I have been receiving numerous recommendations and requests to write an ebook based on my history articles, and while I am flattered by the suggestion I also realize that talk is cheap. What I want to know is how many people would actually pay to purchase an ebook of mine? Because if there is enough real interest shown I do have more than enough material for such a project.

(If you are not familiar with my work, i use to write under the pseudonym nottheface. If that doesn't ring a bell, than click here and check out some of my previous work. If you don't like what you read than I guess you aren't my target audience.)

My book proposal: a history of of what is now referred to as mixed martial arts through the ages, chronicling the evolution of the sport under its various names: pankration, London bare-knuckle boxing, rough-and-tumble, "anything goes", no-holds-barred, vale tudo, etc.

The whole thing would be serialized and released in six parts with each part to be around 50 pages or so - roughly the length of all four of the "Forgotten Golden Age of Mixed Martial Arts" series combined. The first release would cover the pankration and the Roman gladiator games and detailing their connection to modern MMA (I know I've written often that there is no connection between them but I lied), moving on to the origins of jujutsu and its European counterparts (kampfringen, abrazare, and various Fechtbuchers), to wages of combat and duels and how those two, along with stick fights between mobs, bizarrely gave birth to boxing (a boxing unlike anything we know today). It would end with James Figg and the birth of prizefighting.

That's part 1, the other 5 parts would continue to chronicle the evolution of combat sports, including the rise of catch-as-catch-can wrestling, the great judo versus wrestling contests, the incredibly early mixed martial arts scenes in Australia, France, Germany, and Hawaii, the Chinese lei tai, the end of real pro wrestling, early MMA leagues (besides the Tough Guys!), and ending when we eventually get to 1993 and the very first Pancrase and UFC events.

My plan would be to release each serialized chapter every other month, meaning the whole project would be done in a year, The one stickler: will anyone buy it?

So does that interest anyone? Let me know in the poll. And if you have any suggestions what you'd like to see or a possible name for the whole thing (I have a few ideas) leave them below in the comments. And be honest.

Thanks,

nottheface

The ballroom of the Holiday Inn in New Kensinton, Pennsylvania was filled to capacity with fight fans who were more than pleased with what was being demonstrated in the ring. Mike Murray, a car salesmen from Vandergrift, Virginia and Dave Jones, a road gang laborer from nearby North Huntingdon, were in the final round of their match, the opening contest of the evening. It had been a back-and-forth affair for most of its three rounds, with a surprising amount of wrestling for two standup fighters: Murray claimed a boxing background while Jones dabbled in karate and kickboxing. As the clock wound down the fighters, along with the spectators, were back on their feet. Jones was now turning it up, unloading a series of vicious kicks and punches that went unanswered from his dazed and damaged opponent. With only seconds remaining in the fight Murray's corner threw in the towel, saving him from any more punishment. The audience roared in approval.

Scenes such of this can be found all across America on any given day of the week, but what makes this particular contest noteworthy isn't the results, the participants, or the fight itself, but the date it took place. March 20th, 1980.

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Mixed martial arts has always had a strong connection with professional wrestling, owing its sports entertainment rival a debt of gratitude not only for much of the financial success the UFC has witnessed over the last decade but also for the sport's very existence. Recent stories have highlighted this relationship while also revealing a trend which sees the two growing even more intertwined.

One of the bigger stories in professional wrestling this year has been the return of Brock Lesnar - and with him "legitimacy" - to the WWE. Where in past years Vince McMahon and company have made a conscious effort to keep the upstart UFC at arms length, current storylines see them embracing Brock's real fighting accomplishments and using it in what may even be described as some sort of meta "WWE versus UFC" plot. His violent and realistic confrontations with John Cena, which always come with an underlying threat that he may at some point decide to fight for real, hearkens to the earlier era of kayfabe.

Bellator and TNA, two companies that share a home on Spike, have taken this fusing of professional wrestling and mixed martial arts to another level with their recent signing of Muhammed Lawal. While other fighters have worked as wrestlers before, during, or after their careers in the cage, King Mo's deal with the two is unique to North American promoters (but not to Japanese). Obviously they are hoping that their joint promotion, and the resulting synergy, will appeal to the numerous crossover fans that the two "sports" share. That events inside the Bellator cage may serve as plot devices for simultaneous TNA storylines, highlights the potential blurring of the lines.

One fighter who has already done what King Mo is attempting is Josh Barnett, who for years alternated between fighting for real and choreographing his combat in the rings of Japan. The mic work he picked up as part of his puroresu experiences has served him well in the lead up to tonight's contest against Daniel Cormier for the Strikeforce Grand Prix championship. Barnett's pro-wrestling background also provides a stark contrast with Cormier, who brings with him what is generally viewed as a more "legitimate" wrestling resume, having reached the uppermost echelons of amateur (or "real") wrestling.

Of course, Barnett would probably take offense to this comparison, having, in recent interviews, seen fit to defend professional wrestling's effectiveness as a training ground for combat:

... I feel really proud of a professional wrestling lineage, I feel pride in trying to re-connect those Amateur Wrestling roots to the combat aspects of wrestling, and also the history and the lineage of where Professional Wrestling came from. It's not fake, you know? I can't stand it when people go "Oh, but it's fake, right?" ... It's not fake! You can call it whatever you want, but don't say it's fake. I'm not joking out there, I'm not playing around, it's not a game to me. It's real, and I take it very seriously because I'm trying to show everything that we have as athletes out there in the ring, trying to show all the emotions and aspects that go into a fight and a struggle between two competitors.

... Pro Wrestlers used to be considered some of the toughest guys in the world back in the day. It didn't matter if they were out there working, their pedigree was otherwise, and anybody that wanted to step up to them learned the hard way.

Coincidentally, parallels can be found between all three of these stories and a contest nearly a century ago, one that saw many of the same conflicts present. "Kayfabe" versus reality. "Worked" bouts versus real "shoots". Amateur Olympic wrestling versus professional catch-as-catch-can. All of these were present in the match between Nat Pendleton and John Pesek, one of the last great "shoots" in professional wrestling.

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If there is one aspect of boxing that fans of mixed martial arts can be forgiven for being envious of it is the long and rich history it holds over its sibling. Theirs is a tradition that can recite the exploits of Hank Armstrong, Joe Louis, Willie Pep, and Sugar Ray Robinson, recall the glories of "The War", "The Fight of the Century", "The Rumble in the Jungle", and "The Long Count", and trace the lineage of the heavyweight title from Wladimir Klitschko today, all the way back to 1729, where James Figg, the recognized father of boxing, was the first man to ever be crowned champion. In comparison the history of mixed martial arts is practically nonexistent, its date of birth not three centuries ago but less than two decades.

The most widely accepted and commonly told story for the origins of mixed martial arts is that it was introduced to the world on November 12, 1993, when Gerard Gordeau stepped into the cage against Teila Tull at the very first Ultimate Fighting Championship. As this version of the story goes, thanks to an inspired Rorion Gracie and Art Davies, for the first time - or at least the first time in modernity - two disparate styles of martial arts were pitted against each other in a contest of unarmed combat that allowed for both grappling and striking and where victory could be attained by either rendering your opponent unconscious through blows or by forcing them to surrender from a submission hold. The sport, which was originally referred to as "no holds barred" (since the name mixed martial arts wouldn't be coined until 1995) and for which rules were practically nonexistent eventually became known as MMA and no rules gave way to Unified, a transformation not unlike that seen in boxing when London Prizefighting gave way to the Marquis of Queensbury rules.

That this creation myth for MMA would prove to be not completely accurate should come as no surprise, for when one uses the definition given above it becomes obvious that the Ultimate Fighting Championship was not where modern mixed martial arts was born, that it had been in existence for some time before then. The question therefore becomes "if mixed martial arts was not born at UFC 1, when was it"? How far back can one trace its lineage while still being able to give it the name mixed martial arts?

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The story of the early origins of mixed martial arts is one that is intertwined with that of jujutsu's. Wherever jujutsu landed during its migration from Japan to the Western World a similar pattern arose, one of early exponents and demonstration, giving way to mixed contests against wrestlers and boxers, to finally converging with catch-as-catch-can wrestling and giving birth to the earliest form of mixed martial arts with all-in, anything goes contests.

The story of the early days of jujutsu in Australia was no different, although perhaps nowhere else was the story quit as interesting.

The introduction of jujutsu to Australia is often credited to Mr. Cecil Elliott, who's story resembles that of Edward Barton-Wright, the founder of Bartitsu, and his introduction of jujutsu to England and Europe. [EN1] Like Edward Barton-Wright, Cecil Elliott was an Englishman, having been born in the village of Hackelton, North Hamptonshire on May 20, 1875, and also like Wright he traveled extensively, having enlisted in the Royal Navy as an Apprentice Seaman at age 16. Eventually he would become an officer and his duties would take him to Japan where, just as Barton-Wright had done before him, he took up the study of jujutsu, obtaining first dan in Yokohama in 1904. The next year he left the Navy and relocated to Sydney, Australia, where he found employment at Mr. R.F. Young's School of Physical Culture. The school's primary focus had been on the Sandow system of physical exercise, but Mr. Young had not failed to notice the interest jujutsu was garnering around the globe (partly thanks to the efforts of Barton-Wright), advertising that [EN2]

"Schools have been established in England and America. His Excellency President Roosevelt has evinced great interest in the method by taking instruction therein from a well-known Japanese Instructor, and the United States Government are having it specially taught as SCIENCE to the young officers of the Army and Navy." [EN3]

The School of Physical Culture soon added jujutsu to the curriculum, and in early 1906, Elliott hosted a jujutsu exhibition before an audience that included the New South Wales Commissioner of Police, Mr. Mackay. It is often reported as having been the first such public demonstration of the Japanese martial art ever held in Australia. [EN4] It also proved to be a success and soon the school was flooded with inquiries from potential students. When in need of instructors for his Bartitsu club, Barton-Wright had imported jujutsukas from Japan, and so Elliott wired Yokohama, looking to do the same.

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In the wake of Ronda Rousey's thrilling - and vicious - victory over Miesha Tate, one wouldn't be faulted for thinking that WMMA has arrived. That the sport had final won over all its detractors and that it would finally be allowed to occupy its own space alongside its male counterpart as an accepted part of the combative sports pantheon. Unfortunately, that will most likely not be the case, for those holding the most antagonistic views do so because they are against the very idea of women fighting. For them women's MMA is akin to a freakshow, which has been hoisted upon them as legitimate sporting competition only to take attention away from the real fighters who happen to be men. Women, the thinking goes, were never meant to take part in the fight game, as evidenced by the fact that it is only a recent invention, that throughout history women have shown no inclination for it. That individuals such as Rousey are merely anomalies. What these detractors fail to note is that women's prizefighting is not a recent invention and its roots reach all the way back to its very beginnings.

The sport of boxing, and the profession of prizefighting, gained widespread popularity in England in the early 18th century, in part thanks to the accomplishments of James Figg. Crowned as the "Champion of England" in 1719, the very first holder of what would become the linear heavyweight championship of boxing, he promoted himself and pugilism tirelessly. It was a very different sport in those nascent days, a complete martial art that included ground-fighting and weapons that eventually evolved to a standing, fist-only striking sport.

Even in these earliest times, female prizefighters were present, with the first recorded match between "two of the feminine gender", appearing in the June 23, 1722 "London Journal" where it makes mention that the women "maintained the battle with great valour for a long time, to the no small satisfaction of the spectators." For the remainder of the century women and women's "boxing" could be found being contested with regularity in London, sometimes with a level of parity to men that was shocking to the sensibilities. Martin Nogue documented in 1728 in his "Voyages et Avantures" [EN 1] of seeing women and girls fighting the same as the men, including being stripped from the waist up: "Des femrnes des filles même combattent de la même forte, dépouillées jusqu à la ceinture."

Later countrymen would look back in horror at the popularity and acceptance such a "sport" held with their predecessors:

"The most revolting and disgusting spectacles of this kind were prizefights in which women were the competitors for the stakes, and, half-naked, battered and bruised each other, without cause or provocation, to the heart's delight of a "respectable" circle of beholders! Under date June 22nd 1768 we read Wednesday last, two women fought for a new chemise valued at half a guinea, in the Spa fields, near Islington. The battle was won by a woman called ‘Bruising Peg', who beat her antagonist in a terrible manner." [EN2]

That Alexander Andrews would, in 1855, point to "Bruising Peg" as an example of the immorality of earlier London shows the changes that had taken place over the intervening century with regards to women's roles. Sure "Bruising Peg" was renown for her brutality, but she was also immensely popular during her day, enough to earn her keep by giving boxing exhibitions at a London theatre (where she she was often accompanied by Macomo the Nubian lion tamer).

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As the UFC plans to visit Brazil again this weekend I thought it would be interesting to examine some of Brazil's rich history involving mixed martial arts. Kid Nate has already chronicled the feuds of Brazil and losses of luta livre, T.P. Grant has examined the rise of Vale Tudo and the luta livre-BJJ rivalries, while I myself have looked at Helio's matches in the 30s. Now we investigate how it all came to be...

On the first day of May, in the year 1909, a large crowd filed into the International Pavilion Paschoal Segreton in Rio de Janeiro to witness another demonstration given by the "Professor of Jiu-Jitsu" Sada Miyako. Miyako was one of two Japanese nationals recruited by the Brazilian Navy to instruct their sailors in the art of hand-to-hand defense, and, as so many of his countrymen had done before him in North America and Europe, had taken to giving jujutsu exhibitions before a paying audience. [EN1]

"For some days a terrible player has haunted the amusement hall audience with his indescribable agility, a jumping Machiavellian. Every night the Japanese champion challenges the audience to test themselves against him..."
"JIU-JITZU" A Pacotilha, June 14, 1909

And every night the outcome had been the same for any man that dared climb onto the stage to accept the challenge: a quick and embarrassing defeat. But the large crowd that filled the theater that night had not come to see the usual line of local strongmen trying their hand against the invincible "Jiu-Jitsu champion". Intermixed amongst the usual spectators were contingencies of Japanese nationals, Navy officers, government officials, journalists, members of high society, and students from the Faculdade de Medicina. With that last group sat Cyriac Francisco da Silva, a 38-year-old former street fighter from the Municipality of Campos dos Goytacazes who now worked carrying sacks of coffee from the docks to downtown Rio. He was better known as "Macaco" ("Old Monkey"), one of the best, if not the best, capoeirista of the era. He had been brought here by his pupils, the medical students, to challenge Miyako and defend Brazil's national honor from the foreign import. His presence was responsible for the night's considerable attendance, as both fight aficionados and the merely curious crowded in to the theater to witness this confrontation between two masters of jujutsu and capoeira.

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It is a tradition of sorts amongst hack writers looking for material to ring in the New Year with a list of predictions for the next 12 months. Buttressed by my string of success in fight prognostication (having successfully picked every UFC and Strikeforce card main event since UFC 136) I've decided to go big or go home, with five Nostrodamus-like predictions for 2012:

Anderson Silva will lose to a Team Quest fighter who undergoes Testerone Replacement Therapy

Anderson Silva is perhaps the best fighter in the short history of mixed martial arts and during his career he has definitely been better than potential opponents Chael Sonnen or Dan Henderson. He will also be 37-years of age and coming off of surgery if he faces either of them next year. Throw in the fact that the only chink in his armor to ever be demonstrated in the UFC was against wrestlers, specifically the wrestling of Sonnen and Henderson, two fighters that have been on a tear while Silva has been recuperating and I can't help but feel sorry for the security responsible for restraining the sure-to-be angry Manaus crowds.

Ceasar Gracie Jiu-Jitsu will hold at least one UFC belt at the end of 2012

The Gracie team has got just too much talent and will have too many opportunities this year for it not to happen. With Nick Diaz posed for an interim title fight next month, Gilbert Melendez holding the Strikeforce belt and waiting to be brought over to the UFC, and Nate Diaz now moving into title contention the odds are definitely in Ceasar Gracie Jiu-Jitsu's favor.

Needless to say George St-Pierre will not be the champ come January 1st 2013

If there is one thing this past year has shown us it is how big an impact injury and layoff plays on performace. Brock Lesnar, Cain Velasquez, Shogun Rua. All of them came back after surgery and long layoffs. All of them got destroyed. There is a reason Freddie Roach thinks St-Pierre should get a tune-up fight first: he knows how difficult it will be for GSP to come back anywhere close to what he was after an ACL tear and knee surgery.

Visit Head Kick Legend to read the last two predictions and vote in another pointless poll. Or click HERE.

I have been taken back by the amount of vitriol expressed in the comments of Matt Roth’s recent stories examining Brock Lesnar’s career in professional wrestling. While a lack of interest with anything relating to a "staged sport" from a segment of MMA fanbase doesn’t surprise me what does is the outright hostillity expressed by many readers. For them positing any link, no matter how tenuous, beween the UFC and the WWF is to defame the sport they love. What many of them are apparently unaware of is that mixed martial arts is really professional wrestling. No, not the professional wrestlng of Vince MacMahon, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Jesse "The Body", and Bobby "the Brain" Heenan, but professional wrestling non-the-less, albiet under a different name.

As I’ve tried to chronicle over the last year, the sport that would eventually be named mixed martial arts is not a recent invention, having been born of two parents over a century ago. From out of Japan in the East came a number of practioners of (the often interchangeable) jujutsu and Kodokan Judo who travelled extensively throughout the Western World in their quest to spread their art. To assist in this they quickly began demonstrating the "gentle-ways" effectiveness by challenging and facing in a variety of matches the home-grown Western fighting disciplines of boxing and wrestling. The West’s contribution was provided by professional wrestling, which was already staging mixed bouts between the different schools of grappling by the time jujtusu appeared on the European or American landscape. In no time the two disciplines would be facing of against each other in the ring.

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Since a recent (and very interesting) fanpost on the martial arts of the Viking era has brought attention to the Scandinavian wrestling style known as glima I thought I might be able to add something by posting this material which was originally meant for Ultimate Fighting of the Belle Epoque but unfortunately failed to make the final draft. Enjoy.

At 3 o’clock in the afternoon of March 30th, 1913, some 200 of the most unusual spectators crowded on to the roof of Madison Square Garden to witness a most unusual wrestling match.[EN1] The assembled company were mostly from the Barnum & Bailey Circus which was currently engaged for a string of performances at the arena beneath them. Amongst the attendees "There were many Japanese on hand, there were silk-hatted folk innumerable, and there were freaks from the circus side show, for the midgets especially did not propose to miss the match, and the elder Barnett swaggered around with a miniature fur coat on his arm and a whisp of a cane swinging jauntily."

The match they had gathered for was to be a "grudge bout" between Otagawa, a Japanese exponent of jiu jitsu, and Johannes Josefsson, an Icelandic wrestler. "It grew out of the jealousy between the Icelander and the Japanese, they said" over who was truly the champion of their circus.

As they faced off Otagwa gazed calmly at his opponent. He had taken on and defeated numerous wrestlers as part of his "act" and there was no reason for him to think this encounter would play out any different than the scores that preceeded it. He would be mistaken.

A reporter for the New York Times chronicled the encounter:

Otagawa insisted that they wrestle with jackets and belts on, and although Josefsson had never tried it he was willing to fight one bout that way and one without. Thus appeased, the little jiu jitsu champion went at him, and there was some fine tussling. Despite the handicap of the unfamiliar jacket the fair-haired man threw Japanese twice and there was much cheering, which was not loud enough, however to drown the tempest of outspoken woe from Hekla, the 2-year- old daughter of Josefsson, who could not understand what it was all about.

The Icelander would be declared the winner after Otagawa refused to fight the promised bare-armed second encounter unless his opponent wore a jacket.

This match was only one of many such mixed "jiu jitsu versus wrestlers" contests held around the world during this time period, but what made it noteworthy was not so much the match itself, but the style of wrestling employed by Josefsson. During the Belle Époque many of the world’s wrestling styles from the Occident (Lancashire, Cumberland, Westmorland, Scottish backhold, Cornish, Devonshire, collar-and-elbow, rangein, schwingen, lutte Parisienne) and the Orient (karakucak, yağlı güreş, pehlwani, sumo, jujutsu, and judo) were converged into catch-as-catch-can wrestling. What Johannes Josefsson added to the mix was the Norseman’s glima. [EN2]

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While this Head Kick Legend fanpost mostly deals with mixed martial arts, it also includes a good deal of early prizefighting history, which I thought some of the readers here might fight interesting. 

There seems to be some confusion amongst fans as to how one should regard Nick Diaz’s "boxing". For many, it seems incongruent for him to be labeled the best boxer in MMA when so little of what he does in the cage can be qualified as being "good" boxing; leaning too far forward in his stance while leading with his face;  keeping his hands far out in front of him where they can’t be used to protect the head; feet planted instead of light on the toes; very little movement of his head. Needless to say, none of what you’d expect from an elite boxer.

And yet, the results speak for themselves, with his most recent display of prowess coming at the expense of the previously labeled "best boxer in MMA", BJ Penn. How can Nick Diaz be the exemplifier of the "sweet science" when everything he does runs counter to what entails "good" boxing? The answer lies with the fact that everything he does is exactly what "good" boxing calls for, and the only reason we fans fail to acknowledge this is because we have narrowly focused on the sport as fought under the Marques of Queensbury rules, ignoring the lessons left to us by those who competed during the earlier reigns of London Prizefighting and Broughton’s rules. Fortunately, a few of them were thoughtful enough to write down what entailed good boxing for the "sweet science of bruising".

It is most likely that you never heard of Daniel Mendoza, which is of no surprise since his last public match took place in 1820, but if ever there was a kindred spirit to Diaz it was him. A descendent of Spanish Marronos, he was the father of scientific boxing, whose success helped elevate the position of jews in 18th and 19th century English society. And much like Diaz, he seemed incapable of understanding finances while also being notoriously quick tempered with a propensity to fight whenever he felt slighted in the least, having once famously gotten into three altercations while on his way to be a spectator for a match (the three reasons being that someone’s cart had cut him off in the street, he felt cheated by a shopkeeper, and he didn’t like how a man was looking at him). Most importantly he was an amazing boxer, the best of his era, being the 16th man to hold the English (World’s) heavyweight championship (possessing the title from 1792-1795), and the only middleweight to ever accomplish that feat.

The ruleset that Mendoza fought under during his time was the one divised by Jack Broughton in 1743, the very first codified set of rules in the history of the sport, which were fittingly named Broughton’s rules. They were very simple, numbering seven in total, dealing with such things as the size of the ring, the holding of the purse, and the choosing of umpires. Of the seven, only the last had anything to do with what tactics were allowed during competition.

VII. That no person is to hit his Adversary when he is down, or seize him by the ham, the breeches, or any part below the waist: a man on his knees to be reckoned down.

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There seems to be some confusion amongst fans as to how one should regard Nick Diaz’s "boxing". For many, it seems incongruent for him to be labeled the best boxer in MMA when so little of what he does in the cage can be qualified as being "good" boxing; leaning too far forward in his stance while leading with his face;  keeping his hands far out in front of him where they can’t be used to protect the head; feet planted instead of light on the toes; very little movement of his head. Needless to say, none of what you’d expect from an elite boxer.

And yet, the results speak for themselves, with his most recent display of prowess coming at the expense of the previously labeled "best boxer in MMA", BJ Penn. How can Nick Diaz be the exemplifier of the "sweet science" when everything he does runs counter to what entails "good" boxing? The answer lies with the fact that everything he does is exactly what "good" boxing calls for, and the only reason we fans fail to acknowledge this is because we have narrowly focused on the sport as fought under the Marques of Queensbury rules, ignoring the lessons left to us by those who competed during the earlier reigns of London Prizefighting and Broughton’s rules. Fortunately, a few of them were thoughtful enough to write down what entailed good boxing for the "sweet science of bruising".

It is most likely that you never heard of Daniel Mendoza, which is of no surprise since his last public match took place in 1820, but if ever there was a kindred spirit to Diaz it was him. A descendent of Spanish Marronos, he was the father of scientific boxing, whose success helped elevate the position of jews in 18th and 19th century English society. And much like Diaz, he seemed incapable of understanding finances while also being notoriously quick tempered with a propensity to fight whenever he felt slighted in the least, having once famously gotten into three altercations while on his way to be a spectator for a match (the three reasons being that someone’s cart had cut him off in the street, he felt cheated by a shopkeeper, and he didn’t like how a man was looking at him). Most importantly he was an amazing boxer, the best of his era, being the 16th man to hold the English (World’s) heavyweight championship (possessing the title from 1792-1795), and the only middleweight to ever accomplish that feat.

The ruleset that Mendoza fought under during his time was the one divised by Jack Broughton in 1743, the very first codified set of rules in the history of the sport, which were fittingly named Broughton’s rules. They were very simple, numbering seven in total, dealing with such things as the size of the ring, the holding of the purse, and the choosing of umpires. Of the seven, only the last had anything to do with what tactics were allowed during competition.

VII. That no person is to hit his Adversary when he is down, or seize him by the ham, the breeches, or any part below the waist: a man on his knees to be reckoned down.

Continue reading this post »

This Fan Post Was Promoted to the Front Page by Anton Tabuena

[Note: many of the passages from contemporary sources contain derogatory and offensive terms in reference to various ethnic groups. While I in no way condone the viewpoints expressed with their use, I also do not condone pretending such sentiments did not exist. For that reason they have been left in and hopefully do not detract from your reading experience.]

This is part four in a four part series shining a gas light on the forgotten golden age of mixed martial arts that existed during the Belle Époque. For the previous installments in the series, check out Part 1: The Golden Age of Wrestling and the Lost Art of American Catch-as-Catch-can, Part 2: The Rise of Judo and the Dawn of a New Age, and Part 3: Sherlock Holmes, Les Apaches, and the Gentlemanly Art of Self Defence. And for the history of the origins and early development of MMA, read James Figg: The Lost Origins of the Sport of Mixed Martial Arts.

The way the Ultimate Fighting Championship was created was a bunch of television guys got together and said, "Let's answer the age-old question, which fighting style is the best?" Would a boxer beat a wrestler? Would a kung fu guy beat a karate guy?

- Dana White

The fact is that when started this, it didn’t exist. We started it… they didn’t know what it was…

- Bob Meyrowitz, TOTAL MMA by Jonathan Snowden

Autumn of 1993 proved to be pivotal season in the history of combative sports. In September of that year Masakatsu Funaki’s Pancrase held their inaugural event, one where, for the first time in memory, professional wrestling matches were contested for real. It was only fitting that a promotion named after the ancient Greek sport of pankration, a sport that combined boxing and wrestling in an "anything goes" contest, would now be hosting matches where slams, kicks, punches, knees, elbows (but no strikes to the head except for those with an open hand), and all the "sleeper holds", leg locks, and other submission hooks of "worked" pro wrestling would finally be used for real.

A few weeks later, on November 12, an even more significant event took place: the initial Ultimate Fighting Championship. Advertised as a "no holds barred" contest between a "sumo wrestler, savate champion, kick boxer, karate specialist, jujitsu whiz, cruiserweight prizefighter, "shootfighter" and tae kwon do expert" to find the ‘Ultimate Fighter". "People were intrigued by the concept of style versus style." Dave Meltzer explained in Total MMA, "People have debated that forever. What if a wrestler fought a boxer or a jiu-jitsu guy?" The event would prove a success, capturing the public’s imagination and giving birth to what would be known as mixed martial arts, a sport the likes of which the world hadn’t seen since pankration went extinct 1500 years ago.

Of course, anything go matches had not died out with the Greeks and Romans, and mixed fights between boxers, wrestlers, savateurs, judokas and other disciplines had already taken place, having answered all our questions during the era known as the Belle Époque.

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When Roger Gracie meets "King" Mohammed Lawal tonight as part of the undercard for the Strikeforce Grand Prix Semifinals he will be carrying on a family tradition and rekindling a rivalry that stretches back decades, the one that exists between Gracie Jiu-Jitsu and American wrestling. For many fans this will bring forth images of Royce Gracie choking out Dan Severn or being pummeled by Matt Hughes, but it goes much further back than the era of Ultimate Fighting, beginning with his great uncle Hélio Gracie [EN 1].

Hélio Gracie in action against Walkermar Santana in 1962 ( via www.onzuka.com)

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"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact."

- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventure's of Sherlock Holmes

Zuffa is lucky if nothing else. How else to explain the recent turn of events with Alistair Overeem?

A few weeks ago he was injured and notified the powers that be that he would be unable to participate in the next round of Strikeforce's Grand Prix, which, Showtime is apparently determined to hold through hell or high water only three months after the completion of the first round and a full month earlier than the original date Scott Coker had given to him. Nevermind that the tournament has proven to be incredibly successful, their schedule demands have to be followed no matter how many subscribers they pissed off. Thus we get Bigfoot against Cormier in lieu of the Champion.

via www.thecampussocialite.com

To add insult to injury, shortly after being bounced from the tournament Overeem was then reportedly stripped of his belt and bounced from Strikeforce. The reason? Either his management was trying to leverage his belt into an outrageously overpriced new contract, and/or Golden Glory was unable and unwilling to allow their fighters to be paid directly. Either way, bridges had been burned and it seemed as if Overeem was doomed to wander the Wilderness of non-Zuffa MMA for the rest of his career.

Oh, but time really does heal all wounds, although I doubt Chaucer would have imagined it could take as little as six weeks when he wrote that. In that short span, Zuffa and Golden Glory has not only patched up their differences, but have managed to sign the already under contract Alistair to a new contract, with the UFC no less, and have also booked him to fight Brock Lesnar on the eve of New Year's Eve, in what is surely to be the biggest selling show of the year. As unfortunate as it is that Overeem will be unable to participate on this Saturday's Showtime event, thanks to this concurrence of events, we now get to see him in a dream match that will probably generate twenty fold the revenue to Zuffa's coffers than any match on cable would have (if it does take place, I have my doubts). The only loosers in the whole thing? Those fans who signed yearlong subscriptions to Showtime. Strange how things worked out in Zuffa's favor.

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This post was promoted to the front page by Grappling Editor KJ Gould

This is part three in a four part series shining a gas light on the forgotten golden age of mixed martial arts that existed during the Belle Époque. For the previous installment in the series, check out Part 1: The Golden Age of Wrestling and the Lost Art of American Catch-as-Catch-can and Part 2: The Rise of Judo and the Dawn of a New Age. And for the history of the origins and early development of MMA, read James Figg: The Lost Origins of the Sport of Mixed Martial Arts.

When Ultimate Fighting Championship came on the scene in 1993, it was originally about seeing which martial art was the best of all fighting arts. In short, the answer then was Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. And the best exponent competing at the time was Royce Gracie, having been champion for three of the first four UFCs. Today the best art is not any one particular discipline, but a combination of the best of two or three arts: particularly boxing, wrestling and Jiu Jitsu. And UFC has helped to refine martial arts worldwide. It's a little tough for the traditional martial artists to swallow, because one system doesn't do it. You've got to cross-train in many different systems.

- Dana White

One of the more interesting byproducts that has resulted from the explosion in popularity of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and mixed martial arts has been the ascension of cross-training and hybrid fighting systems over the traditional disciplines that had previously ruled in the world of unarmed self-defense. The very nature of the sport of MMA dictates that a participant could no longer narrowly focus on a single discipline but instead had to be ready and able to engage wherever or however hand-to-hand combat came about, be it striking or grappling, be it standing or on the ground. Interestingly enough, Dana White doesn't credit mixed martial arts or the UFC with sparking this revolution; instead giving that honor, along with the title of "father of mixed martial arts", to the legendary Bruce Lee.

If you look at the way Bruce Lee trained, the way he fought, and many of the things he wrote, he said the perfect style was no style. You take a little something from everything. You take the good things from every different discipline, use what works, and you throw the rest away.

One cannot help but marvel at the foresight and innovation Bruce Lee displayed when he founded Jeet Kune Do in 1967. Here was a martial art that combined many of the different disciplines from the East and West - wrestling, boxing, kung fu, fencing, karate, and more - and then systemically pared it down to the best techniques each had to offer. A martial art so analytical in its approach that it introduced the four ranges of combat - with the ranges being kicking for long range, punching for medium, trapping for close, and grappling for ground fighting - which so perfectly described the different spheres of combat within mixed martial arts that this division is still commonly used today. And, as amazing as it seems, he conceived all of this more than twenty-five years before the first UFC event was ever held.

What is even more amazing is that a couple of other martial art accomplished all of this as well... and did so almost 70 years before Bruce Lee even conceived of Jeet Kune Do.

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Front paged by Kid Nate.

By any measure the UFC has seen a dramatic reversal in fortunes over the the last decade: going from a deeply indebted promotion, barely limping from event to event, to being an immensely popular self-titled "league" that is now valued at over $1 billion. The explanation for their turnaround is simple: the Ultimate Fighter. With the premiere of the ground breaking reality show they saw a meteoric rise in popularity, going from selling a measly 40,000 payperviews for UFC 50 to over 1 million for UFC 66 in only two years’ time. But ever since Liddell defended his Light Heavyweight Title against Tito Ortiz, an event that was labeled by many at the time as the UFC’s pinnacle and which they would never reach again, their growth has continued unabated. As proof one need to look no further than last year’s record setting payperview sales, which were double the amount sold in that record setting year of 2006. The conventional wisdom now is the UFC has not yet peaked and they are in fact poised for even more success as they move into the mainstream of the American collective sports conscious.

As is usual, the conventional wisdom is probably wrong.

Last week Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter released the sales estimates for UFC 132, reporting that the event, headlined by Cruz vs Faber, did 350,000 buys. The glass half-full position would be that it did better than many predicted, as the card was plagued with injuries and was lacking a major draw at the top of the card. The glass half-empty position would be that it did well below the UFC’s average and well, well below the average for cards containing a title fight. Even more worrisome, it continues the downward trend that the UFC has been experiencing all year.

Here, for comparison, are the number of payperviews offered per year, the total buys,and the per event average for the last 6 years:

Year              Number of PPVS  Total PPV Sales              Per Event Avg

2006               10                                       5,270,000                     527,000

2007               11                                       4,935,000                     449,000

2008               12                                       6,325,000                     527,000

2009               13                                       8,020,000                     617,000

2010               15*                                     9,080,000                     605,000

2011**             8                                        3,480,000                     435,000

* Only UFC events, doesn’t include WEC 48

** Incomplete year

As one can see, at their current pace the UFC will sell only slightly more payperviews this year than they did in 2008 and will see the lowest payperview average in the last 6 years – the post TUF era. 

What is going on? How does one explain what seems to be a nearly 25% drop in payperview sales in a year’s time? Injuries? A statistical anomaly? Insufficient data? To get a clearer picture perhaps we should look at the reasons, or should I say reason, behind the UFC’s success since Liddell vs Ortiz.

While everyone has been marveling at the massive rise in popularity the UFC has seen year in and year out, they seem to miss out on one important fact: that almost all the growth post UFC 66 can be attributed to one fighter and one fighter only - Brock Lesnar. 

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To fans of the UFC and mixed martial arts the business-side of the sport can seem  downright mystifying. Any and all dealings are apparently performed in the shadows: pay is rarely discussed, locker room bonuses are left unreported, and contracts are treated as state secrets. Negotiations between the major players is often kept shrouded in secrecy, only revealed - if they are ever revealed - as brief and cryptic missives. Rarely is the curtain lifted, to allow us a glimpse into the inner workings of this multi-million dollar business and when it is, more often than not, it seems to only come about through compliance with the court system. Thanks to the Central District Court of California that curtain has been briefly lifted again.

On June 7th, Judge Margaret M. Morrow denied all the parties involved in the Fedor Emelianenko/ M-1 vs Affliction litigations (case 2:09-cv-MMM-MLG) cross motions for summary judgment. Her ruling means that the case will be sent to mediation and if the parties are unable to resolve this through a third party mediator it will then progress to trial. A 55-page document of Judge Morrow’s decision was released [To read the full decision click on the link] and it provides a fascinating glimpse into the behind-the scenes business dealings of some of the biggest players in MMA. Both Justin Klein of Fightlawyer.com and Jose Mendoza of MMAPayout have done a great job of covering the case and Judge Morrow's summary, highlighting what they each view as some of the most pertinent sections contained within, particularly in concern with the chronology leading up to the cancellation of the Trilogy event.

via jabsngrabs.com

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Yesterday, June 19th marked the seventh anniversary of my friend’s wedding.  I remember the day well: a beautiful ceremony in the Pacific Palisades on a hillside overlooking the ocean, presided over by the bride’s uncle, a sitting Ventura County judge, and closing with the couple reading to each other their own self-written vows. They were the definition of a couple with a bright future ahead of them: he was a network technical director easily making seven figures a year; she was an advertising copywriter and, unbeknownst to anyone, already pregnant with their first child. Yes, I remember the day well, for coincidentally that same day was one of the great MMA events of all time.

7 years ago that day, the Ultimate Fighting Championship held perhaps their most successful card of 2004, UFC 48. Headlined by a rematch from UFC 8 of Ken Shamrock vs Kimo Leopaldo, it would sell 110,000 pay-pay-views, a number only surpassed (at that time) under Zuffa’s reign two years earlier by Tito Ortiz’s and Ken Shamrock’s UFC 40.  It would also have the third-highest gate of the year with 10,000 fans paying $900,000 for tickets (although little more than 6,000 actually paid for their seats). The event is best remembered as where Frank Mir snapped Tim Sylvia’s arm to win the UFC Heavyweight Belt in a fight that was oddly buried in the middle of the card - talk about lack of respect for your titles - but to Zuffa UFC 48 was noteworthy as being one of the only 3 or 4 cards that they had actually seen a profit on. Such was the position of MMA in North America at that point in time that this could be called with a straight-face a success.

But that was not the event.

A few hours after Ken had finished Kimo with his knees another MMA event on the other side of the world was just getting underway. This event was held just outside of Tokyo and inside the Saitama Superdome (announced crowd 43,000 although actually attendance was probably closer to 30,000) and was broadcast across the island nation on FUJI Television. While millions in Japan were able to watch Pride's Critical Countdown 2004 live (it garnered something like a 17% share of the viewing audience), I, who was attending a wedding,  could not and thus missed two of the greatest finishes in the sport’s history: Rampage’s powerbomb of Arona and Fedor’s miraculous comeback after being Randleplexed. 

Much has changed in the 7 years since they exchanged vows: they have given birth to two beautiful children; after 15 years of service he was downsized from his job and has remained, for the most part, unemployed since; their home has gone into foreclosure; and 8 months ago the two separated and are now going through a bitter divorce.  7 years ago it would have impossible to imagine such would be their fate, but that is where we are today.

For Pride and sougou kakutougi, the descent has been just as precipitous as my friends.  A week doesn’t go by without a new story throwing more dirt onto the grave of Japanese MMA. The most recent detailed the failing of its (formerly) premiere promotion to pay their fighters.  Hard to believe that if one was to travel through Japan in the summer of 2004 you couldn’t throw a rock and not hit someone who was a fan of this thing called Pride fighting. Huge TV ratings and massive crowds attested to the fact that the center of the MMA universe was Tokyo and not Las Vegas. Now, even when they manage to hold an event, it is before crowds a fraction of their previous sizes, with no presence on television, and a great chance that the fighters who take part paychecks bounce.

Fortunately for us living in the UFC hemisphere of the world, we have not been bedeviled by such ailments. Here the sport has never been more popular, has never been more mainstream, and has never been more profitable – at least for the one major promotion.

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Most fans of mixed martial arts are well aware of the many efforts Zuffa and the UFC have put forth to get the sport legalized in the state of New York. Press conferences and rallies have been held, lobbyists have been hired, economic impact studies have been undertaken, and yet, so far, it has been for naught. The credit for stymieing these endeavors is usually laid at the feet of the state’s massive budget crisis, its Byzantine bureaucracy, or the current boogeyman of MMA regulation, New York Assemblyman Bob Reilly, who in the past has compared the sport to prostitution and dog fighting.  Now entering the fray on the side of the "nays" is Unite Here,  a labor union whose members work predominantly in the hotel, food service, laundry, warehouse, and casino gaming industries. They have released a memo detailing their reasons as to why the New York Legislation should reject  bill S01707A, which would authorize mixed martial arts in the state:

• Unlike in boxing, where both federal and New York State laws have been passed to protect the athletes from exploitative and coercive promoter contracts, mixed martial arts fighters do not enjoy "outside-the-ring" protection from unscrupulous promoters.

• In the largest mixed martial arts promotion, the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC), fighters have spoken out against coercive contract provisions that lead to perceived unfair fighter pay. 

They go on to cite the lack of a Mohammed Ali act in MMA, the UFC's position as a monopoly, and the abusive nature of their contracts (specifically the "champion clause", fighter status as independent contractors, and "image rights") as all reason to vote "no". Valid reasons to be against mixed martial arts? Perhaps, but according to the  UFC's response their opposition has nothing to do with the sport or even the UFC:

"the real motivation for its "opposition" is the fact that a company in Las Vegas, a totally separate business outside of New York, has not acquiesced in a culinary union organizing drive; the only nexus between these two situations is the fact that some of the owners of the UFC happen to be partial owners of that separate company in Nevada."

 Dana White expanded on this, explaining who and what was the real culprit in keeping MMA out of the Big Apple (HT: MMAFighting): 

"It has nothing to do with mixed martial arts the reason that we're not in New York," White said. "It has to do with the Culinary Union. The Culinary Union is spending millions of dollars of all these people who pay dues to keep us out of there because my partners, the Fertitta brothers, are the largest non-union gaming company in the country. So these union idiots, all these people work in the Culinary Union, pay their money towards dues, this is what all their money's being spent towards. Fighting the UFC from coming there and bringing money into the state of New York."

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What a difference a year makes, or for that matter even six months. If Georges St-Pierre vs Jake Shields had been made back in October of 2010, I imagine many, both pundits and public, would be giving Shields much greater odds than he is getting now.  He would be the welterweight that did the impossible, defeating the number two middleweight in the world Dan Henderson, while GSP, even though he dominated the fight, had been unable to finish Dan Hardy in five rounds that was spent mostly wrestling on the ground. It is hard to imagine GSP having that much success fighting the same fight against a grappling ace like Shields.  Of course, now no one imagines their fight even resembling the Hardy bout. Instead the images we have going into this fight is Shields making a tepid UFC debut against Kampmann and GSP demolishing an elite level wrestler in Josh Koscheck by staying on the outside and beating him to a pulp. For a man with a notoriously weak stand up game like Shields, that doesn’t bode well. Which is unfortunate, because I hate St-Pierre and am a big fan of Shields.

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Recently ESPN released a list of the best-paid athletes in 30 sports, sparking a discussion about the pay difference between Brock Lesnar and Manny Pacquiao, the two leaders in their respective sports. Weighing in on the matter was Kevin Iole, who when asked by  Steve Cofield if he "would argue that the 30th biggest MMA fighter makes a lot more than the 30th biggest boxer?”  gave an answer that caught my attention. “I would say yes. I would say that the 30th biggest MMA fighter, there is a middle class in MMA which does not exist in boxing. In boxing, you have I think probably, well just taking Mayweather & Pacquiao alone you could say two fighters earn over 90% of the money. But I think if you say you could probably say 10 fighters are earning 99% of the money in boxing and that would be very close to being accurate. And in MMA, it’s spread out much more. So, you know, I think that’s probably true. You have a good, solid middle class working in MMA that you don’t have in boxing.”  (Transcript taken from Fight Opinion)

Was that right, that the “30th biggest MMA fighter makes a lot more than the 30th biggest boxer”? Iole should know, he has covered both sports extensively for years, but this didn't seem accurate to me. I have been working on a pretty in-depth comparison of the pay between boxers and mixed martial artists (still compiling) and from everything I've learned, and counter to most peoples assumptions, boxing paid a lot better for a lot more fighters. (Of course, I am still talking about the upper echelons of the sport - the masses still make nothing - as well as solely about fight purses and not additional money to be made off sponsors)

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MMA Fighting has the Strikeforce: Diaz vs Daley payouts from the California State Athletic Commission.

Showtime Bouts
Nick Diaz, $175,000 def. Paul Daley, $65,000
Gilbert Melendez, $150,000 def. Tatsuya Kawajiri, $97,612.50
Gegard Mousasi ($150,000) and Keith Jardine ($25,000) ruled a majority draw
Shinya Aoki, $73,637.50 def. Lyle Beerbohm, $10,000

Preliminary Bouts
Robert Peralta, $2,000 + $2,000 win bonus = $4,000 def. Hiroyuki Takaya, $2,740
Virgil Zwicker, $2,000 + $1,000 win bonus = $3,000 def. Brett Albee, $1,000
Joe Duarte, $1,000 + $1,000 win bonus = $2,000 def. Saad Awad, $1,500
Herman Terrado, $1,000 + $500 win bonus = $1,500 def. A.J. Matthews, $1,000
Rolando Perez, $2,000 + $1,000 win bonus = $3,000 def. Edgar Cardenas, $1,000
Casey Ryan, $1,000 + $1,000 win bonus = $2,000 def. Paul Song, $750

It is interesting to note that Nick Diaz has apparently the highest reported salary of any welterweight not named George St-Pierre, Matt Hughes, or BJ Penn, and that Gilbert Melendez is now apparently the highest paid lightweight under the Zuffa umbrella.

The Strikeforce card wasn't the only major combat sport event. Golden Boy Productions hosted their "Action Heroes" card - with the aid of Showtime's rival, HBO - the same night. It is only fitting that we also publish the released payout for that card from the Nevada State Athletic Commission, since Brent Brookhouse recently posted an article that compared the pay structure of boxing and mma:

Erik Morales $250,000 plus an undisclosed pecentage of payperview sales and Mexican TV licensing

Marcos 

Maidana $500,000

Michael Katsidis

 $200,000

Robert Guerrero

 $125,000

Paulie Malignaggi

 $75,000

Jose Miguel Cotto

 $30,000

James Kirkland

 $35,000

Nobuhiro Ishida

 $35,000

Danny Garcia 

 $20,000

Nate Campbell

 $35,000

Rakhim Chakhiev

 $25,000

Harvey Jolley

 $5,000

 

Wow. I mean... wow.

I'm still trying to comprehend the video Nick Thomas posted this morning of Dana White informing Ariel Helwani that they had purchased Strikeforce. At first I had to question if April1st had somehow arrived early. But no, it was so very true. After a few giddy moments of fantasizing about Overeem vs Cain and a Henderson/Bisping rematch, questions started to arise. Questions that had me wondering if this is a good thing.

* This was obviously a last minute purchase, as evidenced not merely by the fact that Dana states that it was last minute, but also by the fact that there is no press conference. Instead Dana rushes in his favorite court stenographer and relays the information before it gets leaked. Strange. And telling.

* This purchase come in the wake of some very good news for Strikeforce. The Showtime number this year had been stellar, the Grand Prix looked to be a major success. Payperview sales in Japan were much stronger than expected. In fact, Strikeforce looked to have the potential to open a market in that country's now hurting MMA scene. Things were looking good for the promotion that seemed to be making money and whose revenues only seemed to be growing.

So Strikeforce's outlook was rosy. Which brings up some potential reasons for why the UFC would want to purchase them:

- It kills off a potential competitor. Not only were more and more fans purchasing Showtime subscriptions, thus taking potential dollars away from UFC payperviews (albeit probably a small amount in the grand scheme of things) but this also eliminated any potential payperviews from Strikeforce, which is the UFC's bread-and-butter.

- It keeps Strikforce from expanding in to other markets, thus making UFC=MMA in most territories. It also severely cripples any Japanese promotions chances of getting back on track, eliminating any future rival from a market that has a history of major promotions.

- It takes away a potential replacement for the UFC on Spike it they end up jumping ship. Especially a replacement that could seriously benefit from a Spike/UFC rift.

- Most importantly, it takes away a lot of leverage for the top stars during negotiations. No longer can Brock, who reportedly has only two fights left on his contract, threaten to go to Strikeforce, who had proven to be a viable promotion and who could potentially offer payperviews, if the UFC doesn't give him a bigger cut. No longer can fighters of the DIaz, Lawler, and Melendez level use Strikeforce as leverage to negotiate the contracts they received recently. With this purchase Zuffa has managed to keep labor costs where they want them. Low.

The deal is done, And for better or worse, Zuffa owns the sport, body and soul. 

[Note; For where my head's at check out The United States of Inequality  and It's the Inequality, Stupid.]