99 facts for the diehard MMA fan, Part 3.1

For 20 years UGer ix3623 spoke with fighters and gathered facts, with an eye towards publishing an ebook of no-filler MMA facts to sell on Amazon. Unfortunately, he was told by an Attorney friend that books like these, where you make money and talk about other people, even if they are fact, can get you sued. Since he doesn’t want to be sued, he is posting everything he was going to put in the book here for the UG, for free!

Each week the UG Blog publishes another set of facts facts for the diehard MMA fan: 99 facts for the diehard MMA fan, Part 1

99 Facts for the diehard MMA fan, Part 2

Facts for the diehard MMA fan, Part 3

This is Part 3.1.

233.Mauricio Rua on how he got his nickname “Shogun” : My friends gave it to me. They started calling me that 6 years ago and it stuck. My brother was called Ninja so they thought of a Japanese name for me. I was wearing a Shogun-brand gi at the time so that’s why they called me Shogun.

234.

Shogun on how his brother Murilo Rua got the nickname “Ninja” : “Honestly, I don’t remember. We’ve called my brother Ninja since we were kids. From what I’ve heard, Chute Boxe Japan’s coach gave him the nickname. We didn’t think we would be able to fight in Japan at the time, so it turned out to be a great nickname.

235. Don Frye, who, as a college wrestler at Arizona State was coached by Dan Severn, was recommended to UFC by Severn. Frye was a good enough college wrestler to end up under scholarship at Oklahoma State after wrestling one year at Arizona State, although he ended up losing his starting status on the Cowboys at 191 pounds to Randy Couture (the most dedicated athlete I’ve ever seen in any sport, Frye said about Couture, who he was a social friend with in their college days).

236. Frye ended up signing a lucrative deal with New Japan Pro Wrestling in 1997. He was actually the second choice for the deal, as UFC had become a big deal in the pro wrestling magazines, and New Japan offered Ken Shamrock a deal where he would come in as the outside real fighter, first losing a Tokyo Dome match to IWGP heavyweight champion Shinya Hashimoto, but to win the title in the return match.

When Vince McMahon outbid New Japan and UFC for Shamrock, New Japan then brought in Frye, who became its top foreign star for several years. Frye worked for New Japan as a headliner from 1997-2001, working a major feud with Naoya Ogawa with the idea of it being a UFC champion vs. world judo champion, which included Frye getting two different wins at the Tokyo Dome. He had talks with both WWF and WCW during that period, and in later years, had negotiations with TNA, but never wrestled for a major U.S. promotion. WWF was concerned with his legendary drinking. WCW saw him get into an argument that nearly turned into a fight with Ernest Miller, a management pet, who kept telling Frye that he’d beat anyone in UFC because he was a world karate champion, Frye shot back that everyone in UFC would take him down and his karate wouldn’t mean anything, and by the time it was over, Bischoff had no interest.

237. Don Frye and Brian Johnston were both trained for pro wrestling by Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig, who Frye idolized, and Brad Rheingans.

238. Tank Abbott and Allan Goes altercation:

When Tank Abbott was new to MMA, he spent some time with BJJ player Alan Goes to see what jiu-jitsu was all about. Usually what happens in the gym stays in the gym. But soon enough, Goes was telling the world how he had made Abbott tap out. When the two met face to face in the crowd at UFC 8, it came to blows. When “Big” John McCarthy’s wife Elaine tried to intervene, things went from bad to worse.

Tank threatened Elaine, John flipped out and said he would quit if Abbott wasn’t fired. He didn’t trust himself to be around Tank. Abbott ended up suspended from the UFC until he wrote McCarthy a note to apologize.

On the surface, clear win for McCarthy. Of course,Tank was being paid to sit out, so it seems that it was he who had the last laugh.”

239. In Matt Hughe’s autobiography, Hughes confessed that his ADCC match against team mate Jeremy Horn was fixed so that they could split the prize money for the fasted submission. Despite the fix, they still did not win quickest submission. Rumors had it that Renzo Gracie, who won the quickest submission, had Marcio Feitosa Souza (who trained at the Gracie Barra academy under Carlson Gracie) throw the match quicker in order for Renzo to win quickest submission over Hughes. Matt Hughes convinced Horn that he should win the match because he’d have a better chance against Tito Ortiz in the next round because he was a wrestler. Hughes went on to lose against Tito. It is apparently very common for team mates to let their elder team mates advance if they face each other (out of respect) which according to rumors is why Marcio let Renzo win

240.

Guy Mezger on Pride FC fixing fights :

” MMAyou.com: Here’s a question from one of your fans that I thought was a really good question. Why did the Pride judges hate you so much?

Mezger: You know, I’ll tell you truthfully man, I wouldn’t play ball with them on certain things. They wanted me to do certain things that’s just not something that I’m gonna do. It’s against my, kind of my moral code and I think it pissed them off because I’m not gonna do some of the stuff that they wanted me to do. And I knew the moment that I disagreed, that I wasn’t gonna play the game with them on that that things were gonna go south for me there.

MMAyou.com: Can we get into anymore then that or should we just leave that at that?

Mezger: I don’t really want to get into the whole thing you know it’s just that they were wanting me to be creative in some of the guys I fought. They wanted kind of a different outcome for the fight and when I refused… They started with the whole talking about it and I was like, Guys, I know where we’re going with this. Before you guys say anything I’m not gonna do it. I know where we’re going with this conversation and that’s just not something I’m gonna do. I knew when that happened that I was gonna have to knock guys out. It was kind of a drag. I knew that any of those tough close fights were gonna be… I knew it.

Dealing with the Japanese too you know in dealing with that stuff. They have no real sanctioning body. There’s no athletic board overseeing them or signing judges or any of that kind of stuff. You know they can do whatever they want over there and they often do.”

241. The behind the story facts about the Guy Mezger vs Sakuraba fight that ended in controversy :

“Pride officials signed Mezger to fight Kazushi Sakuraba, who at the time was considered to be one of the best pound for pound fighters in the world. The fight took place at the Pride Grand Prix 2000 Opening Round. Mezger took the fight on two weeks notice and had a broken foot going into the fight. The contract that Mezger signed stipulated that the fight would be one 15-minute round with no overtime. The other fights on the card had the same stipulation. The fight mostly consisted of Mezger controlling the fight by stopping Sakuraba’s takedown attempts while landing strikes from the outside. The round ended and Mezger expected the fight to go to the judges and get the win, but Pride officials wanted the fight to go to overtime. This resulted in one of the largest and most publicized controversies in MMA history.

According to Mezger, Pride did not like the outcome of the fight and changed the agreement/contract on the spot in order to give Sakuraba another chance to win the fight.An argument ensued and Mezger was ordered out of the ring and back to the locker room by his corner man, Ken Shamrock, who was livid at the decision to extend the fight because of Mezger’s foot injury and the fact that he took the fight on short notice. Later that night, the president of Pride FC made a public apology to Mezger at the Tokyo Dome for the miscommunication. Mezger added, “Royce’s father came up to me after my fight and said, “You got screwed. You won that fight.” Here’s Helio Gracie walking up to me and telling me I got ripped off”, Mezger said.”

If Pride FC stuck to the rules that were made for the fight, Mezger would have moved on in the tournament and Sakuraba would have never had the legendary first fight that he had with Royce Gracie.

video of the Guy Mezger vs Sakuraba fight including the controversy at the end of the match : http://bestmmafightvideos.com/videos/531/guy-mezger-vs-kazushi-sakuraba-2000-01-30

242. Prior to their fight at UFC 4, Guy Mezger asked Jason Fairn for a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ to not pull each other’s hair due to the fact both men had long hair. Fairn accepted.

243. In December 2011, Mezger was involved in an altercation in Dallas, Texas in front of a sports store where a man was physically abusing a woman. Mezger stepped in to assist the woman by fighting the man, who attacked Mezger with a knife. The attacker was on parole and needed medical attention for multiple facial bone and arm bone fractures. Mezger’s hand was cut in the fight. It was surgically repaired and he is expected to fully recover.

244. Mezger is the President of Mark Cuban’s new HDNet Fights and is responsible for developing new talent and securing promotion partners for HDnet’s Friday Night Fights.

245. Most fights in a single UFC event was 15 at UFC 2.

246. Fewest fights in a single UFC event was 6 at UFC 37.5.

247. UFC event with most finishes was UFC Fight Night 13 and UFC on FUEL TV 10 which both had 10 finishes.

248. UFC event with the most knockouts was UFC on FOX 7 and UFC 92 which both had 8 knockouts.

249. UFC event with the most submissions was UFC on FUEL TV 10 which had 8 submission finishes.

250. UFC event with fewest finishes (only 2) was UFC 161 with 9 decisions and UFC 94 with 8 decisions.

251. First and only super heavyweight bout was Josh Barnett vs. Gan McGee at UFC 28.

252. The story of Randy Couture and Dan Henderson vs several bouncers. Story is courtesy of their long time friend Aaron Crecy :

” In 1995, Randy and Henderson cleaned house on five bouncers in Buckhead (ATL)–it was a brutal bloodbath and took about 90 seconds, max. I was with them, and believe me when I tell you it was total carnage. It started when Randy pushed Dan into a car–just horseplay–outside a bar, and the doormen started talking ****. One of them grabbed a baseball bat and was acting like he was going to swing. So, Randy and Dan squared up.

After a few moments of banter–Hendo told the dude he was going to shove the bat up his[..]–Randy suddenly lunged at the dude with the bat, who immediately tucked tail and retreated into the bar with Randy on his heels. Henderson and I remained outside and Dan literally mowed through two of the four remaining bouncers–a fourth friend and I pitched on the last two. One of the guys Dan lit up tried to run away, and Dan would let him go for a few steps, and then beat him down. This lasted for about a block–I know, because I had to track him down so we could elude the police, and was literally a trail of blood on the street. Then, when I went to get Randy out of the bar, I saw that he had destroyed the place by repeatedly picking the bouncer up and tossing him into tables and across the bar.

Dan had just picked up some chick 20 minutes earlier, and she was just horrified, but ended up running from the police with us. We tossed her over chain link fences and brick walls, and by the time we got to our car, her dress was in tatters and she was just livid. Keep in mind, this was two years before either guy fought in MMA. I should also point out that I’ve known Dan for nearly 20 years and Randy almost 15, and it’s the only time I’ve ever seen either guy in a street fight. The dude with the bat just set them off.”

253. The story of the Overeem brothers vs the bouncers and how Overeem came very close to losing his hand :

“In a recent blog posting, Boon told how Overeem had suffered a hand infection following a nightclub brawl earlier this month. According to Boon, Alistair and his brother Valentine – both heavyweights – had been involved in an altercation that left five security staff needing hospital treatment.

“Alistair attended some famous dance club with his brother Valentine. Went to the toilet and did not have coins to pay the toilet woman. Alistair told her he would pay a euro when he came back, because he did not have change. Then the security guard who was near by started to get involved,” he wrote.

“Brother Valentine saw the incident and also started asking what the problem was. They offered to pay, but by then 6 security guards came over surrounding them. The Overeem brothers were asked to leave, Alistair was already outside when he saw his brother Valentine fighting.

“Valentine still was discussing the situation on his way outside with one of the security guards hit Valentine in the face with a flash light. Three security guards dived onto Valentine and brother Alistair wanted to go back inside to help his brother. This resulted in five security guards in the hospital.”

Boon went on the reveal that one of the security guards involved in the incident was fired afterwards, while a second tried to lay the blame on the Overeem brothers.

In the meantime, Alistair Overeem was complaining of a painful cut on his hand and went to hospital at the urging of Golden Glory team mates.

“It was only because of the management pushing him to go to the hospital that he saved his hand. When he finally got his injury checked, he was advised to stay a few days in the hospital. They told him if he would have come any later he would have lost his hand,” said Boon.”

254. Big John telling the story of how Wallid Ismail and Tank Abbott got into a bar fight after UFC 13 — with Mark Coleman going absolutely nuts for no apparent reason :

“A few years later, I was refereeing and doing a bunch of behind-the-scenes work for the Ultimate Fighting Championship. I wore a lot of hats in that company, and one of my least-favourite duties was keeping people from killing each other at the after parties. It was not an officially-appointed thing — believe me, I didn’t ask for the job — I just ended up doing it because somehow it was always me who was right in the middle whenever things got out of control.

One of the most memorable incidents happened after UFC 13… I’m pretty sure it was 13 because Mark Coleman was the champion at the time.

The show was over and I was hanging out and trying to relax, when I noticed Wallid Ismail [a notoriously crazy Jiu-jitsu fighter] getting into a confrontation with Tank Abbott. They were yelling right in each other’s faces, getting more and more heated, and as usual I was only a few steps away, thinking, Here we go again! (laughs)

All of a sudden, Wallid hauled off and CRACKED Tank in the face, knocking him right on his ass! So of course all of Tank’s boys jumped up, and all the Brazilians jumped up, and we were set for a full-scale gang fight.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, a drunk-off-his-ass Mark Coleman decided to rampage over there like an out-of-control gorilla and start dropping two-handed Mongolian forearm shivers on everybody! So I ran over, picked Mark up from behind, and carried him away while he kept reaching back and trying to hit me, bellowing LET ME GO!!! LET ME GO!!! in that booming voice of his.

Now, I had rolled with Coleman a few times before, and I’ll tell you right now that he was the STRONGEST motherfucker I have ever trained with. Just a FREAK. And as if that didn’t make things difficult enough, I had also just made some changes to the UFC rules that probably hadn’t put me in Mark’s good books.

You see, shortly beforehand, [then-UFC owner] Bob Meyrowitz had asked me to change the UFC rulebook to make the sport less brutal and more TV-friendly. So I had taken out things you wouldn’t find in other combat sports, like small-joint manipulation, pressure points, groin attacks… and head butts. Now, removing the head butts wasn’t an easy decision, because I knew that in doing so I was RUINING Mark Coleman. One of his favourite techniques was using that big, melon head of his to bash fighters in the face, and now I was gonna be the guy who took that weapon away from him, so I couldn’t help but think Man, this guy’s gotta fuckin’ HATE me! (laughs) So that was front-and-centre in my mind as I tried to figure out what to do with this monster while he went crazy trying to escape my grip.

Finally, I pushed Coleman belly-first into the wall and yelled in his ear, Mark, it’s John, you gotta stop! You can’t do this, you’re the champ, you’re gonna get in trouble! But he just kept fighting me and yelling, LET ME GO, I’M GONNA KILL ‘EM!!! I’LL FUCKIN’ KILL ‘EM!!!

So we’ve got California street thugs brawling with Brazilian maniacs, I’m holding an out-of-control UFC heavyweight champion against the wall, and all I can think is, How do I get into these situations? (laughs)

Thankfully, I managed to get Coleman calmed down enough that I could let him go, and the brawl petered out before anyone got sent to the hospital. Man, I’ll tell you right now — dealing with a bar full of wannabe tough guys is bad, but dealing with an out-of-control room full of the toughest fighters in the world is something straight out of a fuckin’ nightmare!”

video footage of the fight:

255. John Wayne Bobbitt (who got his penis cut off by his wife Lorena Bobbitt) asked UFC creator Art Davie multiple times for a chance to fight in the UFC. He actually went to UFC 3 and had a sitdown conversation about it with Davies. Art Davie talks about it in detail at 3:09 of the video in the following link :

At 1:08 of the video he actually talks about how his sitdown conversation with Bobbitt was interrupted when he heard a ruckus which ended up being a result of Tank Abbott and his crew beating up Pat Smith in the elevator. Davie said that after Bobbitt saw that incident, he never contacted Davie again and didn’t complete his application. He also talks about other behind the scenes stories in the video

256. Ricardo Almeida on how he got his nickname “Big Dog” : The lifeguard back home gave me the nickname when I was young, I was surfing and some days I used to kick the surfers out of the water, as I thought the beach was mine as a young kid, so the lifeguard started to call me Big Dog and so did the guys at the academies when I started to train jiu jitsu.”

257. Andrei Arlovski on how he got his nickname “Pitbull” : “One of my trainers was breeding pit bulls and had two of his own. They are the best fight dogs! So they call me pit bull.”

258. After beginning his training at a young age, Paul Buentello earned his nickname “The Headhunter” during high school due to the frequency of the head kicks that he delivered during training.

259.

Steve Cantwell on how he got the nickname “The Robot” : About five years ago, my first day of sparring kickboxing — me and a friend of mine were sparring — I was extremely stiff. Phil Baroni and Jay Hieron started calling me “The Robot” and my coach, One Kick (Nick Blomgren) thought it fit appropriately, so he kind of kept it going. I remember my first WEC fight being in the ring, and they asked me before the fight what my nickname was. I told them I didn’t have one. And (before) they announced me in the ring, my coach went behind my back and told them my nickname was “The Robot” and they announced it as “The Robot.” And it’s just stuck since then.

260. Jeff Curran on how he got his nickname “Big Frog” : The name The Big Frog came about, oddly enough, about 10 years ago during warm-ups at Pedro Sauer’s school (Jeff is a first-degree black belt under Sauer) where two Brazilians kept calling him big frog in Portuguese. When Curran asked why, he was told he looked like the amphibian while doing frog-like warm-up exercises and he had a tattoo of a tree frog on his back. Even though the two occurrences were never linked, the name stuck.”

261. Paul Daley’s nickname “Semtex”, which is a plastic explosive, used to blow things up, take down buildings, bridges…, was given to him due to his explosiveness and devastating ko power.

262. Anderson Silva on how he got the nickname “The Spider” : “Before a fight, I was wearing a shirt with Spiderman on it when an announcer came up and joked that I looked like the superhero on the shirt. To my surprise, when I entered the ring, she announced: “Anderson Silva, Brazil’s Spiderman.”

263. Junior Dos Santos on how he got the nickname “Cigano (Gypsy)” : “When I had long hair, I used to tie it back. So the guys would say I would look like the ‘gypsy.’* I used to hate that, but the less you like a nickname, the more it sticks. Sure enough, that’s what happened.”

*A character on a popular Brazilian television series.

264. Bas Rutten said in one interview that he got his nickname “El Guapo”, which means “The Handsome One” in Spanish, after being the self-proclaimed most handsome fighter in the world. He said he wanted to promote himself with a brief nickname that described that, and Ken Shamrock’s ex-wife Trina was playing the movie “Three Amigos” during lunch at a PRIDE show where a dirty guy in the movie was named “El Guapo” and he liked it. From that day on he was in love with the name and everyone called him by it. He said rumors about him going as far as to have “El Guapo” listed as his name on his driver’s license are untrue.

265. Hector Lombard on his nickname “Showeather” : Showeather stands for, ‘I’m ready for any weather. I’m ready to show you all.

266. Jon Jones on how he got his nickname “Bones” : I was a football player that couldn’t catch,” he said. “I couldn’t throw but I was really tall and skinny. They put me on the defensive line with these huge shoulder pads and really big helmet. When you look at my upper body I looked like a really big guy, but I had these little chicken legs coming out of the uniform. So everyone start calling me ‘Bones’ and my brother ‘Beefy’ so I kept the name.”

267. Dave Meltzer on Mark Coleman vs Takada fight in Pride Fc being fixed:

“Coleman-Takada was a work. I can tell you that 100% because weeks before the fight I was involved in a discussion regarding how they would work the finish. There’s a lot more to this story but people who don’t understand Japan, wrestling and the fight business will never get this, but had Takada not been given some bought and paid for wins early on, Pride would have folded long before Sakuraba got hot and turned it into what it turned into. Business was not good those early years and Takada was the only guy over, and people were losing faith in him. He needed a big win at that moment. It’s never been an issue in Japan because all they were drawing were pro wrestling fans until probably 2001 anyway, and they understood business is business. “

268. Mark Coleman on his fight with Takada : “It was what it was”.

269. In 2004, at Total Combat 3 in Tijuana, Mexico, Tank Abbott got so drunk at the event that he stripped down to a speedo and got into the ring and started a drunken rant that eventually led to him calling out people in the audience to come fight him. One man got up and started to head into the ring as he took off his shoes and shirt. That man ended up being Brandon Vera. This was before anyone knew who Vera was and he entered the Ufc. The president of Total Combat did not let the fight go on due to liability issues. Both Tank and Vera were there due to having friends competing in the event. Tank apparently wasn’t happy when his friend was screwed by ref.

Some pics of Tank drunk and stripping down to a speedo at the event can be found here.

270. Wearing gloves was made mandatory in the UFC at UFC 14.

271. Tank Abbott fish hooked Oleg Taktarov at UFC 6. Following the fight, fish hooking was banned.

272. Tank Abbott, Bruce Buffer, and Big John McCarthy were on an episode of “Friends”

273. After 8 years in retirement from wrestling, Mark Schultz became the first Olympic Gold medalist to step in the octagon. Schultz replaced Dave Beneteau at UFC 9 in 1996, facing off against the Gary Goodridge. He won the bout by doctor stoppage due to a cut.

“Sometime after the UFC’s debut in 1993, Schultz became interested in the new sport and began studying jiu-jitsu under Pedro Sauer in Utah. By 1996, Schultz was working with Canadian UFC old-schooler Dave Beneteau, helping to prepare Beneteau for a slated bout against Gary Goodridge at UFC 9. Less than a month before the event, Beneteau broke his hand. Figuring he could compete despite the injury, Beneteau decided to train through it — but plans changed at the last minute. Here’s what happened, according to a profile on Schultz that was published after the event:

[Beneteau] asked me to go to Detroit with him to be his personal corner man, or the guy to throw in the towel if necessary, Schultz said.

I went out there with the understanding that that’s what I was going to do. I didn’t take any work-out gear. All I brought was a suit and tie and one pair of shorts to do some training with some of the Brazilians that were going to be there.

Immediately following a news conference that took place on the eve of the fight, Beneteau was looked over by a doctor and told that he would not be able to compete, Schultz said.

After the doctor said that (Beneteau) was out of the tournament, everybody turned and looked at me, he said. So I went over to the head promoter…and told him that I was thinking about taking Dave’s place.

The next step was to arrive at an agreement with promoters over details to be included in the last-minute contract, Schultz said.

They called me at seven in the morning with an offer, requesting an answer, but I still needed time to think about it all, he said. I went over to a corner and sat down and I asked God what I should do. I felt that I had to do it — I knew I had to do it.

I walked back, signed the papers…had a physical, had an interview, went to the Octagon to feel the mat, then some guys went and bought all new equipment for me for the match, he said. Two hours later I was in the Octagon fighting.

274. Mark Schultz on his lone mma loss against Leopoldo Montenegro which was supposed to be a work and not a real mma fight :

“Schultz was contacted by promoter Antonio Inoki through mutual associates about taking what he believed to be a staged pro wrestling-style match. Flown to Japan to meet the Japanese icon of pro wrestling, Schultz was given first-class treatment. He believed he would eventually become a star in the pro wrestling scene in Japan.

He was sitting at home in 2003 when the phone rang, in the midst of an ugly divorce that has included a still-simmering custody battle for his three children.

I’m sitting in my apartment in Salt Lake City, kicked out of my house. I had a computer, a bed and a toilet, he said.

A friend who coached USA Wrestling contacted him, offering a pro wrestling-style match, through Inoki, for $25,000.

I’m like, ‘Hell yeah, I’ll do it.’ I get flown to Japan. I’m gonna make this new life there. They’re treating me well, and I trusted them. I meet Inoki, who put me up in this nice hotel in the Tokyo Dome, Schultz said. Finally, somebody is recognizing the value of my name, like Kurt Angle in New Japan Pro Wrestling. I meet some of Inoki’s pro wrestlers. I go there and everything is set, this is just incredible how great this is. I thought Inoki was the greatest guy in the world.

This is what Schultz had been waiting for, or so he thought.

He said he understood his scheduled match to be a pro wrestling-style bout, with a scripted ending along with the staged drama of that genre. And he would be paid a hefty sum of $25,000 against Leopoldo Montenegro. The match was set for the Jungle Fight promotion in Brazil in September 2003.

Then about a day before I’m scheduled to go down to Brazil, I get on a Web site called Jungle Fight, and I notice (MMA fighter) Rico Chiapparelli is on the card. I look at the other guys lined up and I say, ‘Hey, this looks like a real fight.’

And I call them and they say it’s real and we don’t pay that much money. We pay about $5,000 for the fake fights. And I did it because Inoki promised to bring me to Japan and make me a star.

So I go down to Brazil. A couple hours before the fight, they put us on an island. We couldn’t get off. I’m like, ‘Where is everybody?’ They’re gonna throw me in this cage. Montenegro doesn’t know what’s going on. I was spending eight hours a day filing papers for my divorce and wasn’t in shape. I’m asking (Inoki’s son) Simon, ‘What’s the script? What is the story line?’ I’m realizing there’s gonna be real fights in with these fake fights.

A bizarre, last-minute situation unfolded as Montenegro claimed he didn’t know the match was supposed to be scripted and refused to be on the losing end if it was, Schultz said. Schultz offered to get disqualified, but Montenegro wasn’t happy about the situation, and apparently wasn’t in the loop. It was a fuzzy situation on both ends, according to Schultz, and Sherdog.com could not reach Montenegro for comment.

I thought, ‘Well, maybe it’ll be better if I took him down.’ A lot of times you don’t know how things are gonna go, Schultz said. I told Simon Inoki to make sure that message got to Montenegro. Well, Montenegro didn’t get any message. Simon didn’t tell him anything. So when I didn’t do exactly what we agreed on, (Montenegro) thought I was breaking the deal. I gave him a triangle. He wouldn’t let me go. Afterwards I was pissed. Just the way the whole thing went down, it was really important for me to go out a winner in my career. I thought, ‘Well, only thing I have now is the start of my pro wrestling career.’

I never thought anybody would think that was a real fight. I’m a trained mixed martial artist. I can tell what’s real and fake, but I thought that was the way they did their pro wrestling over there. But I never in my wildest dreams thought Inoki would mix fake and pro fights. I feel bad I was a participant in that. I really regret it.

Schultz maintains that the bout should not be on his record as an MMA contest. Compounding the matter — and the $5,000 purse instead of the $25,000 he said he was initially promised — he never got the chance to compete in Japan’s pro wrestling circuit either.

275. “Campbell McLaren, the original head of the UFC, had from the start tried to recruit Dave Schultz, a 1984 Olympic gold medalist, who was still active and considered the unofficial leader of the American elite wrestlers as the country’s best wrestler of the 80s.

“I tried Dave Schultz first,” said McLaren, who produced and really ran UFC in its early years. “He said the UFC sounded too crazy for him, but I should try his brother.”

Mark Schultz was at the time the wrestling coach at Brigham Young University. Officials at the school were furious their wrestling coach was involved in something with the image UFC had. He was told in no uncertain terms he’d lose his job if he continued, and never fought in UFC again. A few years later, the same thing happened with another gold medalist, Kevin Jackson, who was told he’d lose his coaching job if he continued to fight.”

276. In the beginning when the Fertittas were losing a lot of money on the UFC, they told Dana White, who was running the company, that it was time to sell. But when Fertitta didn’t get an offer he liked right away, he decided to kick in $10 million more, and essentially fund a reality show on Spike TV as a last-ditch effort.

277. Back in the early days, when the UFC started to become established and the reality of longer fights needed time limits with the sport evolving to where Royce would not be able to win consistently, Royce was pulled out and Rorion sold his stock to Bob Meyrowitz, who was full owner from 1995 to 2001.

278.

“In 1993, at the same time Rorion Gracie, Art Davie, McLaren and Meyrowitz were working on the idea of the first UFC, Ken Shamrock and several Japanese tough guys who idolized and trained directly under Karl Gotch (a legit submission wrestler known throughout the country as “The God of Wrestling”), grew frustrated with pro wrestling and its political pecking order and predetermined outcomes.

They came up with their own concept, named Pancrase, after the sport of Pankration in the original Greek Olympics, nearly 2,800 years ago. To them, they were just doing pro wrestling, except the fights would be real. With the exception of a charismatic Dutch fighter named Bas Rutten, the early fighters in the promotion were all part of the same pro wrestling promotion in Japan, where the younger wrestlers broke off to form a new company.

They still wore their pro wrestling speedo-like trunks and wore their pro wrestling boots, which later were dropped when it was realized they made them more susceptible to ankle locks and, especially, heel hooks. They fought in a ring. Their concept of fighting was based around submissions, but adding kicks, which in a fight were a must in the Japanese culture, to be marketable. They allowed open-handed strikes to the head and punches to the body, feeling punches to the face bare-knuckle was not sport. Stemming from pro wrestling, if someone was in a submission and got to the ropes, the hold would be broken.”

279. When Royce Gracie could no longer continue in the UFC 3 tournament, Ken Shamrock, who had blown out his knee PRIOR to the tournament but had become obsessed with Gracie, won his first two fights. Instead of going into the finals, he bowed out, claiming he didn’t want to risk hurting his knee. He said the only reason he even competed that night was to avenge his loss to Gracie, which by that point was no longer possible because Royce could not continue. His adopted father, Bob Shamrock, was backstage yelling at him for not going out for the finals. The two didn’t speak for a time when Ken refused to go out for a final fight that he most likely would have won.

280. The pay-per-view broadcast cut off at the end of the UFC 4 tournament. Fans didn’t get to see Royce Gracie triangle choke Dan Severn to win his third and final tournament. Prior to the pay per view being cut off, it looked like Dan Severn was going to win as he was in control and back then, no one knew about triangle chokes. Many were in disbelief when they eventually found out that Royce won.

281. Tito Ortiz debuted at UFC 13, competing under amateur status in order to continue collegiate wrestling.

282. Frank Shamrock’s UFC 16 crippling slam of Igor Zinoviev was a unification fight for the UFC and Extreme Fighting middleweight titles.

283. UFC 22 brought the 155-pound division to the organization. The weight class was scrapped after UFC 49 and was brought back at UFC 58.

284. UFC 37.5, headlined by Chuck Liddell and Vitor Belfort, was the UFC’s first venture onto basic cable television. Steve Berger vs. Robbie Lawler was aired on the Fox Sports Nets’ Best Damn Sports Show, Period.

285. Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz delivered a landmark event at UFC 40, getting the UFC its most attention on pay-per-view since UFC 5 and landing its first ever million-dollar gate.

286. Pete Spratt defeated then-young gun Robbie Lawler at UFC 42, earning him a title shot against welterweight champion Matt Hughes. He turned it down and never got the offer again.

287. Nick Diaz debuted at UFC 44 just after his 20th birthday, making him the youngest American competitor to compete in the Octagon at the time. Vitor Belfort, a Brazilian, debuted at 19. Dan Lauzon was 18 at UFC 64 when he surpassed both.

288. Lightweights Sean Sherk and Hermes Franca both tested positive for steroids according to the California State Athletic Commission after UFC 73. It is the first time two UFC fighters in a title fight (or a fight period) tested positive.

289. UFC 76 : Knockout, had no knockouts in the event.

290. At UFC 73, fan Eraldo Cano fell to his death from a smoking balcony at Arco Arena in Sacramento, California.

291. Gary Goodridge on Pride FC fights being fixed and how Ogawa’s camp offered him 20,000 to lose in their fight:

“At the beginning, when Pride first started, it was more like 90 percent of the fights were fixed and 10 percent were real,” Goodridge said in an interview with The MMA Digest. “As the fights went on, they became the opposite way and completely wiped out. All were real.”

At Pride 6, Goodridge was set to face Naoya Ogawa, but before he even stepped foot in the ring, he said his locker room was invaded with Ogawa’s cornermen looking to cut a deal.

Apparently, Goodridge was offered $20,000 to take a dive.

Goodridge : “No, I didn’t want no part of it. It messed with my brain because you have the corner asking me to take a dive thinking that he’s not very well prepared or he’s not this, he’s not that, and then next thing you know, I go in there and I blow out in the first round.”

Despite passing on the bribe, Goodridge ended up losing the bout anyway due to a second-round submission.

292. Frank Shamrock and other fighters talking about Ken Shamrock being a con man and ripping off fight organizations :

Frank Shamrock on Ken and how he got out of fighting Kimbo : “I think Ken cut himself. It goes back to his giant ego and not being smart enough to understand the rest of the business. I think he got upset because Kimbo was making twice as much as he was and I don’t think his ego could take it. I know for a fact that he tried to hold the network up for more money the day before the show and unfortunately his parting words were, “Well, then you never know what will happen because anything can happen.” Then when he showed up with the cut we all thought he juiced himself. You know, he’s not to be trusted … a real fighter would have superglued it and put makeup on it and been and would have been out there fighting. Which (is something) I have done and many fighters have done many times … I have no idea what he’s doing. I just hope when he’s finished destroying himself that he has something left to live by.”

Frank — who had not been training for a fight and competes at 185 pounds — volunteered to fight the much larger Slice on two hours notice. Unfortunately CBS executives reportedly nixed the idea and opted to go with Seth Petruzelli instead. The rest, as “they” say is history when Seth ko’ed Kimbo.

293. There was a conspiracy after the fight when, on the heels of his win, Petruzelli went on the Monsters in the Morning radio show and alleged that EliteXC officials had encouraged (and possibly paid) him to stand and trade with Slice, instead of taking the street fighter to the canvas. Petruzelli quickly backtracked, but it wasn’t good enough for the Florida Boxing Commission, which said it would investigate the allegations. The pressure of seeing its biggest star get cold-cocked on national TV, coupled with the impending inquiry (and other factors) was too much for EliteXC to bear and it promptly folded.

294. Chael Sonnen on Ken Shamrock when Ken Shamrock was supposed to have a fight with James Toney : “I can guarantee you that as sure as night follows day, that not only is that fight never gonna happen, it never was. Ken Shamrock is going around to all these different promoters doing his typical scumbag move getting money up front saying, You know, I’m a Hall of Famer and I don’t even know if you guys are going to exist, so give me a ten grand signing bonus. He takes their money, goes and blades himself in the back, or whatever make believe thing that guy does, won’t show up – guaranteed he won’t show up – keeps their ten grand and goes on to the next unassuming promoter. He’s not gonna fight James Toney anymore than you are. He never was. That fight won’t happen, mark my words.

295. Miro Mijatovic, former manager of Mirko Cro Cop and Fedor Emelianenko, on Pride FC either fixing fights or influencing fight outcomes by manipulating information on who fighters are preparing for in training :

“When we say controlling fights, I suppose there’s a whole scope of what you can say controlling a fight is. I mean, at one end of the spectrum it’s basically fixing fights. At the other end of the spectrum which is what PRIDE did on a regular basis which was controlling or trying to influence the outcome of fights, whether that was through referees like (Yuji) Shimada doing his usual bits and pieces to make fights go the way the promoter wanted them to wherever it was, matchmaking fights where you knew the favored fighter was going to win which is not really any great mystery… Doing things like giving one fighter three or four months notice of the fight he’s going to have and the opponent gets to know a week or 10 days before or he’s actually baited-and-switched which was actually a very common occurrence in PRIDE.

For example, Mirko Cro Cop may be fighting or for example was set to fight Heath Herring at one of his first debut fights. Poor ‘ol Heath thought he was fighting a wrestler and trained for fighting a wrestler for three months. 10 days before the fight, they switched it and said you’re fighting Mirko Cro Cop. Mirko actually had four months to prepare for the fight, Heath had 10 days, which was good for us because I was managing Mirko so no problem for me but tough luck for Heath and that was a very, very common way of influencing the fights.

In terms of actually matchmaking the events… yes, the [yakuza] were involved. There were fights (that) they wanted to see but remember even these yakuza guys … so there were fights that those guys wanted to see and they also knew that big headline fights would also carry a lot of betting, just like in the US model…

You know, gambling here is illegal… it has to be said which is why it’s one of the yakuza’s main forms of business, whether it’s in Sumo where there’s been a lot of scandals or whether it’s been in the fight industry and, you know, the meaning of yakuza actually comes from gambler in Japanese. That’s where the original business was, so, you know, 200 years later they haven’t given up on their main business. Gambling still remains one of their main lines of business.

296. Rampage Jackson on Pride FC fixing fights and manipulating situations to give certain fighters a better chance to win :

“Fighter’s Only: Is it true fighters would get two or three weeks notice for even the biggest fights?

Rampage: Igor Vovchanchyn., I got two weeks notice. Ninja, two weeks notice. It was bad. The tournaments were fixed. They said they drew numbers from a hat.. Pfft. It was all set up for Wanderlei to win. It was really bad. Even in some fights they would stand you up when you were winning, different stuff like that.” A lot of things were bad about Pride FC man. I don’t know what their problem was but they wouldn’t promote me at all, they cheated me out of money from dolls and t-shirts, not paying me… when my contract was up and we were negotiating and I wanted more money and they were telling me ‘oh but you’re a nobody’. This was after I had fought in the Grand Prix and beat Igor Vovchanchyn. Even after I went to that K-1 fight and represented them in K-1, they were mad I won that K-1 fight! Just stuff like that.

The old president was really cool but he said if I wanted to get on the talk show they had in America, he said ‘you’ve got to kiss the American [Pride] president’s ass’. I don’t kiss ass. Go ahead, I don’t need to do your show. And I think at the time I was one of the most popular American fighters that they had there. So they put some Japanese guy on the talk show – and he didn’t speak English! I was like ’Y’all some idiots’.”

297. “Kid” Yamamoto once accidentally shot a Japanese Yakuza mobster in the face with a BB gun, and was forced to go on the lam until Enson took advantage of his admired status within the Yakuza and alleviated the situation. Enson talks in detail about the incident and how he saved Yamamoto’s life in this video:

298. Gabriel Gonzaga’s nickname “Napão” literally means “big nostrils” in Portuguese. Napão is a common expression in Brazil,” said Gonzaga’s jiu-jitsu coach, Marco Alvan. “It means you have a sixth sense; you smell what’s about to happen. Gabriel is always anticipating, always ahead of his opponent. That is how he became Napão.”

299. Jonathan Goulet earned his nickname ” The Road Warrior ” after taking a fight on very short notice, traveling without his trainers or cornermen and by winning the fight at the TKO14 Road Warriors.

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TO BE CONTINUED