Who is considered the godfather of Judo in MMA?

[AndrewGolota48]

Godfather would be the first to successfully use it. At least that's how Coleman got the godfather of GNP moniker. That would be Karo as far as I know (1999-).

There are still few purists who have used it well in MMA. Karo, Ronda, Kayla, Rick Hawn (my actual favorite), Yoshida, maybe a couple others.

Remco was 2-0 before facing Royce!

 

[Uber_Noober]

 

[Intermission]

Steven Seagals best Buddy Gene lebell

 

[Follow99]

The answer is Hidehiko Yoshida

 

[VAfan]

karo was kinda the one who put it on the map, at least in the ufc. every time he fought they spent half the time talking about his judo.

 

[Fahcough]

Tim Boetsch

 

[TheTickG]

After making many Judo based threads over the years, I can't believe I can't come to a clear conclusion on this but, who do you consider is the godfather of Judo in MMA?

For BJJ, it's fairly straight forward in Royce who fought in 1993 in UFC 1. Then for wrestling, it would be Dan Savern who fought in UFC 4 in 1994.

The challenge with this is, the most prominent Judoka that comes to mind that one could argue for is Hidehiko Yoshida, whom in my opinion had most beautiful display of Judo ever seen in MMA. However, he debuted in 2002.

I mean the names that comes to mind are guys like Sakurai and even Sanae who debuted in 1996, but their Judo credentials aren't really one tenth what Yoshida's is, but Sanae won ADCC in 2001, beating Saulo Riberio of all people. Sakurai on the other hand, won silver and bronze in ADCC in 1999 across two weight classes, in -77kg and the open weight class. But I'd imagine there may have been some great Judoka who competed in Shooto or whatever in the earlier years.

So the question is, who really is the godfather of Judo in MMA?

Soukuju definitely

 

[Mask Of Winters]

This thread makes me think of Ronda being somebody's godmother, which makes me

 

[Rallarsvingare]

I would say Yuki Nakai, the japanese who got blinded by Gerard Gordeau in the Choke documentary.

He's not a traditional judoka but he is a legit judo black belt. However he never limited himself and also did freestyle wrestling while doing judo and before going into Shooto and then later becaming a pioneer in the japanese BJJ community.

He did not use a lot of judo throws in his Shooto bouts when but when he did BJJ competitions with the gi he did. Without the gi he used his wrestling.

 

[TriangleMonkey]

Sambo is not much different from Judo though as Sambo uses judo throughout



Fedor for Pride and Karo for UFC displayed actual Judo lots of times with lots of finesse right in the middle of hectic cage/ring fights

 

[JustOnce]

Fedor

not according to fedor himself, he thinks he reps sambo and sambo only

 

[JustOnce]

Godfather would be the first to successfully use it. At least that's how Coleman got the godfather of GNP moniker. That would be Karo as far as I know (1999-).

There are still few purists who have used it well in MMA. Karo, Ronda, Kayla, Rick Hawn (my actual favorite), Yoshida, maybe a couple others.

well if we are talking about who was earlier, it would be Hayato Sakurai. Not only did he have more success in MMA, consensus number 1 ww, he was throwing around Jake Shields before Karo even debuted in UFC. But Karo has better credentials but repped Judo a lot more, probably because Judo is sorta common in Japan as a background, and even for Karo, if he was from Japan and he was as good as he was, he might not have repped it as much because he wouldn't likely have been anything exceptional in that sport. Still better than Hayato though.

 

[JustOnce]

Karo = UFC
Yoshida = Pride
Sexyama = Showed out in both orgs

P.S: I was always impressed with Melvin Guillard’s Uchimata

Richard Crunkelton gets an honorable mention

I don't think many people know but Sexyama was supposed to fight Royce in k-1 or something.

To be fair, Sexyama had a pretty bad ufc run lol.

 

[JustOnce]

Put together, two pretty unlikable fighters lol

 

[JustOnce]

I would say Yuki Nakai, the japanese who got blinded by Gerard Gordeau in the Choke documentary.

He's not a traditional judoka but he is a legit judo black belt. However he never limited himself and also did freestyle wrestling while doing judo and before going into Shooto and then later becaming a pioneer in the japanese BJJ community.

He did not use a lot of judo throws in his Shooto bouts when but when he did BJJ competitions with the gi he did. Without the gi he used his wrestling.

This might be the winner, but guys like Nakai, it's fairly hard to say if it's really a Judo guy or not. I do know that he does have a Judo black belt though, and not to mention his credential is pretty mediocre when it comes to Judo and he does not rep judo himself so. So on a second though, probably not. If he represented it though, for sure. But I don't think he did.

 

[don't ask]

Not tryna be a memer but my first thought was Fedor, insofar as sambo is Russian judo

i made a lot of fedor judo threads, but i don't think he consider himself a judo fighter so.



he has better judo credentials than karo mentioned above for example

but he's probably more sambo than judo since that's what he thinks

Sambo is not much different from Judo though as Sambo uses judo throughout



Fedor for Pride and Karo for UFC displayed actual Judo lots of times with lots of finesse right in the middle of hectic cage/ring fights

not according to fedor himself, he thinks he reps sambo and sambo only

Fedor was a Judo fighter, training since he was a young child, and narrowly missed being on the Russian Olympic team. At one point he was ranked 12th in Russia and may have gone as high as 3rd. He only started doing Combat Sambo to help him transition to MMA. Now, years later and because of his efforts to promote Sambo, he's seen as a Sambo fighter.

Fun fact: the judo fighter who always beat Fedor at Judo and is the reason Fedor never went to the Olympics was recruited by Fedor's former gym when he left. They wanted him to transition to MMA and kick Fedor's ass, thinking he would have a mental edge because Fedor had always lost to him and been in his shadow in Judo. In the end, he was too old and broken to compete in MMA.

 

[don't ask]

Anyways, the answer to OP's question is unquestionably Fedor.

 

[JustOnce]

Sambo is not much different from Judo though as Sambo uses judo throughout



Fedor for Pride and Karo for UFC displayed actual Judo lots of times with lots of finesse right in the middle of hectic cage/ring fights

Not according to Fedor.

I don't know how many people remember this, but there was an article, 10, 15 how many ever years ago, Yoshida wanting to do a Judo match against Fedor. Fedor declined saying he's a sambo fighter, not Judo.

Which is low key bs, but it is what it is.

Fedor doesn't rep Judo. And this is coming from me, a sherbro who made more Fedor Judo threads than any other Sherbros ever.

 

[Rampage_Jackson]

not according to fedor himself, he thinks he reps sambo and sambo only

tomato tomato

 

[JustOnce]

Fedor was a Judo fighter, training since he was a young child, and narrowly missed being on the Russian Olympic team. At one point he was ranked 12th in Russia and may have gone as high as 3rd. He only started doing Combat Sambo to help him transition to MMA. Now, years later and because of his efforts to promote Sambo, he's seen as a Sambo fighter.

Fun fact: the judo fighter who always beat Fedor at Judo and is the reason Fedor never went to the Olympics was recruited by Fedor's former gym when he left. They wanted him to transition to MMA and kick Fedor's ass, thinking he would have a mental edge because Fedor had always lost to him and been in his shadow in Judo. In the end, he was too old and broken to compete in MMA.

nope. Not according to fedor.

Another fun fact: no one made more Fedor Judo threads than I have.