HOOKnSHOOT never die

UFC president Dana White has said that bringing women into the UFC was the single best decision he ever made for the company. During the last Bellator show, promotion Scott Coker received some high praise.

A lot of people forget, when it comes to women’s MMA, Scott Coker was the first one,” said commentator Jimmy Smith. “He was the pioneer. He’s the one that started it.

That’s not true.

The first women’s fight in Scott Coker’s Strikeforce was in December of 2007. By then, Jeff Osborne’s HOOKnSHOOT had established WMMA in the USA. With women’s five minute rounds, women’s main events, women’s tournaments, and all-women’s cards. And it he did it all in the quirky Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Evansville, Indiana.

Jeff’s achievements were not limited to WMMA however.

The UFC debuted in October of 1993. In 1995 Jeff held the first HOOKnSHOOT event in a gym. He wanted to fight on it, too. The contributions of pro wrestling to MMA are woefully little understood, but it’s right there in the name. A “Hook” in pro wrestling is a real submission, and a “Shoot” is a real match. So HOOKnSHOOT means real match with real submissions.

There may have been earlier MMA shows in the USA, but iHOOKnSHOOT was the first one I had heard of after the UFC. Many fighters got their start there. Little Nog had his North American debut there. Dave Menne got his start there, and went on to become the UFC middleweight champion. Frank Mir made his pro debut, and is headed for the UFC Hall of Fame. Chris Lytle, Jeremy Horn, Travis Lutter, Ian Freeman, Ivan Salaverry all shone in Evansville. And Jeff featured lighter weight fighters when the UFC and PRIDE were trying to capture fan attention with the giants.

Jeff promoted probably the best MMA fight I ever saw live, out of thousands – Aaron Riley vs. Shane Garrett. It was under what was then called “Pancrase Rules” with no elbows and no closed fist strikes. That was required because Riley still was in high school. Yah, the best MMA fight I ever saw live involved a high school kid, fighting with open hand strikes, in a southwest corner of Indiana. That’s Jeff Osborne, a hero of mine. And he holds his final show on March 4.

Ben Fowlkes did the right thing, and penned a long form paean to HOOKnSHOOT for One of the longest-running MMA promotions is almost finished, but will its history die with it?” target=”_blank”>MMAJunkie. It’s very briefly excerpted below, but do yourself a favor, if you care about this sport, and read the whole thing, One of the longest-running MMA promotions is almost finished, but will its history die with it?” target=”_blank”>here.

Fowlkes asked some HOOKnSHOOT vets about the experience.

Yves Edwards: “I heard about it on the Internet, and I mean dial-up internet. And for MMA people at that time, the internet was (The Underground forums on MMA.tv). That was pretty much it. It was the UG, which was mostly an East Coast thing, and then Sherdog on the West Coast. I was in Texas so I read them both. I heard about Aaron Riley and the name he was making for himself. I thought, I want to fight that guy.”

Tara LaRosa: “I was on the UG and I was getting into fighting, but I’d only had like one amateur fight at the time. There was this girl who hated me, couldn’t stand me, and I really couldn’t stand her either, so we had this big rivalry. Jeff Osborne was throwing this all-women’s show, and he asked if we wanted to fight each other on the show. I was like, hell yeah. Everyone knew HOOKnSHOOT back then. And Jeff was smart. He jumped all over that fight because of the heat it had generated on The Underground.”

Julie Kedzie: It was heaven for me, honestly. It seemed like every time the women fought, people there paid attention. Sometimes it was to tell them that they wanted to [expletive] them in the mouth, which is what sometimes happened to me, or they were just really into the fights. But it seemed like you didn’t notice the same prejudice toward women fighters there, just because Jeff had made it his thing to have lots of women fight.

Kaitlin Young: “The Coliseum, I don’t know what it was about that place. It was a place where they did a lot of pro wrestling, so it kind of had that feel. I think there was also an old man living in there. Like, if you went through the wrong curtain, there’d be an old guy sitting in a recliner smoking cigarettes. It was bizarre and surreal, but I’ll never forget it.”

Osborne tells Fowlkes he’s ready to move on, that for the last six or seven years it has become a job. Here’s the thing – Jeff Osborne is not a scumbag promoter. He really, truly did everything he could for the fighters, for the fans, and for the sport. And doing the right thing is hard. After 22, 23 years, he is at a crossroads, and is taking a fork.

Jeff has opened up Secret Headquarters, a retro arcade with comic books and collector’s items from the ’80s and ’90s. If you are in the tristate area, check it out. It’s fun and quirky and an adventure, like MMA used to be.