Mission M-1 Global
— conducting mixed martial arts tournament to promote MMA as a sport.
Brand M-1 for 20 years. Starting with small tournaments in 1997,the League of M-1 has grown into a global international organization. Among the international stars of MMA, which were and are under the banner of M-1 — Fedor Emelianenko Jeff Monson, Pedro Hizzo
Kerr trained some with Ricco Rodriguez at Beverly Hills JJ Club, didn't he? PRIDE also showed some footage of Kerr wrestling around with Mark Coleman. Kerr had a lot of good training partners over the years
Kerr trained some with Ricco Rodriguez at Beverly Hills JJ Club, didn't he? PRIDE also showed some footage of Kerr wrestling around with Mark Coleman. Kerr had a lot of good training partners over the years
Even Takada went to Huas´gym, and somehow...trained...
But...He actually got literally destroyed by Hizzo in his very 1st sparrin´action, after the very 1st... leg kick...
On the ground, grimacin´, he then went right back to his hotel, and came back the next day with his leg fully bandaged...
Meanwhile, Huas scolded Hizzo: "Why did you have to brutalize this Jap like this? You know how fragile they are!"
Hizzo: "Damn...How could I know?... What a lousy fighter..."
Kerr trained some with Ricco Rodriguez at Beverly Hills JJ Club, didn't he? PRIDE also showed some footage of Kerr wrestling around with Mark Coleman. Kerr had a lot of good training partners over the years
Yeah but I think many new fans of MMA miss is that the UFC is the US getting what Brazil was doing since the 30s. People were testing what art was more efficient. Brazil's vale tudo (everything goes) has a direct connection with worldwide modern MMA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vale_tudo
"In the 1970s, Rorion Gracie of the famous Gracie family emigrated to the United States and introduced Vale Tudo to a new market when he helped found the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) in 1993.[5]"
But of course they introduced vale-tudo with the propaganda towards BJJ
Most fans don't even know about Luta Livre and their rivalry with the gracies
"Luta Livre (Portuguese: [ˈlutɐ ˈlivɾi], lit. freestyle fighting), known in Brazil as Luta Livre Brasileira and also Luta Livre Submission[1], is a Brazilian martial art created by Euclydes Hatem[2][3][4][5] in Rio de Janeiro. Primarily a mixture of catch wrestling and judo, there is also striking with the hands, feet, knees and elbows. Notable practitioners include Marco Ruas, Ebenezer Fontes Braga, Johil de Oliveira, Alexandre Franca Nogueira, Renato Sobral, Darren Till and José Aldo."
Look at Marco Ruas and how he already looked modern
Pankration was a sporting event introduced into the Greek Olympic Games in 648 BC and was an empty-hand submission sport with scarcely any rules. The athletes used boxing and wrestling techniques, but also others, such as kicking and holds, locks and chokes on the ground. The only things not acceptable were biting, striking the groin, and gouging out the opponent's eyes.
Dioxippus was an Athenian who had won the Olympic Games in 336 BC, and was serving in Alexander the Great's army in its expedition into Asia. As an admired champion, he naturally became part of the circle of Alexander the Great. In that context, he accepted a challenge from one of Alexander's most skilled soldiers named Coragus to fight in front of Alexander and the troops in armed combat. While Coragus fought with weapons and full armour, Dioxippus showed up armed only with a club and defeated Coragus without killing him, making use of his pankration skills
"Coming from a 'striker' country, Martijn was in that first small group of fighters from Holland, who also knew how to submit people. He actually won way more fights by submission than he did by KO, and just that, shows that he was already thinking 'outside the box' in the early stages of the MMA scene."
— Bas Rutten, a foreword for Martijn's book, 'MMA, The Essentials of Mixed Martial Arts'.
"Now I had to make a decision. My opponent Adema Santana was a 25 year old black man, and was a boxing heavy weight champion. He was 4th dan in judo, and a capoeira champion as well. He was 183cm had a well proportioned impressive physique. His weight was close to 100kg. Bahia, where the match took place, is a port city where black slaves were unloaded. The slaves were forbidden to carry a weapon. As a result, many martial arts were developed by them, I heard. Vale Tudo is one of such martial arts. In the south of Sao Paulo, pro wrestling is popular. But the farther one goes to the north, the more popular Vale Tudo becomes.
In Vale Tudo, no foul is allowed. 1 foul results in an immediate disqualification. No shoes are allowed.
In Vale Tudo, no foul is allowed. 1 foul results in an immediate disqualification. No shoes are allowed. When the fighters are separated, they are not allowed to strike with a fist, and they have to use open hand strikes. But once they get in contact with each other, every type of strike is allowed but groin strikes. All types of throws and joint locks are legal. The winner is decided when one of the fighters is KO'd or surrenders. Biting and hair pulling were illegal. Since bare knuckle punches are traded, taking direct 2 or 3 hits in the eye means the end of the fight. I was told there have been many cases in which a fighter got hit in the eye with an elbow, and the eyeball popped out from the socket by half, and got carried to the hospital by an ambulance. Therefore, there were always 2 ambulances at the entrance of the arena."
You have gone to an incredible amount of work here sir. I mean this is a really fantastic thread full of historical gems.
I still think my earlier post was essentially correct, that cross training took off around the Frank Shamrock era; but maybe not. Perhaps all that changed was the size of the sport.
I have that Palmer vs Danny Boy fight on an old DVD. I am pretty sure Palmer came into that fight like 16-0. He was a mean mofo. Super killer instinct. Dangerous striker but like you said, he was never afraid to mix it up on the ground. He would try submissions but also had devastating GNP and stomps.
Danny Boy was a good Muay Thai striker and wasn't known as much of a grappler, but he was able to survive the GNP and arm bar there. Once back on the feet, he delivered one of the most devastating head kick KO's in MMA history, giving ol' Jay R his first loss.
Jay R got caught slipping. He was undefeated and probably thought he had this fight in the bag. Can't believe he was crouched down like that with his hands down. It's also funny how Danny Boy just walks up to him so nonchalant and then throws the kick.
"Coming from a 'striker' country, Martijn was in that first small group of fighters from Holland, who also knew how to submit people. He actually won way more fights by submission than he did by KO, and just that, shows that he was already thinking 'outside the box' in the early stages of the MMA scene."
— Bas Rutten, a foreword for Martijn's book, 'MMA, The Essentials of Mixed Martial Arts'.
Martijn is a such an important figure in Dutch MMA history. A true Mixed Martial Artist and very respectable ambassador of combat sports in his home country and all around the world.
(With K1 Kickboxer Stefan "Blitz" Leko on the left)
From his bio on Wiki:
He started Jiu Jitsu in 1987 at the age of 13. He became a black belt at the age of 17 and started to add Kyokushinkai Karate to become a black belt just 4 years later.
On his quest to become a complete fighter he started with Brazilian jiu-jitsu at Remco Pardoel's gym in early 1995. Later that year, he started teaching BJJ and MMA together with his long time training partner Saron Debets. Approximately 1 year later, World Champion Thaiboxing and Vale Tudo fighter Jan Lomulder joined the classes and he started teaching him MMA while Jan taught him Thaiboxing.
Around the same time multiple times Dutch Champion Greco Roman Wrestling, Andy Jekel joined the team. While he got skilled in MMA, he taught Martijn all the details of Wrestling.
In 1996, he fought his first MMA competitions in Holland. In 1997, after 3 wins, he got invited with a whole team of Dutch fighters to compete in Tokyo against a Japanese Team fight in "Japan Extreme Challenge Vale Tudo Open”. He won that fight against Taro Obata by arm bar in the first round.
After he fought in Shooto Japan in 1999, The head promoter Mr. Sakamoto together with the president of the International Shooto Commission Mr Suzuki, asked Martijn to be the first representative of Shooto in Europe. He started to spread Shooto throughout Europe where up till date over 100 Shooto events are organized.
In 2000 Martijn fought Brazilian sensation "Jose Pele Landi-Jons". He lost that fight but it put him on the radar of Team Golden Glory, who asked him to join the team which was about to start. It was the first professional management team in Europe consisting of the following fighters: Semmy Schilt, Gilbert Yvel, Alistair Overeem, Valentijn Overeem, Heath Herring and Martijn de Jong. As a trainer of Golden Glory, he produced multiple World Champions like Alistair Overeem, Marloes Coenen and Siyar Bahadurzada.
In 2004 Marko Leisten (ADCC World Federation President), asked him to be the president of ADCC Holland. Annual events have been organized ever since.
Organizing Shooto events for some years, He wanted to bring the sport to another level and with the help of Team Golden Glory they founded "GLORY" (then called "Ultimate Glory") in 2006. It was a combination of Shooto / MMA fights with Kickboxing matches.
Bert van der Ryd joined the team in 2008 and together they organized "A Decade of Fights" in 2009, celebrating Golden Glory's 10 years’ anniversary. A strong group of financial investors saw a lot of potential in GLORY and Golden Glory and bought those two companies in 2012 to bring it to an absolute extremely high level! Today GLORY is the biggest and most prestigious kickboxing league in the world.
After the sale Martijn stayed two more years with GLORY as a consultant before he moved on and pursued his passion MMA again.
In 2014, he started to look for opportunities in the country where his father was born: Indonesia. He found out that there was a high demand of quality MMA training in Indonesia, however the facilities were not yet in place. In 2015, he made a deal with, the founder of Celebrity Fitness JJ Sweeney, which resulted in educating all the Personal Trainers of Celebrity Fitness in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore with the Tatsujin Training System. Up to date, close to 1,000 Personal Trainers have been educated in the Tatsujin Training System Mixed Martial Arts, Kickboxing and/or Self-Defense.
On July 17, 2017 the first official Tatsujin MMA Gym was opened in the South of Jakarta, Indonesia. The plan is to open many more in the future.
He had a classic fight with the #1 fighter in the world in his weight category, Jose "Pele" Landi Johns in the year 2000. Pele was a feared striker, but surprised everyone by taking Martijn down early in that fight.
Another interesting fact about his fight with Pele is the result was initially ruled a draw, but later changed to a win for Pele on points.
Not only was he very instrumental in bringing Shooto events to the Netherlands, he also had his hand in helping Glory Kickboxing start up. He also was a coach for the very successful Golden Glory team and can be seen in the corner of Alistair Overeem many times over.
Today he is a very respected coach and is often traveling and teaching martial arts seminars all over the world
He is also a Co-Founder of the new Fittar Smart Mirror.
Doesnt take a genius to grapple then join a boxing class nd call it cross training, they are dogshit trash by yoday's standards, even royce gracie bjj is shit by today's standards
Doesnt take a genius to grapple then join a boxing class nd call it cross training, they are dogshit trash by yoday's standards, even royce gracie bjj is shit by today's standards
Well, it's more than just joining a class and training multiple arts. This thread is about fighters who also proved it in the ring. There were many early competitors that were competent in both striking and grappling. We are talking about fighters that might have several wins by both TKO and Submission. TS provided many examples of well rounded fighters.
Also look at some other underrated technical sequences during fights like Igor Vovchanchyn, who had 60+ kickboxing matches, yet was also able to survive on the ground with the massive unstoppable wrestler Mark Kerr. He was even able to defend some takedowns from him as well. This shows amazing well-rounded skills.
And calling it "dogshit trash" is absolute disrespect to the camps like Russian Top Team, Brazilian Top Team, The Lions' Den, The Alliance, etc... You probably would not have survived 3 minutes in any of those camps.
You also wouldn't survive 3 minutes with a 60 year old Royce. His BJJ is actually underrated as fuck because he was 175 pounds and was dealing with heavyweight monsters in bareknuckle fights with very few rules.
In retrospect, NHB/Vale Tudo was much less refined...Even the BJJ Black Belts, most of the time, would GNP...
If you look at the BJJ vs Luta Livre Challenges [1984 or 1991], or hardcore tournaments like WVC or IVC,
half of the dudes invited were BJJ dudes, and the fights were pretty gruelling ones, not really technical.
Early Pancrase tried to promote a new evolution, more technical, with fighters working on their
ground game and trying to built a submission game (that´s why GNP was forbidden, great idea...).
A talented generation willing to create cross-training teams,and adapt their game to a new fight configuration, technicallymore demanding .
Rings too had this same objective. And you could say that both had a clear influence
in Early Pride´s game...
Frank Shamrock is reputed to have somehow started this cross-training thing...
But the truth is... Other ol´school fighters were already doin´it much b4 him.
The Brazilian & Russian Vale Tudo scenes were much more advanced, historically:
In his interviews, Euclides Pereira always insisted that he was already doin´this shit in his time:
he was cross-trainin´Luta Livre [~ Catch Wrasslin´+greco-roman wrasslin´+JJJ], Karate, Boxe & Capoeira (he then learnt BJJ, possibly with a George Gracie student].
His rival, Ivan Gomes was into Luta Livre & Judo. He then became a Carlson student after their fight.
B4 meetin´ Carlson, Ivan was trainin´ his ground game with Agatangelo & José Maria Freire (Zé Maria), former student of Nilo Veloso (a George Gracie´s student).
But it was Osmar Mousinho “Biuce” who introduced Ivan to JJ.
That said, he was pretty well-rounded, strikin´& wrasslin too, and had a legit submission game (deadly heel hooks> Carlson even said once that he believed he was the creator of this technique...)
IVAN GOMES:
Ivan was for sure top 2 GOAT of the Vale Tudo era, along with Euclides Pereira.
His record is obviously hard to assess: 570 W - 30 D - 1 DQ (vs Willlem Ruska, Judo Gold Medal in 1972)
He was also South American Greco-Roman Champ.
But his international career & the hespect he earned among his peers proved he was legit, indeed.
He had a Judo & Luta Live background. [Luta Livre ~ Catch Wrasslin´+greco-roman wrasslin´+JJJ]
Let´s try to 'deconstruct' Ivan´s skill set & its evolution:
He first learnt JJ with Osmar Mousinho “Biuce”, who trained under Herondino.
He then competed in Boxing.
Then, he trained with Touro Novo, & with José Maria Freire between 1958 and 1959 (who trained under Nilo Veloso, who trained under George Gracie).
Then, he improved his striking (mainly kicks) under Agatângelo Braga.
Inoki invited him to train & compete in Japan (86 fights).
There he trained Sumo, and he taught BJJ (!)
Now, that´s quite fascinatin´: between 1975 & 1977, a generation of fighters had apparently the opportunity to learn BJJ,
but to no avail, it seems...
Was Ivan 'sidelined' by Karl Gotch´s influence? (Ivan even challenged him, but seems Gotch ducked...)
And even "Gracies" like Waldemar Santana [or Rolls, but difficult to check] were not restricted to "Pure" BJJ.
Waldemar was into BJJ, Boxe & Capoeira.
"Now I had to make a decision. My opponent 'Adema' Santana was a 25 year old black man, and was a boxing heavy weight champion. He was 4th dan in judo, and a capoeira champion as well. He was 183cm had a well proportioned impressive physique. His weight was close to 100kg. Bahia, where the match took place, is a port city where black slaves were unloaded. The slaves were forbidden to carry a weapon. As a result, many martial arts were developed by them, I heard. Vale Tudo is one of such martial arts. In the south of Sao Paulo, pro wrestling is popular. But the farther one goes to the north, the more popular Vale Tudo becomes.
In Vale Tudo, no foul is allowed. 1 foul results in an immediate disqualification. No shoes are allowed.
In Vale Tudo, no foul is allowed. 1 foul results in an immediate disqualification. No shoes are allowed. When the fighters are separated, they are not allowed to strike with a fist, and they have to use open hand strikes. But once they get in contact with each other, every type of strike is allowed but groin strikes. All types of throws and joint locks are legal. The winner is decided when one of the fighters is KO'd or surrenders. Biting and hair pulling were illegal. Since bare knuckle punches are traded, taking direct 2 or 3 hits in the eye means the end of the fight. I was told there have been many cases in which a fighter got hit in the eye with an elbow, and the eyeball popped out from the socket by half, and got carried to the hospital by an ambulance. Therefore, there were always 2 ambulances at the entrance of the arena."
The thing is... People tend to believe that the Vale Tudo era was one-dimensional because of the Gracie challenges & their 'ideology': TMA vs TMA.
But this was only ONE branch of them Gracies. And the Vale Tudo scene as a whole didnt share the same MMA ideology.
I could focus here on 'high profile' fighters like Marco Huas for instance ("If my opponent is a grappler, I outstrike him, if he´s a striker, I take him to the ground") but people would claim that this narrative only fits the elite fighters.
Hence, let´s try to check 'obscure' ol´school fighters...
> Brazilian Vale Tudo scene:
James Adler (Kickboxing mainly...and judo too) vs Fera Do Acari:
Unfortunately, it´s in portuguese, and there´s too many valuable info in it, cant really make cliffs (2 hrs), but I´ll try to make several threads about it.
Some of 'The Day' Threads have already dealt with some of the things he´s recallin´, especially Chuteboxe & the Vale Tudo era...
Now... @ 16mn30:
Rudimar explains that his original vision, when he started Chuteboxe in the 1990s, was an union between MT & BJJ, which would explain their fighters´ underrated ground game....
Master Nico (Carlson´s friend from Rio) was the original BJJ teacher there.
He was introduced by Rafael Cordeiro.
Unlike in Rio, in Curitiba there was no 'ideological' limitation for such a plan.
> Japanese scene:
Gono... Me, Myself, and I...
Started as a samboist @ the Lumax Cup, JJJ Tournament 1995-96 (kindah proto-MMA> JJJ + Karate + Judo) where ATG Japz started their career (DapunkMinowaman, TK too...)
Competition: : Kickboxing [record = 20-2 (19 KO), held the US heavyweight title.
Transitionned to MMA: 1st UFC, then Pancrase, where he had to learn the ground game, to be competitive. In his 7th Pancrase fight, 1 year after havin´ transitionned to MMA (!), pulled no less than 2 kneebars against Gregory Smit [Pancrase - Truth 1, 1996] Din Thomas, BJJ & Legit Boxing [see some gifs in the 2nd page].
Valentijn must beone of the main reasons that explain Allistair´s smooth transition to MMA.
In his very 1st MMA fights (Rings/M-1 MFC/2Hot2Handle), Allistair was already looking for the groundgame, quickly clinching to get the TD and work for a sub, more than anything else.
Here, in his 5th MMA fight, the 'striker' pulled no less than a slick armbar.
Was @ Rings: Millennium Combine 1 [2000]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDQXrtOIJjs [see the gif in the 4th page]
> Russian Vale Tudo scene:
The Day Kurmanov The Boxer submitted Ahmedov The JJ...:
Submittin´ a young lion, a submission artist (even though undersized, the weight numbers are obviously wrong
here)...jus´like ol´Vet Kopylov would submit young gun BJJ Castelo Branco in Rings a few years later...
The Day Amar Suloev MightyMoused Oganov:
Was @ Pankration World Championship 2000 Day 1 [Russian NHB]:
Suloev, while fightin´@ openweight most of the time, had fluid & versatile striking, great TDD, slick judo throws, great boxing defence, serious ground game.
Ivan Gerus:
Capable grappler, showcased some interesting Boxing skills (defensively too):
@ IAFC - Russian Open Cup 3 [August 29, 1997 - Moscow, Russia]::
Ivan Chestowukov vs Ivan Guerus
You have gone to an incredible amount of work here sir. I mean this is a really fantastic thread full of historical gems.
I still think my earlier post was essentially correct, that cross training took off around the Frank Shamrock era; but maybe not. Perhaps all that changed was the size of the sport.
I think some of them jus´loved combat sports & were less 'ideologically' restrained, compared to GJJ disciples...
Meanwhile, Eastern European practitioners tended to spend more time in the Army too...
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