“Apparently the the only way to kill a lion is by rear naked choke … personally I’d just kick it in the head.”
Bas Rutten
Sebastiaan ‘Bas’ Rutten was born on February 24, 1965 in Tilburg, Netherlands. So today is his birthday.
Happy Birthday ‘El Guapo’!
Bas is one of the pioneers of mixed martial arts, and the most successful to make the leap from competitor to commentator. Bas began his MMA career by studying Tae Kwon Do as an adolescent, a past time that his parents halted when the police showed up at their door after Bas broke the nose of the town bully. His love of the combat arts never left him, and at the age of 21 he started training again in boxing, Muay Thai Kick Boxing, Tae Kwon Do, and Kyokushin Karate. He eventually earned black belts in TKD and Karate, and embarked on a professional kickboxing career. Although he never won a championship in kickboxing, his impressive skills brought him to the attention of Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki as they searched for fighters to compete in their ‘Bushido wrestling’ for the Pancrase organization; a precursor of MMA which did not feature gloves or allow closed-hand strikes to the head.
Bas won his first Pancrase fight in dominating fashion, and was so excited by the victory that he performed a series of jump-splits in the ring. This would become his post-victory trademark, known as the Rutten Jump. Although his striking was fearful, Bas had to overcome a steep learning curve in mastering the grappling arts. All four of his career losses were to submission specialists in those first years of Pancrase. Following a kneebar loss to Ken Shamrock, Rutten focused almost exclusively on mastering the submission game. He never lost again. Bas was the victor in the greatest Pancrase fight, a bloody war with Funaki that laid bare the warrior heart of each fighter. Bas left Pancrase to fight for the UFC in 1999, hoping to fight Randy Couture. Rutten won the UFC Heavyweight Championship vacated by Randy Couture by defeating Kevin Randleman, then vacated the belt himself in a bid to win the Middleweight Championship and become the first UFC fighter to hold belts in two weight classes. A series of training injuries forced him in to an early retirement before he received a chance to realize that goal, but Bas ended his career on an almost unimaginable 28-fight win streak.
Following his retirement, Bas took to coaching, and was filmed in the documentary ‘The Smashing Machine’ as he worked with Mark Kerr. Although loved as a fighter by the aficionados of MMA, his popularity exploded when he was tapped by Xavier Cullars to don the headset and provide color commentary for the inaugural Pride Fighting Championships in 1997. His combination of wit, humor, fighting acumen, and charisma quickly won over both the knowledgeable Japanese and the enthusiastic American fans. It was during this time that Bas released a DVD of street-fighting techniques, which became a YouTube hit with his signature ‘Dang-Da-Danga’-ridden elucidations. In 2005, Bas left Pride FC because of the sacrifices that the monthly travel to Japan demanded of his family, choosing instead to work with the US-based International Fighting League. Bas was a coach, and then a commentator with Kenny Rice, for the IFL until the promotion folded in 2008. Bas now lives in California with his family, and appears with Kenny on HDNet’s weekly ‘Inside MMA’ and on his own ‘Punk Payback’ on FuelTV.
