The success of the first two
Vale Tudo
Japan tournaments in 1994 and 1995, both of which were won by
Brazilian legend
Rickson
Gracie, inspired a Japanese promoter to invest in a new event,
closer in spirit to the
Ultimate Fighting Championship, complete with cage and
non-tournament “superfights.”
Debuting on Nov. 17, 1996, with a card jammed with established UFC
stars and local no-holds-barred heroes,
U-Japan managed to
fill the Ariake Arena in Tokyo with 7,000 people. Everything seemed
to be in place for the upstart promotion to become Japan’s answer
to the UFC, except for one problem: badly miscalculated
matchmaking. Over and over, U-Japan pitted inexperienced native
fighters against some of the UFC’s best, who enjoyed ridiculous
size advantages to boot. The results were predictably ugly, leaving
the Japanese faithful with little to cheer about.
Kimo...Representing Jiu-Jitsu?
Consecrated at UFC 3 after his historic battle with
Royce Gracie,
hulking 6-foot-3 Hawaiian
Kimo Leopoldo
appeared at U-Japan more than 40 pounds lighter and claiming to
represent jiu-jitsu. “After I started training with
Joe Moreira, I
could understand the fight better. Today, I go in conscious and
knowing what I'm going to do,” said the BJJ purple belt, who had no
difficulty in beating 6-foot-5, 360-pound professional wrestler
Scott
“Bam Bam” Bigelow.
Kimo took Bigelow down in the first minute, mounted, blasted his
obese foe with a barrage of blows, and forced him to surrender to a
rear-naked choke at 2:15. In the end, Kimo made a point of saying,
“Jiu-jitsu is a family, and today I'm part of it.”
In the longest fight of the event, 230-pound
Sean
Alvarez, Mundials champion in the blue belt category, made his
fighting debut, defeating Japanese idol
Yoji Anjo, the
same man who had barged into Rickson Gracie's Los Angeles gym the
year before, Japanese film crew in tow, and dropped a challenge. On
that occasion, Gracie had ejected the cameramen, beaten Anjo
savagely behind closed doors until Anjo asked him to stop, and then
sent him out in black-and-blue humiliation, all in less than five
minutes. (The photos of Anjo standing outside the gym with a busted
face were published in all the Japanese martial arts magazines of
the day.) In contrast, Alvarez needed 34 minutes to get Anjo to tap
with punches from the mount.
Severn and Frye: American Wrestlers Wreck Shop
Another UFC legend who had easy work facing a local hero was
Dan
Severn. With 14 fights at that time and only two defeats, to
Royce
Gracie and
Ken Shamrock,
the 255-pound “Beast” toyed with 190-pound karateka
Mitsuhiro
Matsunaga. After quickly taking him to the ground, the American
applied a sequence of slams. The already dizzy Japanese striker
opened his guard, allowing the American to get up again and throw
him to the ground with a kata-guruma or fireman's carry, reaching
the side mount position, from which he submitted Matsunaga with an
armbar at 1 minute and 32 seconds.
Severn's training partner,
Don Frye, arrived
stronger and better prepared than he had at UFC 10, where he had
suffered his first career loss to
Mark Coleman.
Facing fellow UFC veteran
Mark Hall, Frye
submitted him with a choke at 5:30.
Completing the foreign steamrolling of the Japanese talent, the
giant 6-foot-8, 300-pound “Polar Bear”
Paul
Varelans only needed 35 seconds to run over
Shinji
Katase, whom he outweighed by well over 100 pounds. A
comparable size disparity, with a similar result, came in the lone
women’s fight of the evening, as
Yoko
Takahashi faced Frye’s strength and conditioning coach,
Becky
Levi, a massive judoka who tipped the scales at 215 pounds and
needed barely over two minutes to pummel Takahashi into
submission.
Creator and Creature
Having covered grappling and no-holds-barred fighting since
1992—even before UFC 1—it’s normal to find some of my photos
enshrined as part of the sport’s history. If I had to choose,
though, the most viral and enduring would be the one I took a few
minutes before
Wallid
Ismail’s rematch against
Katsumi
Usuda at U-Japan, where he is sleeping on Carlson Gracie’s
lap.
Ismail, who checked in at about 5-foot-8 and 180 pounds, earned a
place on the card after his quick victory at UVF 1—also held in
Japan in 1995—over the Greek
Dennis
Kefalinos, in addition to submitting Usuda in four minutes in
their first meeting at UVF 2 in Brazil in June of 1996. “He was a
warrior for coming to fight me in Rio, nothing more fair than me
accepting the rematch at his home,” said the Amazonian.
This time, however, Ismail only needed 3:10 to take Usuda down,
take his back, and lock in another rear-naked choke. Usuda resisted
and ended up unconscious, completing a terrible night for the
Japanese fans. “I'm impressed by how the Japanese are warriors,
they prefer to go out rather than tap,” said Ismail, who would make
his UFC debut three months later, losing via decision to
Kazuo
Takahashi in the UFC 12 under-200 pound tournament.
Obviously, the Japanese fans were disappointed with the performance
of their idols, a fact that certainly contributed to U-Japan not
having a second edition. But the Japanese wouldn't be without a big
show for long. Eleven months after U–Japan, the biggest of them
all, the legendary
Pride Fighting Championships, would hold its debut
event—headlined once again by Rickson Gracie.