Archive for the 'History' Category

A week ago I was reminded that I’m not the only MMA fan out there with a place in my heart for Don “The Dragon” Wilson, as Hawaii’s Fighter’s Club Radio ran an interview with the ex-UFC and KOTC commentator. For those unfamiliar with the show, it runs 9 am Mondays on Honolulu’s AM 1500, and is hosted by Elite XC veteran Mark Kurano and the former matchmaker for Icon MMA, Patrick Freitas. Their interview with Wilson begins at about the 12:00 mark.

This was the most fun I’ve had listening to an interview in a long time. Think about it. From kung-fu and kickboxing in the 1970’s and 1980’s, to MMA and B-Movies in the 1990’s and 2000’s, Don “The Dragon” Wilson has basically been party to every martial arts trend. Now, at age 54, he’s preparing for a 10 round kickboxing bout in Cyprus, his first since 2002. It will be Wilson’s 75th bout in the sport where he has notched 48 knockouts.

But best of all, if you believe his side of the story, his KO total should have included everyone from Matt Hughes to Royce Gracie. And that is what makes this guy awesome.

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Hawaii has been an MMA hotbed for years, before the name “MMA” even existed, and it’s not hard to imagine why. The Aloha State has its share of tough guys from the wrong side of the tracks, and it boasts a predominantly Asian/Pacific Islander population with a rich heritage in the martial arts. In fact, it’s probably the only state in the union where your local newspaper features high school judo results.

But the genesis of Hawaii’s first MMA fight team is a less likely story, and a story that continues to this day, as Team Jesus Is Lord continues their unique fighting fellowship under it current leaders, David Padilla and Bob Ostovich.

To understand it, you have to go back almost twelve years ago, long before MMA was profitable or popular, when a band of friends from an Oahu church began entering Hawaii’s seminal promotions. Ostovich, who returns to competition at NAGA Hawaii today, remembers those days well.

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Today, Tatame Magazine reported the 95th birthday festivities for the legend himself, Grandmaster Hélio Gracie. Wow. I hope I see the day.

Following an auotgraph session with fans, several members of his family’s jiu-jitsu royalty, including Rickson, Royler, and Kyra Gracie, presented the patriarch a red belt embroidered in ten gold stripes. Total-MMA can’t offer any such honor, but we can offer you a few links to learn about the man who helped build MMA with his legendary vale tudo bouts of the 1950’s:

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Tommy Hackett referred to the B-Show Assault blog in his last post here, and from now a brief look back at a show in the history of MMA will be a regular component of Total-MMA. Today’s edition looks back at the career of Evan Tanner through many of his most memorable UFC fights, starting back all the way back at UFC 18. Read the rest of this entry »

Total-MMA contributor Alan Conceicao’s B Show Assault blog of reviews of random independent MMA shows from his collection has been a fun read for me lately. It takes me back to a time when the MMA fan wasn’t so much a consumer as a scavenger — back when UFC was off cable, Battlecade was long gone, and basically nothing was being televised, so you scoured wherever you could to get your MMA “fix.”

These were the days of the MMA tape geek. The 4th or so generation VHS tape was still the most common way to enjoy MMA, and Mike Naimark’s hilarious reviews and VHS compilations were an important way to get to know the sport. Here and there, you could find a gem of a show at your local retailer, but mostly we were underground, browsing Japanese video shops, trading tapes of Brazilian TV, and sending word whenever a show rose ahead of the pack.

I rediscovered one such show during my recent move. So here’s to you, Alan:

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To coin a phrase, you may not know his name, but you certainly know his work.

One of the most important figures in the history of North American Mixed Martial Arts is unquestionably former Extreme Fighting and UFC matchmaker John Peretti. He can be credited with discovering a huge amount of martial arts talent, innovating rounds, gloves, and weight classes into North American MMA, and putting together some of the best matches in MMA history at a time when you might be rewarded with jail time for it.

He’s also always just struck me as one odd duck.

Listening to Peretti’s latest interview at Carson’s Corner did nothing to change that impression, but between hyping his bizzare and still unnamed new sport (which sounds like a strange brew of of MMA and an early Italian form of football) and startling his interviewer with brusque rebuttals, he also offered some interesting insight on the MMA game.

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Anyone sick of Olympic judo (etc) coverage around here? Yeah, me neither.

In fact, whenever I feel like I’m burning out on MMA (like lately), I try and catch some jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai (etc.), and I would encourage anyone to do the same.

The cold fact is that fighters in MMA’s shallow talent pool are all trying to learn a variety of techniques, leading to more and more amatuerish fights making TV, and sometimes you end up feeling like you’re watching the same sloppy stalemate fight over and again. Sloppy boxing. Clinch. Knees to the body. Someone gets tripped. Groundwork that goes nowhere. Standup. Zzzzzzz… been there?

Of course, now and then an MMA bout seems to have it all… and as you can see from this video, it appears that they have been happening for more than 50 years. This is one of six fights between Carlson Gracie and Waldemar Santana which took place in the 1950’s. Props to Andreh Anderson( himself a Carlson Gracie black belt) for posting this to Underground Forum. What I’d give for the full version!

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