MMA History Part III: More on Japan

by Kid Nate on Aug 9, 2007 1:42 PM EDT in MMA History Comment 0 comments

I know last time I mentioned talking about the entry of olympic wrestlers into MMA but I realized I needed to talk a little more about the evolution of the sport in Japan first.

And I really need to mention the godfather of Japanese MMA, Antoni Inoki, a protege of Karl Gotch who taught Inoki and other Japanese wrestlers the old style of catch wrestling Wikipedia does a good job of explaining what he was up to in the 1970s:

Inoki then went on to stage a series of mixed martial arts matches against champions from numerous other disciplines of martial arts.

Antonio Inoki was a pioneer of mixed martial arts and has faced many opponents from all dominant disciplines of combat from various parts of the world, such as Akram Pahalwan in Pakistan, Willie Williams of Kyokushin Karate, Olympic judo gold medalist Willem Ruska and WBA and WBC World Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali.

I can't find any video of the other matches, so here's the fiasco with Ali.

Then in the 1980s Inoki's main wrestling org UWF International broke up and his disciples split off into many camps, several of which ultimately became part of the greater MMA world in the 1990s:

Shoot wrestling branched into several sub disciplines after the breakup of the original Universal Wrestling Federation. The main forms are listed below.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara's students Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki formed Pancrase, which is also a fighting style under shoot wrestling.
Another Yoshiaki Fujiwara student Bart Vale formed Shootfighting
Tiger Mask Sayama's style of shoot wrestling also includes Muay thai kicks and is called Shooto.
Akira Maeda's version of shoot wrestling emphasises on submissions and is known as RINGS submission fighting.
Kickboxer Caesar Takeshi formed Shoot boxing with standing submission aspect influenced by catch wrestling and shoot wrestling.
World renowned gyms like the Lion's Den, Takada Dojo and Shamrock Martial Arts Academy propagate shoot wrestling based styles of martial arts.

More vids in the extended:

Promo of Yoshiaki Fujiwara's wrestling promo featuring Ken Shamrock, Masakatsu Funaki, and Bart Vale.

Here's a worked match between future RINGS founder Akira Maeda vs and Pancrase founder Masakatsu Funaki

And here's a real freakshow match, a pro-wrestling match from 1986 in which Andre the Giant and Akira Meada fought a work that turned into a shoot, Maeda legkicked the poor giant for 15 minutes. Ouch! Part 1, 2, 3, 4.

Highlights from the Lumax Cup event of 1995, a judo based event with early MMA rules. Keep an eye out for Egan Inoue, Akihiro Gono, Kazunari Murakami (getting KO'd by a kick), and tourny winner Tsuyoshi Kohsaka.