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
99 Facts for the diehard MMA fan, Part 3.0
99 Facts for the diehard MMA fan, Part 3.1
This is Part 4
300. Clay Guida had been working as both a unionized and non-unionized carpenter while training and fighting in his spare time earning the nickname “The Carpenter”.
301. Dan Hardy on how he got his nickname “The Outlaw” : When I first started training for MMA, I was working with a coach I didn’t see eye-to-eye with. After a disagreement, I decided it was best to train elsewhere and in the following days I was calling up training partners and they had all been told to stay away from me. That is where the nickname originated from and because I am from Nottingham [Robin Hood country], it worked well.”
302. Short Fuse is perfect for Ed Herman because he has such a quick temper, says Herman’s teammate Matt Lindland. He was easy to nickname. My nickname “Short Fuse” was given to me by my two good friends Chris Leben and Chael Sonnen at the beginning of my career. And it is not related to the size of my johnson.”
303.
Heath Herring on how he got his nickname : The fans in Japan came up with the nickname Texas Crazy Horse after seeing his cowboy hat, occasional crazy hairdos and raucous fighting style. “I definitely adopted it and I try to live up to it,” he said of the nickname.
304.James Irvin originally got his nickname “The Sandman” for the crushing tackles he delivered while playing football, first at Del Oro High School, and later at Asuza Pacific University.
305. Martin Kampmann on how he got his nickname “The Hitman ” : I got that nickname from Tue Trnka (a Danish MMA reporter). He gave it to me in one of his fight articles because he thought I was always cool and all business when I fought. To be honest with you I didn’t really like to get a nickname to begin with but it kind of stuck and I thought ok, let’s use it. “
306.
“The original main event for Pride 2 was to be Mark Kerr vs. Royce Gracie, with the Gracies ultimately cajoling the Pride suits to turn the bout into a no-time-limit, no ref-stoppage affair (virtually, the same regulations they demanded for the Saku bout in 2000.) However, Royce backed out of the fight before the fight could be finalized, and we instead ended up with the Mark Kerr/Branko Cikatic classic that saw the former K1 Grand Prix champ disqualified just two minutes into the match-up.”
Pride 2 poster showing Royce Gracie vs Mark Kerr :
307. “Way back in 1996, pro wrestler Vader was scheduled to do battle with Kimo in a U-Japan bout; eventually, Vader backed out, with Bam Bam Bigelow stepping in instead.”
308. PRIDE also wanted to book Big Van Vader in PRIDE, but due to his poor physical condition, they opted not to.
309. Pride cut Anderson Silva back in 2005 because he was on bad terms with Chute Box, and the organization didn’t want to do anything to alienate its fighters. Also, Georges St. Pierre’s name was brought up to PRIDE’s management by one of their video editing producers. He told them about a young good looking Canadian fighter who he knew who was a pretty good fighter, but GSP was relatively unknown back then and PRIDE management just told him to send GSP some of their material. PRIDE didn’t have a welterweight division back then, so that’s another reason why this never materialized.”
310. Another name PRIDE was rumored of having interest in was Kimbo Slice. The idea was that PRIDE wanted to book a beastly looking black fighter for their second Las Vegas event, but then came up the name of Sokoudjou. Sokoudjou had been recommended by PRIDE veteran Dan Henderson, so they opted to sign Sokoudjou instead to fight Antonio Rogerio Nogueira.”
311. Kurt Pellegrino on how he got his nickname “Batman” : Short story, I was running late to a wrestling tournament. I always came in second place; I had never won one at this time. And I didn’t pack my bag like my father told me to the night before. Like I said, we were running late, so I pulled a t-shirt out of the closet and a pair of sweatpants—not thinking, it was like four in the morning. By the time we got to the tournament, I saw that it was a Batman shirt and a pair of sweatpants. So I said, Dad, I can’t walk around here — I’m in like seventh grade — with a Batman t-shirt on and a pair of sweatpants at a wrestling tournament. He’s like, well, we’ll go buy you one thing, either a pair of shorts or a shirt. So I kept the shirt, turned it inside out, bought a pair of shorts, and that was the first tournament I ever won. To this day, it’s the same shirt I wear to every fight, every grappling match, the Abu Dhabi’s, whatever. That’s the shirt I wear.”
312. Tank Abbott vs. Kimo was the fight originally scheduled to take place on PRIDE 1, but was cancelled because Tank couldn’t come to Japan. Dan Severn stepped in as a replacement against Kimo, but the fight didn’t deliver as it was expected to.
313. Nobuhiro Takada was originally planned to face Naoya Ogawa in his retirement fight, but then offers to fight Mirko Cro Cop and Hidehiko Yoshida came up. Takada ended up fighting neither of those guys in his retirement fight and instead ended up fighting Tamura. PRIDE made the Tamura fight because they could build it up with the background both guys had from competing in UWF where they were 2 of the top wrestlers.
314. Before TUF, PRIDE already done a reality TV show called PRE-PRIDE and PRIDE OU or PRIDE KING. The show ran for 6 seasons with the winners of the seasons getting a chance to fight in PRIDE.
315. The coaches for the first season were Masaaki Satake, Daijiro Matsui, Akira Shoji and Alexander Otsuka. Some of the winners of the show didn’t fight in PRIDE as one of them choose to fight in RINGS instead of PRIDE and others only fought once or twice but were never promoted as the winners of the show on the PRIDE cards.
316. Yushin Okami won one of the seasons of the show and he wore a Batman mask in the walk out to his fights on the show.
317. There was also another PRIDE reality TV show called PRIDE Challenger which was for amateur fighters.
318.
There’s little to no video of these shows because they aired on syndicated local TV stations in certain areas of Japan only.
319. There was a series of small PRIDE events called MMA THE BEST which featured an octagon ring. Joe Son fought Yusuke Imamura in the main event of the first event.
320. There was talks between PRIDE and UFC management at UFC 44 to set up a fight for Kazuyuki Fujita at UFC 46. PRIDE was hoping for a big fight for Fujita, but they offered him a fight with Wesley Correira. PRIDE management turned the fight down due to Correira not being a big enough name.
321. There was later talks of Sergei Kharitonov fighting in the UFC, but the UFC was the one to turn down that offer down because Nobody wants to see a no-name Russian guy. And because he’s good.
322. The UFC later on wanted Sakuraba who was known in America due to his Gracie Hunter fame and PRIDE offered Hirotaka Yokoi.
323. The UFC had in mind initially if Chuck Liddell lost in the PRIDE middleweight GP which he did in the second to Rampage, they would send Randy Couture over next. None of these plan took place though because the PRIDE fighters weren’t draws in America and the American fighters weren’t a draw in Japan.
324. Mirko was originally scheduled to fight as a PRIDE fighter in a UFC event scheduled to take place at the Yokohama Arena in Yokohama, Japan on June 12 2005. The UFC planned a 2004 event in Japan with Couture challenging Wanderlei Silva to a double title fight in December.
325. When Fedor Emelianenko left Russian Top Team to join the Red Devil Team, RTT began preparing fighters to KO or beat Fedor in PRIDE. The first fight prepared to beat Fedor was Sergei Kharitonov. The other was a man who had defeated Fedor twice in Sambo and who was seen as the superior fighter to Fedor, Suren Balachinsky. Balachinsky was set to make his PRIDE debut at PRIDE 28, but injuries prevented that from happening.
326. PRIDE negotiated with former boxing heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. Tyson at the time had a bunch of legal problems including his rape scandal and he couldn’t get a license to fight anywhere. So the original plan was to a PRIDE Tyson tour around the world. The fighters in talks of fighting Tyson were Fedor, Mirko and fighters with good striking skills. The idea was to have Tyson fight in boxing matches against the MMA fighters. The world tour was aimed to have events in China, Russia and throughout Europe. The idea was for the tour to kick off in Macau, China. Tyson even got to sign a contract with PRIDE and even appeared as a PRIDE employee at first Las Vegas PRIDE event press conference. Tyson of course being Tyson, didn’t show his face at the PRIDE event and when asked about Tyson at the post fight press conference, PRIDE management pretty much brushed off the question.
327. Story of Rickson Gracie challenging Marco Ruas to a fight, Rickson vs Hugo Duarte fight at the beach, and Duarte going to Rickson’s gym 5 days later for revenge, etc.
“What is the story about how you went to Boqueirão and challenged Hugo Duarte and Marco Ruas?
Rickson: Hugo wasn’t around at that time. It was Fabio Molina, and after his fight with Pinduka, Marco Ruas, who were the tough luta livre guys. A little before I went to the USA , there was rumor that Ruas wanted to fight with me. Myself, my father, and Serginho looked for confirmation of this in Boqueirão, where they trained. I didn’t waste time, because Ruas was a guy who I had always respected as a fighter, and the fact that he wanted to fight me is the reason I went looking for him. When I got there, the place was full of tough guys, led by Ruas. I asked him what was his intention, he had already said that he wanted to fight me. We can fight anytime, right here, before, or after, by arrangement o que fosse. He told me that he did not want to challenge me but that if I wanted to challenge him he wanted four months to train and then we’ll see. I said, “Are you crazy? Can you imagine if Pele arrived with Cosmos to challenge Ferrioviario? I’m not challenging you nothing! I’m here to fight whoever wants to fight. If you don’t want to fight, go home! My father sensed that the climate was getting strange, and wanted to calm things down, so he said, “any renown athletes here who want to fight Rickson, collect the names and we’ll make a list for the future”. At that moment Hugo made his first appearance and said “put my name in that list”. I said, “this isn’t a jogo do bicho my brother.[jogo do bicho is a form of illegal lottery. Rickson probably means that he isn’t there to fight just any chump who wants to take his chances, but only a worthy challenger, someone with a Name] The list is for jogo do bicho. If you want to fight, it’s now. If you don’t want to fight, be quiet and just listen” I was there to fight, with one or another one. Because of that appeasement, it was from that day that Hugo, for his own reasons, began to talk about how he was preparing to fight me. The rumor started and intensified. People, and my friends, were saying that Hugo was very good, that this, that that [que fez isso, fez aquilo] I couldn’t challenge him because he wasn’t famous yet. ………………We meet at Pepê and fought. We settled the matter, but he wasn’t satisfied.
Five days later, he invaded your academy for revenge. He told Tatame that you were startled and that superman was something in the movies [Hugo means that Rickson wasn’t the superman that everyone said he was].
Rickson: I wasn’t at the academy when he arrived. I was at the apartment of a friend when a guy came and said, “they invaded the academy”. I had long long hair at that time. I arrived to go up the stairs and meet them coming down.. He said “Hey, my brother, I’m talking to you! Come let’s talk” I said, “dude [bicho], come down here”. They came down. There must have been 20 students from the academy there, and there were 300 who came with him and Eugenio Tadeu. with them. It was a chaos, bandits mixed with fighters. The atmosphere was very strange. Before we fought, we walked a little into the center of the patio of the school. I said, “Hugo, come here I want to talk with you.” Denilson (Maia) and Hugo, and my father and Royler, came. I said “This is the way it is, my brother. I respect you as a man. I respect you because you want a revenge. I’ll accept the challenge anytime and anywhere. But if you think someone is going to stop the fight before it’s finished, you are wrong, this is going to be a more serious matter than you think. I will decide when it’s over. [This last statement by Rickson is a rough translation of what he actually said” não tem sem avisar. Agora uma parada é certa. Se o negócio sair do respeito e alguém botar a mão na luta anters de ela acabar, vai ficar um negocio muito mai pesado do que você está pensando. Uma parada que eu vou decidir de outra maniera”, taking some translational liberties based on knowing how Rickson thinks about challenges.] Hugo replied “no, no, only me and you”. So I said, “Then come out from the middle of the crowd and do it now”. This fight was finished faster than the first one. The area was very prejudiced because he was a heavy person there. The entrance to the academy, which was concrete, was much better. It went to the ground, and very quickly, he begged to stop. When it was over, he got up and I said, “My brother, I respect you. Continue training to be a tough guy”. He said, “I also respect you, for sure”. Royler began to grab Eugenio and the police arrived shooting off their guns.”
rickson vs hugo duarte at the beach :
328. Rickson Gracie on why he never fought Sakuraba (in his own words) :
“Kazushi Sakuraba defeated various members of your family. Why didn’t you challenge him at that time?
Rickson: That fight was certain. But due to an accident, my son died at exactly that time when the thing was closed. Unhappily, I couldn’t make a decision about it out of respect. I had to dedicate precious time to my family. I couldn’t think about fighting and leave things in the way that they were. “
329. “Before fighting in PRIDE, the UFC made Shinya Aoki an offer to fight BJ Penn in the UFC. He thought about signing with them at the time because with the offer he was getting he could’ve made a living with MMA if he fought 4 times a year. His manager Hasegawa advised him and he opted not to sign with them.
He feels it was the right move because he didn’t feel like a pro yet and it could’ve affected him and he wouldn’t have gained the popularity he did and wouldn’t have reached the level and fame he has.
Aoki was planning to take a break from MMA to focus on being a policeman because there was no money in MMA until he began fighting in PRIDE where he said he was paid well and treated well.”
330. “Nobuhiro Takada was originally planned to face Naoya Ogawa in his retirement fight, but then offers to fight Mirko Cro Cop and Hidehiko Yoshida came up. Takada ended up fighting neither of those guys in his retirement fight and instead ended up fighting Tamura. PRIDE made the Tamura fight because they could build it up with the background both guys had from competing in UWF where they were 2 of the top wrestlers.”
331. “K-1 put on a huge fight between Akebono and Bob Sapp on 2003 NYE, so PRIDE tried to counter attack putting on a co-promoted card with Antoni Inoki featuring fights like Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Mirko Cro Cop, Kazuyuki Fujita vs. Peter Aerts, Hidehiko Yoshida vs. Naoya Ogawa and participation from Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Wanderlei Silva and Fedor Emelianenko.
To counter attack K-1’s big fight, PRIDE tried putting on Tamura vs. Sakuraba and Tamura vs. Nogueira. Nogueira had some problems behind the scenes in the industry and was hard to deal with which stopped him from participating on many events.
With none of the fights panning out, PRIDE tried putting on Tamura vs. Evander Holyfield. That didn’t pan out, so there was talks about Tamura fighting other boxers like Sugar Ray Leonard and Oscar de la Hoya. Again, those didn’t pan out either and Tamura ended up fighting Ronnie Sefo.
PRIDE tried several tactics to set up the Sakuraba vs. Tamura fight and even proposed a tag team MMA fight with Tamura teaming with Kazuki Okubo. Tamura accepted the fight, but Sakuraba turned it down.
There were only 2 opponents selectable for Sakuraba, Antonio Rogerio Nogueira and El Solar. The plan was for Sakuraba to face El Solar while wearing a mask as Saku-machine which was the mask he wore to his first fight with Royce Gracie in the first ever all masked man MMA fight. Sakuraba turned the fight down and accepted the Rogerio fight instead.”
332. The following is an excerpt from the book Pride Fc : Secret Files…where witnesses other then chute boxe members claimed Charles Bennett didn’t ko Wanderlei Silva :
“To put an end to the rumors of Krazy Horse KO’ing Wanderlei backstage, he didn’t. He got choked out by Cristiano Marcelo backstage and got up all wobbly and began throwing punches wildly and caught Wanderlei off guard. He did not knock out Wanderlei.”
333. Like Evan Tanner, British fighter Dave Legeno also died of excessive heat-related issues while hiking in a desert in California. Dave Legeno, apart from fighting in mma also starred in movies such as Harry Potter, Snatch, Batman Begins, Snow White and the Huntsman, etc … . As a mixed martial artist, Legeno held wins over such legend fighters as Kimo and Dan Severn, and even has a win over referee Herb Dean.
334. Wallid Ismael vs The Gracie Family – vs. Ralph
It happened at the Rio Sport Center Cup, ..match happened when they were both brown belts. The match was 2-0 for Wallid, due to a guard pass (worth 2 points at the time.) In a political decision, many felt that Ralph should have gotten 2 points for a takedown. At the time, Wallid was 5 Kg (11 pounds) heavier than Ralph.
335. Wallid Ismael vs The Gracie Family – vs. Renzo
This happened in 1993, in Flamengo’s gym. Wallid won 6-0, scoring on three guard passes. Wallid weighed 5 Kg (11 pounds) more than Renzo and used a gi with an extremely thick collar, that prevented Renzo from choking him (he couldn’t bring his hands together.) Renzo took Wallid’s back several times, who only had to worry about defending the hooks because he knew it would be impossible to choke him. Renzo didn’t score, because he thought that he was going to finish Wallid. The fight lasted an hour, and it was a tie up until the last 30 minutes. After this fight, Renzo tried to get revenge on Wallid many times, entering every tournament, but Wallid did not sign up for any of them.
336. Wallid Ismael vs The Gracie Family – vs. Royce
The setting was the beach paradise of Copacabana, on a hot night in December 1998. The battle was highly anticipated, as there had not been a no-time-limit match of this scale in a long time; the judge was the eternal delegate Hélio Vígio. To the surprise of many, the match ended much earlier than anticipated, when Wallid, visibly better prepared than Royce, capitalized on a mistake by Royce and applied a choke known as a “clock choke” just 5 minutes into the bout. The warrior spirit of Royce would not allow him to give up, and it was a while before the judge realized that there was no reaction by Royce, resulting in the unforgettable unconsciousness of Royce.”
337. Wallid Ismael vs The Gracie Family – vs. Ryan
*In November 1999, Ryan signed to fight Wallid in the January 2000 WEC show, and went to NY to train with Renzo. Wallid delayed signing because he was angling for a fight in Pride. But, no matter, Ryan was in great shape and training hard at Renzo’s. Wallid signed the contract to fight Ryan 6 weeks before the show, but Ryan suddenly dropped out because he did not have enough time to prepared for the fight. Ryan was supposedly in great shape, had been training for the fight a month, and he still had 6 weeks to prepare. Nevertheless, he claimed that he could not possibly get ready.
*Wallid and Ryan then signed to fight in the April 2001 WEC show, but that fight fell apart after Ryan got arrested for stabbing a man in a bar fight in February. This is the second case of Ryan dropping out of a fight against Wallid.
*In December 1999, Wallid and Ryan got in a shouting match on Pepe beach in Rio. No punches were thrown. A few days later, Ryan walked into a gym where Wallid was working out. Wallid ran downstairs to confront Ryan. Ryan was afraid that Wallid was going to kick his ass, so he reached into his fanny pack and pretended to have a gun in order to make sure Wallid did not jump him.
*In October 2000, Wallid and Ryan both attended the after party for the Bad Boy fashion show in Brazil. Ryan snuck up on Wallid and tried to sucker punch Wallid from behind. Wallid turned around, put Ryan in a guillotine choke, and choked Ryan unconscious. “
338.
Pete Sell’s nickname “Drago” came for his resemblance to bad guy Ivan Drago in “Rocky IV : I had it back in the day, since I was about 13. It has nothing to do with my fight career. It’s just something that stuck with me. I actually used to hate it. And my friends kept calling me it; they thought it was funny at the time. And it just stuck after awhile.”
339. Alessio Sakara’s nickname “Legionarius” means a member of the heavy infantry in the ancient Roman army in the period of the late Roman Republic and the Roman Empire : The legionnaires were the soldiers of the ancient Roman Empire that traveled the world to fight.”
340. It was in Japan that Sean Sherk’s nickname “The Muscle Shark” came to be, stemming from the Japanese word ‘katakana’ which means both Shark and Sherk in that language.
341. Krzysztof Soszynski on his nickname “The Polish Experiment”: Before I started doing Jiu-Jitsu about six years ago, I was doing pro wrestling and was really jacked, really muscular. But when I started rolling with the guys, they noticed my cardio was great for somebody 295 pounds. Somebody said, ‘man, you’re like an experiment,’ and the name just stuck.
342. At The Ultimate Fighter finale, Mike Swick defeated Alex Schoenauer by knockout at 20 seconds into the first round, earning the nickname “Quick” from UFC announcer Mike Goldberg.
343. Josh Neer on how he got his nickname “The Dentist” : I knocked this kid’s teeth out in an amateur fight and then I did it the next week as well. The announcer said I was always knocking people’s teeth out, so he started calling me ‘The Dentist.’
344. Yoshihiro Nakao was involved in a memorable MMA moment on December 31, 2005 during K-1’s Dynamite 2005 show. During the pre-fight staredown with opponent Heath Herring, Nakao leaned in and kissed him on the lips. Herring reacted, delivering a right hook to the jaw of Nakao, knocking him out cold. Herring was immediately disqualified and Nakao was carried from the ring. Shortly thereafter, Nakao’s cornermen attacked Herring and a brief melee ensued. The fight result has since been changed by K-1 from a disqualification loss for Herring to a no contest, as K-1 judges ruled that Nakao’s kiss and Herring’s subsequent knockout punch were both fouls. And the nickname Kiss still haunts Nakao to this day.
345. Cole Miller on how he got his nickname “Magrinho” : It means skinny in Portuguese. I came to ATT and (Ricardo) Liborio just called me Magrinho. And that’s the way it goes.”
346. Travis Lutter on how he got his nickname “The Serial Killer” : Well, it really hasn’t stuck too well. On the show, Patrick Cote was drawing (pictures of) everybody. You would come down there in the morning with a cartoon of you on the fridge. The one that he put on there was me, which was my cartoon face with a grim reaper and red blood on it, and he wrote below “The Serial Killer”. It was because I didn’t talk much. I think I kind of freaked him out because one day he came upstairs and he came into my room. And I was talking about how it was like jail and whatnot, but with the language difference he thought that I said I had been in jail and that I had hurt somebody. So the next day there was this rumor going around the house. Guys were coming up to me like “Travis, were you in jail? Did you kill somebody?” I was like no why do you say that? They were like “Well, Patrick said that you were talking about it yesterday.” And we kind of slowly figured it out that it was the language barrier. He thought I was saying one thing, but I was just rambling on about the freakin’ house, and cussing a lot. I think it was the first time that I had talked to him. I just happened to walk into the room and was pissed off at that moment. I was just rambling on about having to be stuck in that house. Venting would be a good word, I guess. So that’s how I got the serial killer nickname. All of the guys on the show like it. But I teach jiu-jitsu, and a lot of the parents of the kids’ class that I don’t teach didn’t like it. (The kids) look up to me and the parents didn’t like the serial killer nickname, so I got some phone calls and emails about it. It really didn’t sit too well (laughs).”
347. The 100th UFC event was UFC 78 on Nov. 17, 2007.
348. The 200th UFC event was UFC on FX 2 on Mar. 3, 2012.
349. The longest Ufc event (by adding up all the fight time of every fight) was UFC on FUEL TV 7 – 168 minutes, 39 seconds .
350. The shortest UFC event (by adding up all the fight time of every fight) was UFC 1 – 13 minutes, 25 seconds
251. Oleg Taktorov on retiring because he did not want to fight fighters on steroids anymore:
“It was hard to grapple with Ken Shamrock because he used steroids. It was especially noticeable when he couldn’t make it through 12 minutes on a practice, but before the fight with me he became much stronger and at the bout made it for 30 minutes. At that time, I realized that I can’t compete with guys on steroids. Over all steroids are dangerous because of slump after the end of the cycle. Coleman was on the slump when was KO’d by Pat Williams. I had the similar story with Gary Goodridge. I fought him when he was pumped by steroids and after that, he was losing to everyone. You can fight these guys, but should have a good cardio and patience. Every fighter on steroids had a short winning stream for about a season or two. But they couldn’t keep up with this pace. Kevin Randleman or Vitor Belford for example, who got under influence of Mr. Olympia at that time, used all you can imagine, and as a result he lost it after a series of great performances. Vitor had a great chance to build a solid grappling foundation by training with Carlson Gracie and other BJJ specialists, he had great training partners. If he worked for couple more years without steroids, he could utilize these skills for the rest of his life. It was very hard for him to recover both mentally and physically. Great example of the athlete who never used steroids is Nogueira.”
352. Oleg came to America to become an actor but in order to support himself financially he began fighting and used his fight status to help him in the movie industry where he starred in several movies like15 minutes, bad boys 2, etc.. He presently continues to act.
353. Oleg fought actor Dolph Lundgren and won by split decision in a legit boxing match :
354. During an interview, Oleg Taktorov accused Dave Beneteau of having baby oil on his back during their fight.
355. “On June 14, 2007, the California State Athletic Commission declared that Royce Gracie had tested positive for Nandrolone, an anabolic steroid, after his fight with Sakuraba. According to the California State Athletic Commission, the average person could produce about 2 ng/ml of Nandrolone, while an athlete following “rigorous physical exercise” could have a level of around 6 ng/ml. Both “A” and “B” test samples provided by Gracie “had a level of over 50 ng/ml and we were informed that the level itself was so elevated that it would not register on the laboratory’s calibrator,” said the CSAC. Gracie was fined $2,500 (the maximum penalty the Commission can impose) and suspended for the remainder of his license, which ended on May 30, 2008. Gracie paid the fine.The California State Athletic Commission’s Bill Douglas told MMAWeekly, “Currently, our rules do not support overturning a decision based off the drug test results. However, Armando Garcia and I are meeting with the Attorney General next month to begin the process of modifying the existing laws to incorporate those rules for the future. Should everything move along like I anticipate, I would expect to see the changes in place by the end of the year.”
Royce Gracie decided to dispute the allegations during an online video interview on May 2009, more than two years after the fact, saying that his weight in the first UFC event was 178 lb and claiming his weight during his Sakuraba fight was 180 lb, thus only gaining 2 pounds.[21] This was widely disputed by experts as his weight was actually 188 lb for the Sakuraba fight. According to ESPN “Gracie is hardly possessed of an exaggerated physique, but he was clearly more sculpted for his June 2 fight with Kazushi Sakuraba than he was for a May 2006 match with Matt Hughes. In the former contest, he weighed in at 175 pounds; for Sakuraba, he was 188. One may not need to be nutritionist to observe that a muscle gain of 13 pounds in one year at the age of 40 is a strikingly accomplished feat. Athletes nearing the half-century mark are often happy to maintain functional mass, let alone pack it on”.
Fun fact related romoshop
356. In an rf shoot interview, Bam Bam Biguelow claimed that he received 100,000 dollars for the fight against Kimo. Upon further investigation though, he was reported to have received 75,000. During the shoot, Bam Bam claimed at the time that the fight was a work which many considered as him making excuses due to his horrible performance in the fight in which he was constantly struck by kimo in full force and provided absolutely no offense. The fight clearly wasn’t fake when you watch the following video and see Bam Bam’s face in the end :
(Fight starts at 3:25 mark)
Bam Bam later stated that it was a real fight in an interview but that he had limited training for the fight as he was a replacement for Vader who was originally slated to face Kimo. He claimed that in the beginning it was supposed to be a work but he was later told it would be a shoot. When he found out he kept asking for more money which he received as the first amount he was offered was 30,000 and went up to 75,000 according to reports.
357. In the book ‘Let’s Get It On’ , Big John MCarthy mentions that Michael Buffer was invited to a few of the earlier UFC events due to his stellar work with Bob Arum’s ‘Top Rank’ and his famous ‘Let’s get ready to rumble!’ trademark. Art Davie propositioned Michael Buffer to announce all future UFC events, a decision that he played with for a while. As we all know, Michael Buffer chose WCW over UFC, and Michael’s brother, Bruce, was pegged for the slot as the official UFC announcer. “
358. “Pride FC nearly signing a lucrative deal with the G4 cable network :
In 2007, Nobuyuki Sakakibara promoted Jerry Millen to the Vice President of Promotions of Pride FC in the US and placed him in charge of getting a television deal for the Japanese organization. Millen wanted to find a network to reach that coveted 18-35 male demographic so he chose to negotiate with the G4 Network, owned by NBC Universal. G4 was already in talks with King of the Cage to air events from the promotion, but just before they were going to pull the production trigger, Jerry Millen presented them with an enticing package from Pride FC. They were in talks for roughly a three-month period and the executives at G4 were pretty receptive to the form of entertainment Pride FC had to offer.
A verbal agreement was struck to create a ‘TUF-like’ show which would take place in Japan and include fighters from across the planet. Instead of living in houses, these fighters would use modified old-school Japanese dojos for accommodation. Both companies also agreed on airing ‘Pride Countdown shows’ leading up to the PPVs and hosting ‘specialty fights’ that would air exclusively on G4. At the time, Pride FC was king. The UFC even loaned their fighters out to Japan in order to compete in those now legendary cards. It’s been reported that the UFC deal to buy Pride FC came down just a few hours before Sakakibara flew to Los Angeles to meet with G4 executives. The deal happened so fast that Jerry Millen didn’t have time to break the news to G4, they found out on the internet.From that moment on, ZUFFA disassembled Pride FC, only bringing a handful of fighters to the UFC. They went on to be the colossal juggernaut they are today due to literally buying out their competition. “
359. Mark Coleman had no opponent for the finals at UFC X1, with Scott Ferrozzo withdrawing due to dehydration. The reserve fighter, Roberto Traven, claimed a broken wrist that many speculated was not broken at all. UFC considered bringing out Tank (whom Ferrozzo beat), but the decision couldn’t be finalized, and Coleman was handed the championship. To appease the audience for not getting a final fight, Coleman and Kevin Randleman staged a wrestling exhibition.”
360. “UFC XV was set to feature Maurice Smith vs Dan Severn. Pride 1 was held 6 days before UFC XV, and Tank Abbott was set to fight Kimo on the card. Some law trouble kept Abbott from leaving the country, so Severn went over and fought Kimo @ Pride 1. Severn also got hurt in this fight, and Abbott subsequently filled in for Severn for the UFC fight, who had filled in for him in Japan.”
361. At WEC 35, Brian Bowles defeated Damacio Page by guillotine choke at 3:30 of the first round. At UFC on Versus 3, Bowles defeated Page by guillotine choke at 3:30 of the first round.
362. Gerard Gordeau Q and A :
Q. Did Teila’s tooth really get stuck in your foot until you got back to Holland?
A. “Yes that is true, I had it removed in Holland when we came home,” Gordeau, now 54, told MMA Fighting via a translator. “And there is a scar — not so much the teeth, but from infection. A bite from a human is far more dangerous than a dog bite!”
Q. And, why did you bite Royce?
A. “If you go down, you might as well give him something to remember you by,” said Gordeau, laughing.
“At that time Royce was the best fighter, yet nobody knew BJJ at that time and I made all the wrong moves on the ground. We were only use to judo and wrestling as a ground game. These days we have YouTube and all other sorts of media. We would have prepared differently if we’d known back then, of course.”
“Last year Royce visited us in our gym in The Hague. It was the first time after 20 years that we spoke. No hard feelings!”
363.
There have been two instances in which mma fighters lost a piece of their ear during an mma fight – Shigeyuki Uchiyama vs Masaya “J-Taro” Takita :
364. An ear was also lost in Shane Tyner vs Kenneth Crowder :
365. Olympic wrestling gold medalist and former pride fc fighter Rulon Gardner was a contestant on the biggest loser after gaining a tremendous amount of weight. After 16 weeks on the show, Gardner had lost 173 pounds. Gardner shocked the trainers, staff, and contestants on the April 26th episode by announcing he would be leaving the show “for personal reasons”, and left the show without a final weigh-in. He did not appear on the final episode of the season, except in the background of scenes of other contestants.
366. “When Gardner was in elementary school, he was injured during a class show-and-tell, when he was punctured in his abdomen with an arrow.
367. In 2002, Gardner went snowmobiling with some friends in the mountains surrounding Star Valley, Wyoming. At one point, he became separated from the group. During his efforts to regain his composure and regroup, he fell into the freezing Salt River with his snowmobile. Unable to move any further, Gardner decided to build a shelter and wait for a rescue team. He remained stranded for the next 18 hours. After several hours in his makeshift shelter, he stopped shivering, which led him to believe that he was dying. When he was eventually rescued, he was experiencing hypothermia and severe frostbite. Due to the physical damage, a saw had to be used to remove his boots. The harrowing experience cost Gardner the middle toe on his right foot, which he keeps in formaldehyde in a jar in his refrigerator, to remind him of his mortality. He told his story on a first season episode of I Survived….
368. On 24 February 2007,Gardner and two other men survived a crash when a light aircraft he was traveling in crashed into Lake Powell, Utah. The men swam an hour in 44 °F (7 °C) water to reach shore, and then spent the night without shelter. None of the three sustained life-threatening injuries.
369. Fighters missing limbs: Keith Miner
370. Fighters missing limbs: kyle maynard
371. Fighters missing limbs: nick newell
372. Fighters missing limbs: Matt Betzold
373. Fighters missing limbs: Carlos Gonzalez
374. Fighters missing limbs: Joshua Rector
375. Fighters missing limbs: Eugene London
376. Origin of the Kimbo Slice nickname : “In his first taped fight against a man named Big D, Ferguson left a large cut on his opponent’s right eye which led Internet fans to call him Slice, becoming the last name to his already popular childhood nickname, Kimbo.”
377. Hayato Sakurai’s nickname, “Mach”, pronounced ma-ha in Japanese was taken as a tribute to his childhood professional wrestling hero, Higo Shigehisashi, better known as Mach Hayato, the first Japanese professional wrestler to completely embrace the Mexican style of Lucha Libre and was also among the group of professional wrestlers who made the transition to shoot wrestling as part of the original UWF movement.
378. Matt Hammill got his nickname “The Hammer” after wrestling in a match for a deaf audience. He slammed his opponent to the mat and some people from the audience indicated that the slams felt like a big hammer striking down onto the mat.
379. n 1996, Igor Vovchanchyn’s name was mentioned for participation in the UFC 11 tournament, but visa issues kept him from ever stepping foot into the octagon. Ironically Mark Coleman went on to win that tournament and like in the Pride heavyweight Gp, he only fought twice that night to claim the title.
380. FC 1 – Although the advertising said there are no rules, there were in fact some rules: no biting, no eye-gouging, and rounds were to last five minutes, although no match in the first tournament lasted that long. Fights ended only in the event of a knockout, a submission, usually signaled by tapping the hand three times on the mat or opponent, or by the corner throwing in the towel. Despite this, the first match in UFC 1 was won by referee stoppage, even though it was not officially recognized as such at the time. Another thing to point out was that on the broadcast the rules stated that groin strikes were banned and that rule was seemingly upheld as no one did any groin strikes.
381. UFC 2 – Time limits were dropped. Groin strikes were unbanned. Modifications to the cage were added (higher fences and less floor padding).
382. UFC 3 – The referee was officially given the authority to stop a fight in case of a fighter being unable to defend himself. A fighter could not kick if he was wearing shoes. This rule would be discarded in later competitions.
383. UFC 4 – After tournament alternate Steve Jennum won UFC 3 by winning only one bout, alternates (replacements) were required to win a pre-tournament bout to qualify for the role of an alternate.
384.UFC 5 – The organizers introduced a 30-minute time limit. UFC 5 also saw the first Superfight, a one-off bout between two competitors selected by the organizers with the winner being crowned ‘Superfight champion’ and having the duty of defending his title at the next UFC.
385. UFC 6 – The referee was given the authority to restart the fight. If two fighters were entangled in a position where there was a lack of action, the referee could stop the fight and restart the competitors on their feet, in their own corner. In UFC 6 they officially adopted the 5 minute extension to the 30 minute rule which had been used in UFC 5.
386. UFC 8 – Time limit changed to 10 minutes in the first two rounds of the tournament, 15 minutes in the tournament final and Superfight. Fights could now be decided by a judges decision if the fight reached the end of the time limit. The panel was made up of three judges who simply raised a card with the name of the fighter they considered to be the winner. In this fashion, a draw was not possible since the only two possible outcomes of a decision were 3 to 0 or 2 to 1 in favor of the winner.
387. UFC 9 – Closed fisted strikes were not allowed. The commentators were not aware of this last minute rule that was made to prevent the cancellation of the event due to local political pressures. Referee “Big John” McCarthy made repeated warnings to the fighters to “open the hand” when this rule was violated. However, not one fighter was reprimanded.
388. Ultimate Ultimate 1996 This event was the first to introduce the “no grabbing of the fence” rule.
389. UFC 12 – The main tournament was split into a heavyweight and lightweight division; and the eight-man tournament was abandoned. Fighters now needed to win only two fights to win the competition. The Heavyweight Champion title (and title bouts) was introduced, replacing the Superfight title (albeit matches were still for a time branded as “Superfights”).
390. UFC 14 – The wearing of padded gloves, weighing 110 to 170 g (4 to 6 ounces), becomes mandatory. Gloves were to be approved by the UFC.
391. UFC 15 – Limits on permissible striking areas were introduced. Headbutts, groin strikes, strikes to the back of the neck and head, kicks to a downed opponent, small joint manipulation, and hair-pulling became illegal.
392. UFC 21 – Five minute rounds were introduced, with preliminary bouts consisting of two rounds, regular non-title bouts at three rounds, and title bouts at 5 five minute rounds. The “ten point must system” was introduced for scoring fights (identical to the system widely used in boxing).
393. UFC 28 – The New Jersey Athletic Control Board sanctions its first UFC event, using the newly developed Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts. Major changes to the UFC’s rules included barring knee strikes to the head of a downed opponent, and elbow strikes to the spine and neck. Limits on permissible ring attire, stringent medical requirements, and regulatory oversight were also introduced. A new weight class system was also introduced. This new set of rules is currently the de facto standard for MMA events held in the USA and is still in use by the UFC.
394. UFC 31 Weight classes are re-aligned to the current standard. Bantamweight moves from 150 to 155 and becomes known as Lightweight. Lightweight becomes known as Welterweight, Middleweight becomes Light Heavyweight, and a new Middleweight class is introduced at 185.
395.
UFC 43 – In the event of a stoppage fights restart in the position the fight was stopped.
396. UFC 94 – After an incident where Georges St-Pierre was accused of putting vaseline on his back, corner men were disallowed from bringing vaseline into The Octagon. Lubricant may now only be applied outside The Octagon before the commencement of the first round.
397. UFC 97 – Foot-stomps are banned. (For this event only)
398.
UFC 133 – Speedo style trunks are banned.
399. UFC 138 – First 5-round non-title main event.
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TO BE CONTINUED
