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VINTAGE: Torch senior columnist Bruce Mitchell's 1995 column on the emerging curiosity that was Ultimate Fighting
Aug 19, 2010 - 6:30:42 PM VINTAGE: Torch senior columnist Bruce Mitchell's 1995 column on the emerging curiosity that was Ultimate Fighting

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INTRODUCTION BY MMATORCH SUPERVISING EDITOR WADE KELLER

Before there was established MMA media coverage, in UFC's early days, pro wrestling publications covered the emergence of UFC. They were the only full time media giving serious coverage to this emerging sport. The mainstream media reporters, almost without exception, saw the worst clips and simply didn't differentiate it from the Tough Man competition and wanted it banned; outspoken critic and boxing fan Sen. John McCain almost succeeded in shutting down the sport.

So pro wrestling publications such as the Torch and the Wrestling Observer (whose editor Dave Meltzer is now a top MMA columnist at Yahoo Sports!) were the first to cover MMA before it was even called MMA, in part because former pro wrestlers such as Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn were prominent, and because amateur wrestlers were getting involved, and because UFC was basically "real pro wrestling" - in other words what pro wrestling was simulating in dramatic, embellished fashion was, in effect, UFC.

Pro wrestling 80-90 years earlier looked real and its champions were considered tough enough to fend off anyone at a carnival who might challenge their authenticity or even a local pro wrestler looking to make a name for himself by "shooting" on the traveling world champion. UFC also emerged from Pancrase and the UWFI, among other groups in Japan, which shifted away from the more showy and orchestrated ("worked") styles to a more realistic hybrid fighting style, still usually with worked finishes at the top of the card, but with some legit fights ("shoots") underneath.

Bruce Mitchell, considered the finest pro wrestling columnist of the last two decades, has tackled the toughest issues of drug abuse, steroid usage, state regulation, legal issues, backstage politics, match-making decisions, and other issues common to both Pro Wrestling and Mixed Martial Arts. Fifteen years ago, Mitchell, who attended UFC 5 in Charlotte, N.C. as an accredited reporter, wrote about this curiosity in its infancy, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, in the internationally distributed Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter. The following is that column in its entirety published at MMATorch.com for the first time.

HEADLINE: Pro Wrestling Today - Will UFC absorb disgruntled WWF/WCW fans?
PUBLISHING DATE: 04-22-95
TORCH NEWSLETTER #331

Friday night, Apr. 7 professional wrestling found its future in the roots of its past.

But it is a future as uncertain, and filled with paradox, as the sport itself.

The appalling, compelling, boring thing that is the Ultimate Fighting Championship reached a new pinnacle with the Royce Gracie-Ken Shamrock bout, a fight that was both an incredible athletic display of strength, skill, and endurance; and a bizarre, interminably pointless audience turn off. It may truly have been a historic matchup that will be talked about by the cognoscente of this sort of thing for years to come. It could also be a perverse mess that had drunken fans incensed.

In fact, I can pretty much guarantee the latter, judging from the reaction of many around me who were furious, particularly at what they thought was Gracie's lack of offense. "Get up and fight, g--d-----!" was one of the more polite suggestions from the fans as the match wore on.

It was also the night that a great wrestler, and a hopeless worker, earned a chance to make a fortune half a world away and gave a reason to exist to the oldest title in the history of professional wrestling. The performance of Dan Severn, a guy who couldn't work a one star match with Shawn Michaels or Hiroshi Hase on a bet, was the arrival to a new audience of an athlete whose charisma derives from the self confidence of someone who knows no one can match him in competition.

But before the implications of all that can be discussed, let's dispense with one issue right away.

Despite the conjecture out there to the contrary espoused by many who think that because their lives are cons that everyone elses is also, or those still insecure about the fact that they bought into the American pro wrestling con (despite the fact that the Single Easter Bunny Theory has fewer holes in it), the Ultimate Fight Championship is a shoot, the real deal, the right stuff...

You know, not fake.

So forget the bizarre theories - like the one about how some of the matches are real but Gracie vs. Shamrock was a work because neither fighter wanted to do the job, so they decided to lay on top of each other for 36 minutes like, in Details magazine's memorable phrase, "two crabs having sex," as if a casual audience would be into that.

Can't wait to hear if WCW wrestler Craig Pittman will claim that it's a work after the Rickson Gracie event in Japan this week.

It is not just injuries or stiff action that confirms that the competition is legitimate. That certainly exists in worked forms of wrestling. It is not even the question of how someone could "work" this hard of a style. It is the little things, the blow that lands hard and just a little awkwardly, the quickness of submissions, the intensity of two figures locked together, the look in the eyes of the Gracie patriarch as Royce defends his life's work against the entire world, and the very different atmosphere that surrounds any intense physical competition as opposed to the type that surrounds a worked event.

I don't know if this relates to the legitimacy of the event or not (I suspect that it does) but the attitude backstage, before, during, and after the card was very different from other pro wrestling shows. Instead of suspicions and paranoia, mixed, depending on the promotion, with a desperate enthusiasm, UFC treated the members of the press - from scads of journalists from Japan and Europe to local T.V. news clones to the British guy from G.Q. magazine - as people trying to do their jobs. If they had been hiding a very provocative secret they would have been much less matter of fact.

And compare this quote from their press pack to the usual from the major companies:

Juice in the UFC? "The guys this time are really big. I wish the UFC would do some drug testing on some of these guys." -Dan Severn

What other wrestling company is self-confident enough to allow an employee to bring up this particular subject critically in their own literature? UFC management had the air of people who had something that people wanted to see, instead of something that people had to be conned into seeing.

And apparently they were right. The reports that this pay-per-view drew over a 1.0 percent buyrate with little advertising, more than WCW's latest Hulk Hogan show and in the ballpark with recent WWF pay-per-views are eye opening. UFC is growing and its product is different enough that the glut of traditional wrestling pay-per-views may not slow its momentum. There is a growing thirst for real, violent action that is in direct contrast to the parody of the so-called "Big Two."

The Japanese press certainly recognized this appeal. The cover and first six pages of Gong and Weekly Pro (the two weekly pro wrestling magazines in Japan) both were devoted to the show. Not bad for an event with no Japanese participants. Wrestlemania, by contrast, was far back in both magazines.

And it is the fact that UFC is real competition that makes the Shamrock-Gracie main event so infuriating and amazing to watch. This will be a legendary match one day, because it laid the foundation for both the future success and large problems this style entails.

First, the success: Ken Wayne Shamrock became a star and forwarded the ongoing story of just who, if anyone, will be the first to beat Royce Gracie at his own family's creation.

Both Shamrock and Gracie were locked together in a battle that was as intense in its offense as it simultaneously was in its defense. It was an authentic proof that the ultimate style to beat in the Ultimate Fights is the mat wrestling style. This match laid the groundwork and heightened the interest for the inevitable rematch.

Part of the reason some members of the live audience were so frustrated after thirtysome minutes of fighting was the lack of a winner, although they picked their own in Shamrock, because he seemed to be on the offense and in better shape than Gracie - which may have been an illusion since Gracie is perfectly content to fight from his back. All of the emotions in the crowd would have been released with a clear winner. But best of all, the bout was a giant step in the education of the UFC audience in just what this combat is about.

But with this success comes large problems, problems that harken back to the reasons that pro wrestling became an exhibition, instead of a true competition, some 75 or more years ago.

•Can the UFC promotion educate its audience to the nuances of the most effective strategies before turning off the substantial portion who just want to see blood and guts blows to the body? Will fans who expect a decisive finish tolerate another long draw?

•And how long can these guys go anyway? Sixteen minutes of Severn vs. Gracie seemed like the limit of any human's endurance. Thirty-six minutes of desperate struggle was one of the most amazing feats I have ever seen in any sport. But Gracie's father reportedly had gone as long as three hours in bouts. The oldtime champions like Joe Stecher and Strangler Lewis had shoot battles that lasted over five hours. Obviously a bout of those lengths would test the patience of the most ardent fans, and permanently turn off everyone else.

•But how does UFC avoid long matches and still keep their fledging sport the Ultimate battle? The whole appeal is two guys fighting to a finish with as few rules as possible. Wade Keller's idea in the last issue actually could serve to lengthen bouts since any advantage gained, large or small, would be given up at the break, giving a big incentive to whoever was losing ground to stall. Damned if I have any idea...

•And what of the brutality issue? The biggest political problem Ultimate Fight faces is not the injuries that have already occurred in the first five events, which have not been very noteworthy, but the potential for serious injury or death that can't help but run through the minds of all but the "Faces of Death" audience.

Ultimate Fight V showcased that potential for disaster during the Dan Severn-Oleg Taktarov match when Severn was brutally laying in punches and knees with the weight of his entire body onto the head of Taktarov. Severn's camp could be seen clearly exhorting Taktarov's manager to throw in the towel. I begin to wonder if the next kneedrop would crush his skull. I like to see history made as much as the next guy, but not like that.

The dilemma of the referee became more apparent after the fight when Taktarov came up to Severn claiming that the referee stopped the fight just to protect the American Severn's marketability. The ref's problem is this: How does he know when a contestant can still fight effectively or is one blow away from serious injury or death?

Mistakes that rob fighters of every chance to compete could weaken the concept of the Ultimate Fight.

But though there can be very valid comparisons made between the dangers of UFC and those of boxing or professional football, UFC doesn't have decades of history and acceptance into popular culture the way these two sports do. One debilitating injury or death and the grandstanding politicians will shut down UFC permanently in this county.

As the purse and the skill levels of the overall field rise this could be less of the problem because submission wrestlers end matches without serious injury and, as the past five events show, it is the most effective style of fighting in the world.

These problems are the same ones that caused pro wrestling to evolve into the frightening thing it is today. Ultimate Fight is pro wrestling in its purest form.

Nobody embodies the similarities and paradoxes linking the two like NWA champion Dan Severn. Here's a guy who won over 70 legitimate titles in combat sports and yet he and his manager Phillis Lee seemed to enjoy Severn wearing the phony title the most. But no one enjoyed it like NWA promoter, one of the "them" in ECW's "us versus them" marketing scheme, Dennis Coraluzzo, who took every opportunity to get on camera to show his arch enemy Tod Gordon that his belt would be seen by a bigger audience in one night than may ever see ECW's. Coraluzzo called it the best night of his life, particularly when he took in consideration ECW's plight of the same weekend. In keeping with the great modern promoters of our time, no revenues were involved in his glee.

Seems sorta silly particularly when you consider that Severn and the NWA belt are marketable at best only in Japan or on UFC itself. It's going to be one weird show when Severn defends in New Jersey against Tommy Cairo on the same card Nikolai Volkoff faces Johnny Gunn, (or will that be Sabu?).

And it seems odd because the NWA belt seemed to mean little or nothing to the fans in attendance, except for the one fan who, when his friends acted puzzled, cracked, "You know, it's the title Bruno Sammartino used to wear!"

Give Coraluzzo credit. He gave one of the most historic, watched belts in the history of the business a reason to exist again, a neater resurrection than the one involving Jim Ross's career. If he wants to wave the belt around, hey what are promoters for, anyway.

But this champion appeals to a very different set of fans. Starrcade with Vader versus Ric Flair was in the same building but there was little if any crossover audience between the two shows. This was a more affluent, Jean Claude Van Damme type audience, not that they didn't drink and raise hell during the show. The $200 seats were filled, not with hardcore pay-per-view types, but with very knowledgable white collar professionals who probably wouldn't know the Three Faces of Fear on a bet.

It's the UFC audience that can absorb the wrestling fans fed up with the excesses of the present and the past. And its the unfolding saga of this brand new, old, enervating, thrilling thing that will continue to be fascinating to watch.

Bruce Mitchell of Greensboro, N.C. has been a Torch columnist since September 1990.