Fighter recounts dispiriting experience in Pancrase

UGer Dominique Robinson and James Chaney recently had a controversial experience fighting (or not) for Pancrase 278 on Sunday in Tokyo, Japan on Sunday. The event streamed live on UFC Fight Pass.

The fighters eventually refused to fight, for reasons detailed. Chaney detailed what transpired, via Facebook. Yes it is a FRAT. Yes you should read it.

I awoke on this first day of my 29th year of life blurry eyed and with a head full of fuzz. Some 50+ hazy sleepless hours found my unconscious body sprawled out on the airport carpet, my jacket over my face leaving me with the appearance of haphazardly concealed crime scene. Fatigue had finally overtaken me, and while the six hours of collapse didn’t leave me refreshed, all things considered my spirits were high.

I decided to write this morning, when I woke up in that haze. It started off as a funny story, recalling bad times because when you’re over the top about bad s*** happening to you it’s kind of funny. It wasn’t intended for the public, I was going to send it to my dad and a few other members of my family who take interest in my affairs. As I find an increased number of people contacting me concerned and even worried about me I find my spirits in a more sordid state. To those concerned know this, I’ve paid for this decidedly less fortunate time with significant measure of sweat and fatigue, but I’m entirely too shrewd to barter a single tear.

It was some nine weeks before that the call was received and the offer was made. I was visiting my close friend and training partner who I’ve come to regard as a brother in the time we’ve spent fighting, training, working, and for many years even living together. 

Here it is dawg, they made an offer, Hiromitsu Miura it says his record is.”

“I know who he is, he fought Condit, foot swept him all over the f***ing place, remember? I think he fought ‘Mayhem’ too, they call him ‘the sword’. What are they offering moneywise?

The answer to this question put the fight into immediate question. The amount they were offering would be the lowest I had ever been offered in my entire career.

Honestly man, I don’t know that I can accept that.

Truth be told, Dominique had gone well out of his way to find this fight for me and as it would turn out a certain prominent figure in the MMA world had put in quite a weighty word for me as well. From a pragmatic perspective, there was some sense to be made of it, I was after all planning to spend the summer in Asia and had Japan set as one of the destinations I would most like to visit. After some few days discussion and deliberation I found myself agreeing to fight, I was long overdue and the symmetry of the fight date and my summer plans appealed to me.

Immediately Dominique and I began working hard training at Floyd Mayweather’s boxing gym in Las Vegas as well as Syndicate MMA. It was at the aforementioned boxing icon’s gym where I would be acquainted with one Shinji Nishimura. I’d been made aware of him as something of an antagonist figure that did a questionable job of accommodating Dominique and the rest of the non-Japanese talent on the card he had last participated. It was in very short order that I would become acquainted with his questionable business tactics, as he presented Dominique with a contract with all previously negotiated instances of bonuses edited out. Luckily Dominique had the savvy to go over the contract before signing and have him edit it. He would often cartoonishly implore us to emphatically defeat our opponents and restate just how heavily he desired to see us become big stars in Japan. Given that we were unranked foreigners fighting against the #6 and #7 ranked Japanese fighters in the promotion for an event taking place on our opponent’s home soil I found his overstated enthusiasm suspect, though essentially harmless.

Dominique and I would work hard in the time to follow in preparation for the fight. Dominique was recovering from shoulder surgery and I was nursing broken ribs for a considerable portion of the camp, but with some measure of tactics and specific training we managed to get into great shape and were performing at high level in sparring come the end of fight camp. Roughly a week before departing we received a flight itinerary indicating that we would be in Tokyo right before the fight. We had specifically negotiated that we would arrive several days prior to acclimate, after some brief back and forth we managed to come to an agreeable departure date. 

Upon arrival we were informed that we wouldn’t receive the contracted per diems for our meals until the day before weigh ins and that would have to get money transferred to yen until that time. We were lucky enough to have the help of Zaco Buscape, a Japanese local originally from France who was versed in several languages and able to guide us when he wasn’t working his regular job our attending interviews for prospective jobs. When Dominique had previously fought for Pancrase he was placed in the Shinjuku Washington Hotel where we were expecting to be located this time, indeed we were even instructed to indicate that to inquiring customs agents. Instead we were located in some apartment, Nishimura indicated that this was very special, that all other fighters were located at the hotel and we must not speak of the special treatment we were receiving. It was crucial that we found the right foods while we were in the process of cutting weight, to this end we planned on going to the supermarket. Unfortunately as it happened we were restricted to being on foot and there didn’t appear to be a grocery store anywhere in proximity. With the assistance of Zaco we managed to find mostly serviceable foods, but not until the late evening. This left us in the apartment initially subsisting off of almonds I thankfully packed for an emergency measure initially, but armed with a few months of Japanese I studied 15 years ago in high school and some street savvy we managed to forage through the web of Shinjuku in times to follow.

Curiously the morning after entering the apartment we awoke to a full blown cop knock at our apartment door. A Japanese man wearing something like a carpenter’s belt was politely asking for payment. We contacted Nishimura who told us to ‘ignore him’, this was obviously not a viable solution so we eventually managed to get Nishimura on the phone with the man to pay what was presumably the electric bill. 

It took only the briefest inspection to identify one crucial flaw with the apartment that we immediately relayed to Nishimura in the time to follow, the bathtub was too small, Dominique couldn’t fit in it much less myself. Nishimura suggested that we have Zaco help us find the sauna in the city, but Dominique’s skin is like a god damn rosetta stone he has so many tattoos, this denied him entry to the sauna. This was verifiable from his previous trip and fairly common knowledge to boot.

When finally weigh ins were almost upon us we had to press the issue that we’d politely brought up every day in the time since arriving, we told him to switch us with one of the other fighters. We would give up the apartment, but we needed the bath to cut the weight. He initially refused, so we forced his hand, we told him there was no way we could make weight and then fight if he didn’t get us a room. After some considerable argument we managed to get him to agree to purchase a room for the night. He repeatedly emphasized how we must keep this a secret because it was such special treatment, which was curious as he informed us earlier that all of the other fighters were at this very hotel and would be jealous of the luxury of our apartment. We came to find out through Zaco that he also expected us to pay for our own taxies around the city to get to both the event, the hotel, and weigh ins. Again we found ourselves arguing until it was agreed that we would be picked up for the event and weigh ins.

Fatigued after a cab ride to the hotel that would come out of pocket and after some considerable drama with getting an appropriate hotel room to facilitate the weight cut we began the process and cut the better part of the weight. Dominique’s phone would not relent that night, further drama with some various negotiations with Nishimura and him prodding us and getting Zaco to contact us well beyond 3 in morning regarding various manners of nonsense left us exhausted and behind schedule. We literally got zero sleep with Nishimura’s endless hounding. Nevertheless we got moving on my end the weight cut was going quite easy, Dominique’s was considerably harder. We were very nearly on weight, I was drawing a bath and dominique was layered in blankets between hot baths when Zaco arrived at the hotel room some 45 minutes earlier than planned telling us Nishimura was waiting for us downstairs. I told him that we were both over weight and would be on weight soon. Given another 45 minutes, we would both most certainly have been on weight. Nishimura then said ‘Weight is good, come now’. Dominique, confused by this response asked 3 separate times to Nishimura’s repeated confirmation You’re saying right now, that the weight we are at RIGHT NOW is acceptable to fight at?

We arrived at weigh ins and weighed in slightly. We took ‘weight is good’ to mean that we were at an acceptable weight and had begun rehydrating which he immediately stopped once they approached us informing us we would have a few hours until a second weigh in. We agreed and were expecting to be brought back the hotel. Instead we were left at the apartment where we were unable to cut weight in the first place.

Nishimura recommended that we cut the rest of the weight by running around the city. We told him that this was absurd and we weren’t willing to do it. He flat out refused to let us use the hotel room. At this point we’re both fed up, we came into this fight knowing that there would be little pay and we accepted this, but never in my career have I heard of, much less experienced a promoter more actively disrespecting and neglecting fighters. He refused to provide the most basic conditions, even when they were clearly communicated every step of the way, we had to play hardball to get the things we literally cannot perform without, and even with payment so low that we be lucky to come out of the experience with enough money to take our coaches and family out to eat once we got home, we STILL had to go out of pocket for fight related expenses. We told him that we wouldn’t make the weight, I could’ve easily made the cut at this point in truth and I think Dominique could have too, but on principle at this point I dug in my heels. The opponent’s would have to accept a catch weight or there would be no fights. That evening we were told a catch weight would be possible, but we would have to weigh in a second time. We told them that we had since ate and drank informed that the weight would obviously be much higher and that it made no sense to walk to some mysterious destination to weigh in at a higher weight. To this moment I still don’t entirely understand why this second weigh in took place, for the opponent to assess how big we are perhaps? I’m not sure, in any case they said Dominique’s opponent refused to accept and that mine would fight me, but if he won it would be declared a victory and if I won it would be declared a draw. Additionally we would be both be charged $2000 dollars for not making weight, which is insane because our pay was literally a fraction of that. 

At this point we decide to cut our losses, catch a cab to the bus station, and catch the next flight out of town. Somewhere between pinching pennies and power plays things had grown malicious and the disrespect was more than either of us were interested in tolerating. Could we somehow managed to have cut weight? Very likely. Did we handle the situation perfectly? Perhaps not, but the way I view it there’s a certain amount of respect you’re entitled to. In the absence of money this is too be maximized, every other show I’ve ever fought on at least showed me respect and a willingness to work with me. Once you take those two things away, what’s left? This isn’t a job for me, this is the thing I do because I love doing it. I literally get in cages with people that want to hurt ME IN PARTICULAR, trained martial artists who sign a contract indicating they will attempt to cause dire bodily harm to hurt James Chaney. That’s the thing that get’s my demented ass up in the morning. I signed up to do this while I had broken ribs and was still on the mend from a major knee injury. I’ve broken bones and teeth, I’ve had my brain damn near kicked out of my head, I’ve fought on as little as two days notice, I’ve competed at heavyweight, I’ve fought with broken bones, and on one occasion I literally cut twice the amount of weight I had to for this fight. 

To be clear, this is a matter of respect, this is a matter of there being lines and reacting to people crossing them. I’m far beyond the point of struggling to make a relatively easy weight cut or being intimidated by another man. This is about a scumbag promoter telling us to fall in line and do what he says to do and us finally getting fed up and saying no. 

The cliché would be to say that I won’t lose any sleep over this, but as I sit ticking away at my keyboard on the airport floor with black lines under my bloodshot eyes, unshowered, and smelling like a sewer… that’s something of a misnomer.

Nevertheless, to those who’ve found themselves concerned for me in the past few days know that I don’t find myself discouraged or unhappy. I expect very soon to be in the ring or cage again doing my favorite thing. Thanks to everyone for all the love and support, everyone who’s kept up with me through the fight camp. You guys make something I love all by itself that much more meaningful, I’ve felt it more in these past few months than ever before, truly you’ve all been remarkable.

There has been no official response from Pancrase as yet.