan tournament in December 1997 by beating Carlson Gracie Jujitsu heavyweight black belt Connan Silveira with an armbar. He then beat Lions Den fighter and Pancrase alum Vernon "Tiger" White and Carlos Newton in what both felt like worked shoot style grappling matches(very good ones). He struggled in the draw against another Carlson Gracie jujitsu guy in Alan Goes where Goes blasted him with a lot of upkicks and nearly caught him in a few holds. So now he's up against his 3rd Carlson Gracie guy in Vitor Belfort, the guy that looked like the future of the sport when he debuted in 1997 in the UFC. Vitor is coming off of his starching of Wanderlei Silva back in October in UFC Brazil.

This has always been one of my favorite fights and a big influence on some of the things that always worked for me in my fights that I won back in the day. This is Sakuraba's real breakout performance here. Vitor goes after him early on and tries to knock him out, spamming a lot of punches that hit him in the back and top of his head, breaking his left hand. Sakuraba survives it and what I enjoyed in watching this fight this time was watching Sakuraba's whole confidence grow through the course of this fight. He basically becomes the MMA superhero through the course of this fight and a hero to MMA fans in Japan. Vitor punches himself out and ends up on his back where Sakuraba gradually figures out what to do, this is the same position where Vitor's stablemate Allan Goes punished Sakuraba with upkicks in a previous fight. Sakuraba learned from that and avoids Vitor's shots here with caution.

Sakuraba at one point attempts a cartwheel to pass Vitor's guard. Even though it doesn't work it's just awesome that he would even think about doing that. Sakuraba struggles with what to do here as Vitor keeps him at bay with an open guard laying on his back with Sakuraba standing over him at his feet. Sakuraba eventually starts destroying Vitor's legs with nasty kicks, grabbing him by the ankle and just digging in. The ref finally stands it up and Sakuraba just drills Vitor with a disgusting spinning back kick that nearly goes through Vitor's body, dropping him. Sakuraba ends up landing 2 more later in the fight that just take the fight right out of Vitor.

Vitor spends the rest of the fight just dropping to his back back into the open guard position with Sakuraba standing over him. Sakuraba digs in with kicks to his legs, at one point stops the referee from standing Vitor up and is like no it's ok we can do this. Sakuraba's confidence grows through the fight and eventually he starts picking Vitor apart standing up with punches, opening a cut on his forehead, lighting him up with 3-4 strike combos. Towards the end of the fight as Vitor falls back to his back on the ground Sakuraba unveils a flying guard pass where he just leaps in mid air over Vitor's legs coming down trying to stomp his head on the way down(something that was legal in Pride, not in the UFC). The Japanese crowd just eats this shit up and goes crazy for all of it and a new star is made. Sakuraba, a Japanese pro wrestler trained by Billy Robinson in grappling, upsets one of the top ranked fighters in the world with a huge win.

Watching this fight really fired me up this morning and got me inspired. I've always loved Sakuraba's movements here with the way he would set up his kicks, his feints that he would use to scare Vitor and keep him on the defense, I've used some of these movements in fights that I won back in the day so watching this fight again for the first time in years is really reconnecting to some roots for me and got me all kinds of fired up. I've been dealing with this position in the gym with high level guys starting out on their back/butt in the open guard position so I may try a few things here I seen in this fight when I get back in there.

The main event is an infamously worked fight with Mark Coleman losing to Nobuhiko Takada via ankle lock submission. Back in the day I used to hate on this fight for being fake, many MMA fans rip it today and rip on Coleman for doing it and rip on Pride for having fights like this. Watching the fight again today and knowing what I know now about UWF and UWFI and Japanese shoot style pro wrestling and everything that MMA came from, I actually fucking loved this. And so did the live audience in the arena, who went crazy for Takada after winning. This was a damn fine worked shoot style pro wrestling bout not a fake fight. Coleman actually did really good for this and there were moments where it felt real for sure in the first round. Also an interesting element was that they had Mark Kerr watching from ringside(wearing a three piece suit) he was Coleman's training partner and best friend so this was building up the big match for Pride 6 with Takada vs Kerr. 

This was Pride starting to find it's identity. After a hit and miss first 4 events, they really had something here to build on, Sakuraba is now a made man and Takada regains some of his aura with this worked shoot style UWFI style win over Mark Coleman. Also Coleman who now has 4 losses in a row has found a new home and we would find out later on that he was far from done. 

"Seeing Tiger Mask for the first time as a kid had an amazing impact on my heart. Jumping and flying, all his movements were so beautiful... I was completely blown away." -Sakuraba

Just a week or so after Pride 5 we got UFC 20 in May of 1999, finally the crowning of a new UFC Heavyweight Champion with the first heavyweight title fight since December of 1997. They definitely dragged this whole process out of moving from Couture's vacancy to a new Champ. We are set for Bas Rutten vs Kevin Randleman as the main event of this matchup in what is truly a spectacular matchup that turns into a pretty damn great fight.

People rip on the Enson vs Aikido guy mismatch that happened at Pride 5, but we get an even worse mismatch here at UFC 20 a few days later with Ron Waterman taking on a big fat guy that they literally plucked out of the crowd in Chris Condo. Obviously over in a matter of seconds with big Ron Waterman taking him down and finishing him with punches. Waterman was just a beast and I believe was training with WWF developmental at one point just not sure if it was before during or after this UFC run he had in 99-2000.

We get the return of Wanderlei Silva with a quick TKO finish over a big tough american fighter named Tony Petarra with mauy thai knees, giving Wand his first UFC win and rebound from the embarrassing loss to Vitor in Brazil in 1998.

Pete Williams picks up another win over a lower level opponent and just doesn't really look that great in doing it. His opponent Travis Fulton had a ton of fights on the lower level but seems like they could have tested Pete against somebody at a higher level. They were really pushing to make him a star of the heavyweight division and after that Coleman knockout it just wasn't there but they kept pushing him anyways.

Pedro Rizzo vs Tra Telligman I forgot how fun of a scrap this was. Telligman was missing his entire right pectoral muscle you would figure it would be a handicap but he was actually a really tough fighter that had some big wins in his career. He really goes after Rizzo in this fight and makes for a great battle while it lasts. Pedro gets his face bloodied but survives and finishes it with a nice low kick followed up with punches that sends Telligman down. Got to say Big John has to be an all time great ref he just had an eye for when a fight needed to be stopped. Rizzo moves to 3-0 with Ruas in his corner being hyped for his return at UFC 21.

Ok for my chance to watch Randleman vs Rutten again I'm finally going to do something I always wanted to do with this fight, sit down and watch it with pen and paper and stop watch(on my phone) to judge this fight like a judge scoring the winner. This is one of the most controversial decisions in UFC history that fans still debate to this day. Randleman takes Bas down and pounds him early on breaking his nose and bloodying his face. Randleman appears to run out of gas as it goes on, going the full distance and 2 overtimes with Bas fighting back off his back. They give the decision to Rutten to crown him as the new UFC Heavyweight Champion and Randleman and his corner throw a big fit like they were robbed, much of the crowd also boo's the decision.

So judging this fight on my own watching it this afternoon here is how I broke it down. Knowing what we know now that the guard position is a neutral position, I looked at the amount of significant strikes landed, strikes that did damage or had an impact. I also looked at time of control for either fighter. And also considered aggression, who was the more aggressive fighter for how much time of the fight.

Here is how the fight played out. Randleman completely dominates the first 4:55 of the fight up until they stopped it to check Rutten's broken nose with the doctors. Randleman spent nearly 2 minutes in side control/half guard which is an advantageous position of control(where as the full guard position is neutral, despite the fact that one guy is on his back that doesn't matter). Shortly after Rutten goes back to the full guard Randleman passes again and spends over a minute more in side control, so over 3 minutes there of that 4:55 Randleman pounds Rutten into oblivion and keeps a position of control.

After the stand up at 4:55 that was a great camera shot with them catching the ref and doctors asking Rutten if he wanted to continue, dramatic stuff.

After they start it back Randleman scores a big takedown but does little with it. From 5 minutes to 9 minutes into the fight Rutten is the more aggressive fighter, but very few SIGNIFICANT strikes are landed, mostly insignificant stuff, but still have to consider he was going for submissions and staying active.

Somewhere around the 8 minute mark Randleman passes the guard again into the side mount for like 1:47. He's not able to really do anything with it but yet again, this is control and advancing his position. Rutten is able to go back to the guard around 10 minutes, then at 10:20 Big John stops the fight to stand them up again and let the doctor check his cut again.

After the restart Rutten throws and misses some kicks and they end up stalled out in the clinch up against the fence up until another takedown by Randleman around 11 minutes in. From 11:30 until the end of the 15 minute regulation period Rutten is the more aggressive fighter off his back keeping Randleman in the guard, but again very few of these strikes he throws are of any significance.

To note, I've often praised the round system of Pride FC how their first round was 10 minutes long and how much of a test of heart that was. But damn, this 15 minute regulation period for these old UFC title fights is fucking brutal. Especially for this fight.

The first 3 minute overtime Randleman lands another takedown but other than 1 significant strike does little to nothing, Rutten is the aggressor off his back for almost the entire 3 minutes. I had Rutten landing 2 significant strikes in this overtime, while Randleman kind of cancels that out with 1 significant strike and the takedown, this overtime period was basically a draw.

After 18 minutes they stop for a 1 minute break and both guys are basically dead, they are set for another 3 minute overtime. Just brutal.

The final 3 minutes Randleman lands his 6th takedown of the fight but Rutten lands 3 significant strikes. Randleman stays busier than he did in the first overtime. It's hard to give the aggression advantage to either guy here as they both stay pretty busy.

So here's how it breaks down for me. Randleman was in full control for 4:47 of this fight while Rutten I didn't feel was in control at all at any point, you had 16:13 where it was neutral as far as control. Rutten was the more aggressive fighter for 12:30 of this fight compared to Randleman at 6:42. Here is the clincher for me though, Randleman landed 21 significant strikes in this fight plus 6 takedowns, while I counted Rutten at 12 significant strikes(including the 1 kick he was able to land standing up). So all in all I believe this was a highway robbery and Randleman should have won the UFC heavyweight belt here.

This was a terrible decision and I believe this was the decision that sent the UFC spiraling off into the proverbial "Dark Ages". This should have been Randleman's night to take over as the new king, instead Bas is crowned Champ, vacates the title at the very next show when announcing that he's dropping down to Light Heavyweight(then promptly retires due to injuries without ever fighting again). When they finally do crown Randleman at the end of 1999 at that point nobody was watching or cared about the UFC and they had gone a full 2 years without a proper heavyweight Champion. 

Still a great fight and a great show.


Best of the UFC up to UFC 20(May 1999):

Greatest fights
1. Tank Abbott vs Don Frye Ultimate Ultimate 96
2. Maurice Smith vs Mark Coleman UFC 14
3. Tank Abbott vs Oleg Taktarov UFC 6
4. Marco Ruas vs Paul Varelans UFC 7
5. Royce Gracie vs Kimo UFC 3
6. Dan Henderson vs Carlos Newton UFC 17
7. Pete Williams vs Mark Coleman UFC 17
8. Bas Rutten vs Kevin Randleman UFC 20
9. Dave Beneteau vs Carlos Barreto UFC 15
10. Randy Couture vs Vitor Belfort UFC 15
11. Frank Shamrock vs Jeremy Horn UFC 17
12. Royce Gracie vs Keith Hackney UFC 4
13. Dan Henderson vs Alan Goes UFC 17
14. Mark Coleman vs Don Frye UFC 10
15. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
16. Pedro Rizzo vs Mark Coleman UFC 18
17. Pedro Rizzo vs Tra Telligman UFC 20
18. Tank Abbott vs Scott Ferrozo UFC 11
19. Chuck Liddell vs Noe Hernandez UFC 17
20. Kimo vs Paul Varelans Ultimate Ultimate 96
21. Don Frye vs Gary Goodridge II Ultimate Ultimate 96
22. Marco Ruas vs Remco Pardoel UFC 7
23. Tito Ortiz vs Guy Mezger UFC 13
24. Steve Jennum vs Melton Bowen UFC 4

Ultimate Knockouts/Finishes
1. Gary Goodridge vs Paul Herrera UFC 8
2. Frank Shamrock vs Igor Zinoviev UFC 16
3. Pete Williams vs Mark Coleman UFC 17
4. Vitor Belfot vs Wanderlei Silva Ultimate Brazil
5. Tank Abbott vs Steve Nelmark Ultimate Ultimate 96
6. Pat Smith vs Scott Morris UFC 2
7. Dave Beneteau vs Asbel Cancio UFC 5
8. Tank Abbott vs John Matua UFC 6
9. Tank Abbott vs Hugo Duarte UFC 17
10. Wanderlei Silva vs Tony Petarra UFC 20
11. Bas Rutten vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka UFC 18
12./13. Vitor Belfort vs Tra Telligman/Scott Ferrozzo UFC 12
14. Mark Kerr vs Gret Stott UFC 15
15. Gerrard Gordeau vs Telia Tuli UFC 1
16. Tito Ortiz vs Wes Albritton UFC 13

Ultimate Submissions
1. Ken Shamrock vs Dan Severn UFC 6
2. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
3. Ken Shamrock vs Pat Smith UFC 1
4. Frank Shamrock vs Kevin Jackson Ultimate Japan
5. Tank Abbott vs Steve Jennum Ultimate Ultimate 95
6. Dan Severn vs Joe Charles UFC 5
7. Royce Gracie vs Dan Severn UFC 4
8. Ebenezer Fontes Braga vs Jeremy Horn Ultimate Brazil
9. Royce Gracie vs Ken Shamrock UFC 1
10. Kazushi Sakuraba vs Connan Silveira Ultimate Japan
11. Jeremy Horn vs Chuck Liddell UFC 19
12. Carlos Newton vs Bob Gilstrap UFC 17
13. Guy Mezger vs Tito Ortiz UFC 13
14. Enson Inoue vs Royce Alger UFC 13

It took me 3 sessions to make it through Pride 6 from July 4th 1999, taking place 2 months after UFC 20. This is at the Yokohama Arena, I can't find an official attendance but that place holds around 17,000 and it appears to be packed for this show. We get to see the beginning of the pageantry of Pride FC as the opening is a big ceremony with Mark Kerr, Nobuhiko Takada, Sakuraba, and Ebenezer Fantas Braga in the ring to open the show facing the four corners of the ring. Sakuraba gets a big pop, Takada gets the biggest reaction though.

This show was over 3 hours long and a marathon. I feel like the first 2 fights alone were over an hour combined, then they are followed by a 3rd long fight that went to a decision. Carl Malenko grounds out a decision over Egan Inoue in the opener. Carl was a pro wrestler that had been trained by Joe Malenko, I believe Dean's brother that teamed with him on one of the early WCW Clash Of Champions tag matches. Carl wrestled in Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi in 93 and was a regular at Battlearts, this was his second Pride match. Not much excitement here.

Carlos Newton returns in match 2 to take on Diajiro Matsui in an entertaining bout that goes the distance. Newton was for sure always one of my favorites. Matsui was a fun matchup for him another guy from Takada's dojo that was training with Sakuraba that Pride was hoping to build up as one of their regular stars.

Igor Vovchanchyn gets a decision win over Carlos Barretto in a david vs goliath type matchup. This was not that great of a fight, neither guys is able to get much going just a tactical stand up standoff mostly.

Those first three fights combined were over an hour and a half in length, just a marathon to get through.

The most entertaining fight on the undercard to me is the Kiyokushin karate bout they had on here. Just two Karate black belts going at it full contact with beautiful striking exchanges. One of the fighters is Nobuaki Kakuda, a big figure that draws a major connection to Fighting Network Rings the wrestling organization. He's all over the Rings DVD's I have from 1991 to 1993 fighting in kickboxing style bouts. He even fights Rob Kaman in a worked MMA style match that was really fun. He goes on later to be a regular referee for K-1 the big kickboxing fed.

I just love that about these early Pride shows. The Gracie Jujitsu showcase/exhibition on the previous event, now this Karate rules bout, just beautiful. They would phase stuff like this out as they went on but I find it so cool about these shows. Would have been cool to see them keep doing stuff like this for other martial arts like Judo, Sumo, Aikido, Tae Kwon Do, etc.

After that we get Guy Mezger returning from his loss to Tito at UFC 19 to take on Akira Shoji. Guy is wearing the Pancrase style shin guards in this bout, and the commentators point out that this is puzzling as it really favors Shoji and protects him from impact of Mezger's kicks. They also point out that it's possible he wore this just to signify his affiliation with Pancrase, which is something Pride probably paid/wanted him to do. Shoji gives Guy a lot of problems much like he did with Igor at the previous event, he was just tough, fast, wirey. Shoji picks up the win here in another long uneventful decision fight.

Gary Goodridge returns to take on Naoya Ogawa. I need Emperor or Strobe to chime in on Ogawa as to why he was such a big deal in Japanese puro. Pride really wanted to build up a Takada vs Ogawa match, they came close several times including a few Tokyo Dome shows through the years but it never happened. I was really surprised at how he fought Goodridge here, Gary comes after him trying to murder him early on but Ogawa survives and submits him with a keylock after Gary gets tired.

You can start to see the pro wrestling booking here with Pride establishing it's roster of regular guys. Goodridge was the monster gaijin, Shoji was a regular babyface guy they were pushing, Matsui bubbling up on the undercard as a Sakuraba stablemate.

I love what commentator Stephen Quadros points out about Goodridge that he really went for this and made it an action packed and exciting fight, even though he lost, that mattered. Especially considering how every fight before this played out as tactical careful fights that were long and drawn out and boring. Goodridge went out there and laid it all on the line and with the way he fought basically made a statement saying here is my heart, take it or I'm going to take yours motherfucker.

Kazushi Sakuraba fights in the co-main event against his 4th Brazilian in a row in a tough and underrated/forgotten former contender Ebenezer Fontas Braga, who was less of a Jujitsu guy and more of a Pedro Rizzo/Marco Ruas type of fighter that had good muay thai striking. This was a really fun fight with Sakuraba getting an amazing armbar submission win. I just marvel at how fucking bad ass Sakuraba was. It was amazing that he was winning fights like this against legit dangerous guy, in this case one that was about 15 pounds bigger than him. What makes it even more amazing now knowing what I know about the roots of Pride in pro wrestling was that Sakuraba was just a pure pro wrestler, there was no legit martial arts background, just old school pro wrestling submission grappling that was passed on down through the generations to him. He submits a huge heavyweight Gracie Jujitsu black belt in Connan Silveira, then survives some excellent grappling exchanges against Alan Goes, destroys Vitor Belfort, then submits Braga here he was on a fucking roll son. Just amazing. Inspiring.

After the fight Sakuraba stays in the ring as Frank Shamrock enters. Frank is the current UFC Light Heavyweight Champ and unbeaten in the UFC 4-0 probably the best 2 fighters in the sport at the time here in the ring together, UFC vs Pride. Frank cuts a promo saying Pride has the best fighters in the world and that he wants to fight Sakuraba. Of course this never happens but damn this just drives me nuts to even think about Sakuraba vs Frank Shamrock at this time in history, how fucking amazing that fight would have been, un-fucking real.

The main event is Nobuhiko Takada taking on "The Smashing Machine" Mark Kerr, who is undefeated and along with Enson Inoue the top heavyweight in the world at this point. I've covered this fight in History Of Wrestling because it's a worked fight. They did Takada beating Kerr's training partner Mark Coleman at the previous Pride event with Kerr watching ringside to build this up. I'll copy/paste my thoughts from the Match Review Thread:

Nobuhiko Takada vs "The Smashing Machine" Mark Kerr
Pride 6(1999)

This is an officially recognized MMA fight that is on Kerr and Takada's official records, but watching it after knowing what I know about Takada and shoot style pro wrestling that Pride was born out of, I'm 100% sure this was a shoot style worked pro wrestling match. Takada was money in the bank as far as a box office draw. The entire Pride promotion was created on the back of Takada taking on Rickson Gracie in the Tokyo Dome in 1997 in a match that had years of build. That bout was a shoot I'm sure(though the rematch I'm suspicious that Rickson let Takada last a little longer for the sake of entertainment perhaps was paid for it).

The Rock is about to play Mark Kerr in an upcoming Biopic called "The Smashing Machine". Kerr at this point is the #1 baddest dude on the planet. Hes got 2 UFC tournament titles but the UFC at this point was near death barely surviving, they couldn't afford to pay him so he had jumped to Pride FC in Japan, which was big time selling out stadiums in Japan thriving(primarily because of Takada). At this point in 1999 the UFC would be like ECW and Pride was WWF to make a pro wrestling comparison. It was that big of a gap in popularity and money.

So this bout is clearly a pro wrestling match. The story going in is that Takada hurt his arm in training for this bout but he has enough heart that he's going to take on the baddest motherfucker on Earth anyways even with the injury. Its not about winning and losing to the Japanese crowd like it is to meathead retard MMA fans in the USA, in Japan it was about your heart and how much of a fight you put up. In Pride, you could lose every fight but if you brought the heat and went out on your shield every time the fans were going to love you and bring you back.

So Takada stands his ground and hits Kerr with his trademark kicks to the leg over and over again. Kerr gets the takedown and lands some stiff shots, but not the murderous shots he was known for. Nothing stiffer than your average Rings/UWFI/PWFG matches. Sure enough Kerr works his way into a sweet Kimura/double wristlock from the top mount position on Takada's hurt/bandaged arm for the victory in just a few minutes. After winning Kerr is selling the bruises on his leg from Takada's kick almost like he's posing for the ringside photographers to get a shot of it.

Well done shoot style wrestling bout here to sell tickets and keep the sport of MMA thriving. This was critical for the sport even existing today on the level it does.

The big thing about the finish I always post about on PW is that this position for the Kimura was what Brock Lesnar should have copied. I always thought his Kimura off his back for a finisher was so goofy. This way Kerr does it here is so much stronger looking and more dramatic.

Not as good of a Pride show as Pride 5 before it but still interesting nonetheless. The Karate match was so cool, plus Sakuraba was so fucking bad ass in his win here. Ogawa shows some legit heart in a win over a bad dude in Gary Goodridge. Takada doing the job for Kerr after his worked win over Coleman was great booking to build up the legit best heavyweight to take over the throne of Pride as their big draw going forward. Its underrated how crucial this pro wrestling stuff was to push the whole sport of MMA forward and big evidence to my theory I've always pushed on PW that MMA IS just another style of pro wrestling, born directly out of it, related to it by blood. As much as both MMA and Pro Wrestling snobs hate it that's the thing about how truth works, you don't have to like it it just is what it is. 

Made it through UFC 21 this morning taking place in Iowa just 12 days after Pride 6 in July 1999. This is the UFC kind of settling into their minor league era here. The main event is a bizarre matchup of Maurice Smith vs Marco Ruas, two older guys that were both way past it and both coming off of losses, with neither guy really anywhere near the top of their weight class as contenders at this point.

Interesting to note that this is the first UFC event to finally put into place the 5 minute round system, the prelim fights were 2 rounds at 5 minutes each. Regular undercard fights were 3X5, and title fights were now 5 rounds at 5 minutes each. So the Randleman vs Rutten war of attrition was the final old school format fight. I never realized until rewatching the fight how much of a grueling fight that was, they went 15 full minutes along with 2 overtimes at 3 minutes each. Watching that as closely as I did I realized how much of a true test of heart that old 15 minute regulation time was. Also doubling back to that Rutten vs Randleman fight I feel like that would be an ideal fight to train an MMA judge about what to look for and how to score a fight, how to judge the criteria like aggression, control, and significant strikes and how to weigh those criteria against each other, also how the hierarchy of positions work on the ground how the guard is a neutral position(and advancing past it is gaining control of the fight).

So here we are in Iowa with the UFC falling deeper into the abyss of being just a cult underground thing with even smaller fanbase than ECW at this point in 1999. ECW was breaking ground with a new cable TV deal while the UFC was really sinking to the bottom struggling to do anything with little to no money coming in. Nobody was buying these PPV's anymore, where as back in 1994-94-96 those PPV's were selling 100,000 to 500,000 buys, home videos were topping the billboard charts for most rented tapes. It's interesting as I watched this show that I thought about how there was really no merchandising, no Kevin Randleman or Bas Rutten t-shirts they could make money from, no action figures, no sponsors on the Octagon canvas, hell I honestly don't think I've ever even seen a VHS copy of this UFC 21 show ever in all my years of renting and collecting the tapes. Their distribution deal with Lions Gate home video must have really started to dry up by this point. I did look it up on Ebay and a tape of this event goes for $90 which means it must be a really rare limited print tape for a VHS to sell for that much(you can buy most UFC tapes for around $10).

But you start to see the pattern and habits of the UFC here with UFC 21 where their struggles were catching up to them and the "Dark Ages" were setting in. The matchmaker John Parretti settled into his connections with Pat Miletich and pretty much used the Iowa fight scene as a crutch for the next year, the shows were built around Miletich and his Iowa fight team fighters and I believe they were regularly holding shows here in Iowa from here on out, which gave the whole thing a c-level minor league feel.

Royce Alger was one of the big name Iowa fighters they brought in and he gets knocked out in the opener vs Eugene Jackson. I remember reading somewhere about this fight that Big John before the fight discovered that Alger had a ring on his finger under his glove and had him take it off before the fight. The crowd is really hot for Alger as a hometown guy but he looks bad in this fight. Jackson puts him down with a pretty good ko.

Tsuyoshi Kohsaka takes out Tim Lajcik in a heavyweight scrap that was pretty good while it lasted. I remember seeing Tim Lajcik in the UFC video game for Dreamcast back in the day and being like WTF? Who the fook is that guy?! lol. Lajcik is unable to continue in between rounds and Kohsaka picks up another win, he was a solid contender at heavyweight back then, starting to realize he was a type of gatekeeper himself in the UFC at this time. Another interesting thing is that Maurice Smith who was fighting in that night's main event was busy as Kohsaka's primary cornerman during his fight, something you would never see somebody doing today. I always thought that was a big reason why I lost my first MMA fight back in the day, earlier that night I cornered my little brother for his fight and it just took a lot of emotion and energy out of me(it was a crazy fight). It was a task to shift gears and get ready for my own fight later that night.

Jeremy Horn returns in what has to be one of the worst mismatches in UFC history beating up on Daiju Takase, who was probably over 20 pounds smaller. Just terrible matchmaking here that was trademark of the John Parretti era protecting and trying to build up a Militich guy that he was juiced in with.

Pat Militich defends his heavyweight title in front of his hometown crowd beating Andre Pedernieras with a doctor stoppage due to a cut. Andre was coming off the win over Rumina Sato at the Shooto event the previous October that I posted about earlier in this thread, but as far as I can tell that was his only MMA fight other than this one. Militich in his post match promo addresses all the criticism he gets from the online MMA fans saying this win was for his hometown crowd not for them. After the fight we get the epic Mikey Burnett interview where he basically cuts a heel pro wrestling promo telling all the Iowa idiots to shut up that he was the real champ. He gets some great heat this was a highlight of this whole show, it's a shame they weren't able to make that rematch happen at one of the next Iowa shows the crowd would have been hot for it. Mikey never fights in the UFC again due to neck injuries(he makes a comeback attempt on one of the Ultimate Fighter reality shows years later but doesn't do well if I remember correctly).

Then the main event is a big disappointment. After the pretty uneventful first round Marco Ruas throws in the towel and forfeits due to a knee injury giving Maurice Smith the win. This fight honestly had no business main eventing a UFC pay per view in 1999, and it's odd that it even happened.

After the main event ends like that they show the prelim bout with Ron Waterman taking on the big indian guy Andre Roberts and this was the best fight of the whole show. Waterman bloodies Roberts and has Big John close to stopping the fight on 2 occasions before the big fucker Roberts fights back and puts him down in a pretty great comeback win. Just a wild, bloody, violent heavyweight scrap that was a throwback to the old school days of the UFC right here.

Another highlight of this show was their announcement that UFC 22 would be Frank Shamrock vs Tito Ortiz for the Light Heavyweight belt in September. They had both guys cutting promos in the ring and it was just really well done and worked really well to hype up the fight with both guys coming across genuine and legit. This was the biggest fight that SEG could possibly make and connected with all the backstory of Tito and Frank's big brother Ken having their heat at the UFC 19 event earlier in the year that got everybody talking.

Other than that I can imagine anybody that bought this PPV was pretty disappointed with it and further lost whatever interest they had in the UFC. Almost every single fight had a Militich/Iowa guy so no real diversity on this fight card, then the main event was a mess. Even though there were a couple of good finishes here you could definitely see the ship going down for the company that owned the UFC. Compared to Pride who 12 days earlier sold out the Yokohama Arena 17,000 with the best fighters in the sport.


Best of the UFC up to UFC 21(July 1999):

Greatest fights
1. Tank Abbott vs Don Frye Ultimate Ultimate 96
2. Maurice Smith vs Mark Coleman UFC 14
3. Tank Abbott vs Oleg Taktarov UFC 6
4. Marco Ruas vs Paul Varelans UFC 7
5. Royce Gracie vs Kimo UFC 3
6. Dan Henderson vs Carlos Newton UFC 17
7. Pete Williams vs Mark Coleman UFC 17
8. Bas Rutten vs Kevin Randleman UFC 20
9. Dave Beneteau vs Carlos Barreto UFC 15
10. Randy Couture vs Vitor Belfort UFC 15
11. Frank Shamrock vs Jeremy Horn UFC 17
12. Royce Gracie vs Keith Hackney UFC 4
13. Dan Henderson vs Alan Goes UFC 17
14. Mark Coleman vs Don Frye UFC 10
15. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
16. Andre Roberts vs Ron Waterman UFC 21
17. Pedro Rizzo vs Mark Coleman UFC 18
18. Pedro Rizzo vs Tra Telligman UFC 20
19. Tank Abbott vs Scott Ferrozo UFC 11
20. Chuck Liddell vs Noe Hernandez UFC 17
21. Kimo vs Paul Varelans Ultimate Ultimate 96
22. Don Frye vs Gary Goodridge II Ultimate Ultimate 96
23. Marco Ruas vs Remco Pardoel UFC 7
24. Tito Ortiz vs Guy Mezger UFC 13
25. Steve Jennum vs Melton Bowen UFC 4

Ultimate Knockouts/Finishes
1. Gary Goodridge vs Paul Herrera UFC 8
2. Frank Shamrock vs Igor Zinoviev UFC 16
3. Pete Williams vs Mark Coleman UFC 17
4. Vitor Belfot vs Wanderlei Silva Ultimate Brazil
5. Tank Abbott vs Steve Nelmark Ultimate Ultimate 96
6. Pat Smith vs Scott Morris UFC 2
7. Dave Beneteau vs Asbel Cancio UFC 5
8. Tank Abbott vs John Matua UFC 6
9. Tank Abbott vs Hugo Duarte UFC 17
10. Wanderlei Silva vs Tony Petarra UFC 20
11. Bas Rutten vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka UFC 18
12./13. Vitor Belfort vs Tra Telligman/Scott Ferrozzo UFC 12
14. Mark Kerr vs Gret Stott UFC 15
15. Gerrard Gordeau vs Telia Tuli UFC 1
16. Andre Roberts vs Ron Waterman UFC 21
17. Tito Ortiz vs Wes Albritton UFC 13
18. Eugene Jackson vs Royce Alger UFC 21

Ultimate Submissions
1. Ken Shamrock vs Dan Severn UFC 6
2. Ken Shamrock vs Kimo UFC 8
3. Ken Shamrock vs Pat Smith UFC 1
4. Frank Shamrock vs Kevin Jackson Ultimate Japan
5. Tank Abbott vs Steve Jennum Ultimate Ultimate 95
6. Dan Severn vs Joe Charles UFC 5
7. Royce Gracie vs Dan Severn UFC 4
8. Ebenezer Fontes Braga vs Jeremy Horn Ultimate Brazil
9. Royce Gracie vs Ken Shamrock UFC 1
10. Kazushi Sakuraba vs Connan Silveira Ultimate Japan
11. Jeremy Horn vs Chuck Liddell UFC 19
12. Carlos Newton vs Bob Gilstrap UFC 17
13. Guy Mezger vs Tito Ortiz UFC 13
14. Enson Inoue vs Royce Alger UFC 13

Just nothing like some early Sunday morning Pride Fighting Championships. I watched a little bit of Pride 7 last night and finishing it this morning. This event is from September 12th 1999 from the 17,000 seat Yokohama Arena. I think it's safe to say that Pride has finally found it's groove and knew exactly what it wanted to be at this point. Taking a closer look at the rise of Pride, it wasn't really meant to be a regular promotion it was just built up for the big Takada vs Rickson Gracie fight at the Tokyo Dome in 97. That fight was a big enough of a success that they immediately booked a rematch for a year later for 1998, but they did Pride 2 and Pride 3 through 1998 to kind of build that show up. The Takada vs Rickson rematch was Pride 4, then new owners bought it all out in 1999 and started their thing with Pride 5. Pride 5 and 6 was them finding their groove with a big improvement over the 97-98 shows, now they are really starting to establish themselves here with Pride 7, it would be constant growth from here on out.

Their poster game was on point starting here:



I fucking love that poster, Pride would go on to be known for their eccentric and unique event posters I think this was the start of that.

Attendance I found for this was just over 10,000 so they didn't sell out the Yokohama Arena. This honestly isn't a real big stacked fight card. The main event is Mark Kerr "The Smashing Machine" against Igor Vovchanchyn the rising Ukranian striker that was coming off of some less than stellar performances in his last few fights. Pride at this point was basically being booked like UWFI or Rings(and those were being booked like the UWF) just a regular roster of Japanese guys with fresh gaijins coming in to challenge them. This card puts a focus on their main guys, Daijiro Matsui, Akira Shoji, and Kazushi Sakuraba on the undercard, with their new top heavy weight draw Mark Kerr on top(Kerr had just had the torch passed to him from Nobuhiko Takada putting him over in a nicely worked UWFI style match). For this show they basically have their guys here in squash matches to build them up for the big November show coming up at the Ariake Coliseum which was like their big end of the year spectacular supercard. So this card was basically like a February WWF in-your house type of card.

This is a really noteworthy event because in the upcoming biopic "The Smashing Machine" where The Rock plays Mark Kerr, this fight that takes place on this event should be one of the main scenes of the movie(if they tell the story right). Going into this fight Kerr is the top heavyweight in the world and probably the most dangerous man on planet earth. But this show was the beginning of his downfall.

Matsui opens the show fighting Bob Shrijver a dirty heel from Holland that draws multiple yellow cards for fouls before being disqualified for a cheap shot axe kick to the back of Matsui's head way after the bell at the end of the first round. Further builds Matsui up as the all heart baby face.

I feel like they were tyring to build Carl Malenko up as a regular guy, this is his 3rd Pride event in a row taking on Wanderlei Silva making his Pride debut. Malenko gives Silva some problems with his wrestling, which is noteworthy because Wand had completely destroyed several wrestlers in Brazil in some brutal matches prior to this. Malenko is able to keep him on his back but ends up losing a decision in a pretty boring fight. Silva is able to land some good mauy thai offense here but this was a close fight.

Maurice Smith beats fellow kickboxing great Branko Cikitic with a forearm crossface across his throat. This was just months after Smith beat Marco Ruas at UFC 21 so he was on a bit of a roll here after the loss to Randleman earlier in 1999.

Akira Shoji I believe at this point has fought on all 7 Pride shows with this win over lower tier American gaijin Larry Parker he moves to 4-1-2 record. He ends up earning the nickname "Mr. Pride". He falls off in later years and becomes a jobber but he's off to a hell of a start here, he's given guys like Igor Vochchannchyn and Renzo Gracie some big problems in those fights, beats King Of Pancrase Guy Mezger, Wallid Ismail, and a couple jobbers.

Sakuraba really shows out here against a smaller lesser skilled opponent in Anthony Macias. The crowd just eats up everything he does. After proving himself against a murderer's row of tough Brazilian killers he gets a nice little showcase fight here and really makes the most of it, we get the debut of his double mongolian chop ground and pound strikes. At one point he fakes the jumping guard pass that he was starting to get known for and surprises Macias with a diving sliding side kick that was just fucking beautiful. He really shows out here to pickup a dominant win. Hes a fucking legend. Rewatching these fights has really lit a fire under my ass and made me fall back in love with MMA.

Then we have the big heavyweight showdown main event. Mark Kerr vs Igor Vovchanchyn in what absolutely has to be considered like an unofficial Heavyweight Championship of MMA bout even though there are no belts on the line here. Kerr is the man in MMA at this time, undefeated and unchallenged. Igor at this point was 36-2 and had won multiple international MMA tournaments around the world(one of them I have on DVD from Kiev where he beats UFC veteran Paul Varelans in the finals after beating 2 other guys that night). Igor at this point is on a 32 fight win streak that goes back to 1995 he was just fighting non stop around the world. I've always really loved this guy:



This is such a great fight to rewatch for me just now. Kerr is about 255 with maybe less than 2% bodyfat, just a complete fucking monster here for this fight. Igor is over 20 pounds lighter and I have to think he's a big underdog here since he really didn't look all that great against Akira Shoji or Carlos Barretto in his previous 2 Pride fights. Kerr stands up with Igor to start the fight and it's pretty intense in some of the early exchanges, he's very powerful. At one point they clinch up and clash heads busting Igor open with a small cut. Kerr lands a big knee in the clinch like the one that knocked out Greg Stott at UFC 15 but Igor just bounces away from it and fights back. Kerr tries to throw a kick and Igor catches it and drops Kerr with a huge overhand right. Kerr recovers and takes the fight to the ground where the action stalls out for a bit.

Such an interesting element to this is that Bas Rutten is on commentary for the fight, up to this fight he was one of Kerr's trainers that really had him in shape and kicking ass. But they talk on commentary about how Kerr did not train with Bas for this fight. Bas goes into detail about how he had a busy schedule but was still willing to make time to get him ready but Kerr just chose not to work with him for this one.

They end up standing back up later in the first round and Igor lands a HUGE overhand right but Kerr just eats it and stays up. They make it through the first round then it all goes downhill for Kerr in the second round. He takes Igor down but starts to get tired. Igor kicks Kerr off of him and ends up finishing him with knees to the head while Kerr was down on all fours trying to take him down. Kerr just falls forward losing consciousness and the ref stops it, the crowd is in total disbelief as Igor goes off celebrating the win.

It's weird because supposedly at this point the knees to a down fighter were illegal in Pride. At one point you can see the ref after stopping it reaching for his pocket like he was going for a yellow card, but it's like he got lost in the moment and let it go. There was a phenomenal documentary that HBO made about Kerr called "The Smashing Machine" in the early 2000's and the events before and after this fight are excellent in that doc. The cameras followed Kerr to the back after this fight where he went and found the owner of Pride to protest the loss, then the cameras stick with him until he's all alone in the dressing room just completely devastated crying his heart out in one of the most emotional documentary moments you can imagine. His career really started to fall apart after this loss as he started to sink off into addiction to injectable pain killers and having issues with a weird girlfriend/wife that was all captured on the documentary. It would only get more interesting from here as Pride was making plans for a massive 16 man heavyweight grand prix set for 2000(which Kerr was heavily favored to win).

Even though Pride would officially reverse the decision to a no contest since the knees were in fact illegal, still in the eyes of the fans Igor put Kerr down and ended his unbeaten reign. Also this fight pretty much established Igor as the new #1 heavyweight in the sport of MMA, he was now the man. Pride after all this would make the rules change that now knees to the downed opponent were now legal, something that gave the promotion it's own unique vibe of MMA since it really opened up all new positions and scenarios of MMA that you would just never see in the UFC.