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Fighters From Japan
Japan is in many respects the birthplace of modern MMA, and the commercial success of today’s UFC owes more to Japan than perhaps any other country. Many would argue Brazil is a better bearer of the mantle, for after all, Brazilian Royce Gracie won the first ever Ultimate Fighting Championship in 1993, and his half-brother Rickson Gracie won the inaugural Pride Fighting Championships main event in 1997. Brazil brought no-holds-barred fighting to the United States, and Brazilians dominated MMA’s fledgling phase in the United States in the early 1990s.
But Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu’s lineage in Brazil can be traced back directly to practitioners of Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, and in particular, the martial artistry of Japan’s Jigoro Kano (1860-1938). Kano, a master of the Kito ryu and Tenjin Shin’yo ryu styles of Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, was also the founder of modern Judo, and it was one of his greatest students, Mitsuyo Maeda (1878-1941), who first taught Carlos Gracie (1902-1994) the art of Judo. The teachings were passed on by Maeda to Gracie as repayment for a political favor performed for Maeda by Carlos’s father, Gastao Gracie. The Judo taught to the Gracie brothers was adapted to form the basis of the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu taught throughout the world today.
Japan not only provided the martial arts basis for the UFCs earliest champions, it also sustained the early viability of the sport by continuing to host large-scale MMA events through the late 1990s while the UFC languished on the verge of financial collapse. Younger fans of the UFC today may not even realize that Japan’s Pride Fighting Championships was by far the biggest, most lucrative, and in many instances the most prestigious MMA fighting promotion in the world from its inaugural event in October 1997 through at least 2003, and perhaps as late as 2006, when the promotion began to teeter under the strain of excessive operating costs. For some hardcore MMA fans, Pride FC remains the high water mark of MMA’s promotional development, displaying an unmatched scale and pageantry with its key annual events, including the yearly New Year’s Eve “Shockwave” events, and its annual three-part Grand Prix tournaments entitled “Total Elimination,” “Critical Countdown” and “Final Conflict.”
The UFC held a total of three events in Japan in the 1990s and in 2000. UFCs 15.5, 23 and 25, nicknamed the “Ultimate Japan” event series I, II and III, each played to small live audiences. The UFC abandoned its strategy of hosting events in Japan after UFC 25 and has not held a show on Japanese soil in over a decade.
Japan has produced many of the greatest fighters in the history of MMA. The elder statesman and most beloved of all Japanese mixed martial artists is the legendary “Gracie Hunter,” Kazushi Sakuraba, who defeated four separate members of the Gracie family in the late 1990s and early 2000s en route to a world number one pound-for-pound ranking. Sakuraba also defeated a who’s who of top-flight foreign imports to Pride, including Carlos Newton, Vitor Belfort, and Quinton Jackson. The victories over such “foreign invaders” made Sakuraba Japan’s biggest fighting star. To Japanese fans, Sakuraba embodied many of the nation’s most important ideals, including ring cunning and daring, a willingness to test himself against larger and stronger opponents, and a refusal to surrender in even the most helpless situations. Those ideals have also unfortunately led to Sakuraba, and other Japanese fighters both before and after, becoming the victims of some of MMA’s most terribly drawn-out beatings.
Japan boasts countless other key figures in MMA history. Some are all-time great fighters, such as “The Fireball Kid,” Takanori Gomi, who ruled Pride’s lightweight division and Bushido main events for much of the mid-2000s; and Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto, considered by many the world’s best featherweight from roughly 2003-2007. Others are among its all-time greatest showmen. Figures such as Nobuhiko Takada, Akihiro Gono and Yoshihiro Akiyama could put on sensational shows both while entering the ring and once inside of it, though not with uniformly successful results. Finally, there are the great Japanese fighters cut from Sakuraba’s “warrior” mold, those who did not always vanquish their opponents, but who were known for their relentlessness and “never say die” attitude. First among them may be Ikuhisa “The Punk” Minowa, who is truly willing to fight any man on the planet regardless of size; as well as Kazuyuki “Ironhead” Fujita, who fought both Fedor Emelianenko and Wanderlei Silva; and Hidehiko Yoshida, one of Japan’s most famous Judokas, who mixed wins with losses in some of Pride’s most lavishly promoted encounters.
Despite a legacy of tremendous events and stellar fighters, Japan’s MMA scene today remains mired in a depressed economic state. Though it continues to showcase some of fighting’s best performances through promotions such as DREAM, Sengoku Raiden Championships and others, the production values and purses have declined drastically from their Pride days. It remains to be seen whether these or other promotions can once again tap into the enormous latent enthusiasm for martial arts in Japanese popular culture. But even as the promotional arm of MMA in Japan languishes the island continues to develop great fighting talent, such as the spirited lightweight Shinya Aoki, keeping Japan a key hub for global MMA in the new millenium.
