The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was founded in the year 1993 by Bob Meyrowitz, Art Davie, Rorion Gracie and a few other martial arts enthusiasts as a form of no-holds-barred martial arts sporting competition. However, the UFC wasn’t the first organisation in the sport of MMA.
In 1980 CV Productions Inc., created the first regulated MMA organisation in the United States of America known as ‘Tough Guy Contest’ and later as ‘Battle of the Superfighters’. This organisation held events mainly in the state of Pennsylvania but ceased to function after a bill was passed in the state, prohibiting the sport of MMA.
Till the advent of the UFC in November of 1993, several other combat sports organisations in Asia, Japan, in particular, held ‘Mixed Rules Fights’ that resembled today’s concept of MMA. Following the footsteps of the UFC, PRIDE Fighting Championships (PRIDE FC) held its inaugural MMA event in October of 1997 in Tokyo, Japan.
In 1998 before the UFC 17 event, MMA legend Jeff Blatnick and veteran MMA referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy advocated that the term MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) be used to promote the sport being promoted by the UFC organisation.
The JMMA (Japanese MMA) circuit followed suit and MMA became a refined, sport-version of what was formerly known as Vale-Tudo in Brazil or NHB (No-holds-barred fighting) in the rest of the world.
Now, our young sport has several pioneers and legends, some are still popular, while a few others have faded in the public memory. Regardless of their current popularity, or rather the lack of it, these MMA pioneers deserve every bit of adulation that is accorded to the Royce Gracies and the Randy Coutures of the MMA world.
A few such notable pioneers of our beautiful sport have been mentioned in our list:
#5 Carlos Newton
Carlos Newton described his fighting style as ‘Dragon Ball Jiu-Jitsu’; a combination of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), wrestling, Judo and boxing. He credits this name to his favourite Japanese manga series: ‘Dragon Ball Z’.
Newton had excellent grappling skills and decent striking that helped him set up his opponents for takedowns, in order to aid his vaunted submission game.
Before Georges St. Pierre and his prodigy Rory MacDonald, Carlos ‘The Ronin’ Newton was Canada’s major MMA star. Newton was the fighter to initially put Canada on the map in MMA. His nickname ‘Ronin’ implies a ‘Samurai without a Master’.
Newton has won Championships in Jiu-Jitsu. He has also held Championships in Pankration and the UFC, including the UFC Welterweight title. Newton is widely regarded as the unofficial UFC 17 tournament winner, owing to the controversial nature of his decision loss in the tournament finals to Dan Henderson.
Newton won the UFC WW title at UFC 31 against Pat Miletich and lost it in controversial fashion at UFC 34 to Matt Hughes. Newton had Hughes in a triangle choke, when Hughes picked him up and slammed him on the mat, knocking him out instantly.
However, Hughes himself appeared to be unconscious for a few seconds with several MMA pundits, and fans arguing that the fight should have ended in a draw since both fighters were unconscious at the end of the fight. Apart from his title run in the UFC, Newton has also competed in Pride FC, Shooto-Japan, International Fight League (IFL), W-1, K-1, as well as several grappling competitions outside of MMA.
As of now, Newton is retired from MMA competition but continues to serve as a coach at his MMA gym Warrior Mixed Martial Arts in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada. Newton is one of the early MMA pioneers that could go toe-to-toe with the Gracie family’s BJJ skills.
He brought his own hybrid style of Jiu-Jitsu and gave traditional MMA grapplers a run for their money, whilst simultaneously establishing his place as one of MMA’s early legends.
#4 Maurice Smith
Maurice ‘Mo’ Smith began training in striking-based martial arts after being inspired by Bruce Lee’s movie, ‘The Chinese Connection’. He got into martial arts at the age of 13 and trained in Karate, Taekwondo and Wing Chun. At the age of 18, Smith found the sport of kickboxing, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Smith had a brief run in the amateur kickboxing circuit and then turned pro, going on to win Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight titles in the World Kickboxing Association, World Kickboxing Council, International Sport Kickboxing Association, as well as other promotions.
By winning the Battlecade Extreme Combat 3 and 4 championships, Smith became the first legitimate striker, to win world titles in a top MMA promotion. Smith got submitted by Ken Shamrock in December of 1994, but this defeat proved to be the turning point of his MMA career.
Smith moved his training camp to the Lion’s Den gym to train alongside the legendary Shamrock brothers. During his time at Lion’s Den, he formed a close bond with Ken’s brother Frank Shamrock. Smith and Frank Shamrock would later go on to form their own gym known as ‘The Alliance’.
Smith was a world-class striker and kickboxing champion, while Frank was one of the best grapplers to ever step foot inside the Octagon. Smith helped Frank improve his striking, while Frank helped Smith improve his grappling. It was this teamwork with Frank Shamrock that helped Smith to capture the aforementioned Battlecade titles.
Furthermore, at UFC 14 in 1997, Smith faced UFC Heavyweight Champion Mark Coleman, with the HW strap on the line. Coleman dominated Smith for the first three rounds of their fight by maintaining top position, and attempting to land his signature ground-and-pound.
However, Smith was actively looking for submissions off of his back and thereby negated most of Coleman’s ground-and-pound. Smith went on to outclass an exhausted Coleman on the feet for the remainder of the fight and had him badly hurt on several occasions.
Smith took the decision win over Coleman and went on to defend his title against David ‘Tank’ Abbott, stopping Abbott by way of leg kicks. Smith would go on to lose the title to future-UFC Hall-of-Famer Randy Couture in a close fight.
Maurice Smith is an MMA and kickboxing legend, who played a pivotal role in the transition phase that MMA went through, from being dominated primarily by grapplers to the inclusion of world-class strikers. Smith proved that a world-class striker deserves as much respect as a world-class grappler and thereby negated the Gracie family adage that claimed that the ‘grappling’ arts were superior to the ‘striking’ arts.
This MMA pioneer brought in the influx of strikers in top MMA promotions such as the UFC and PRIDE FC and was followed by several other notable kickboxers-turned-martial artists such as Mirko Filipovic, Alistair Overeem, Gegard Mousasi, Stephen Thompson and many others.
#3 Genki Sudo
Genki Sudo is an actor, choreographer, singer, composer and author. In other words, he is a star.
Sudo is also an MMA legend, having competed in the UFC, K-1 Hero’s and Pancrase. Back in his heyday, Sudo was well-known not only for his awkward fighting style but also his elaborate and outlandish ring entrances. He was and is an all round entertainer and has stayed true to his philosophy- ‘We are all one.’
Sudo gained popularity in the niche MMA community in the US, owing to his unorthodox fighting skills on display in his UFC 42 and UFC 47 fights, against Duane Ludwig and Mike Brown, respectively.
He was known for moving towards his opponents with his back turned to them. Apart from his in fight dance manoeuvres, Sudo was also known for his spinning backfists, flying triangle chokes and flying armbars among other techniques.
He holds wins over several notable MMA veterans such as Nate Marquardt, Mike Brown, Eric ‘Butterbean’ Esch (boxing veteran), Kazuyuki Miyata, Hiroyuki Takaya, Damacio Page and Ramon Dekkers (kickboxing legend) among others.
Apart from his invaluable contributions to both JMMA and MMA- as a whole, Sudo has also worked tirelessly in order to develop the Takushoku University’s wrestling program in Tokyo, Japan. The Neo-Samurai’s contributions to the world of MMA and martial arts are undisputed.
His invaluable contributions to the sport of MMA and his work in developing future-MMA stars in Japan, have landed Sudo at number 3 on our list.
#2 Yorinaga Nakamura
We go from one JMMA star to another. Now, it’s essential to note that Yorinaga Nakamura competed in the sport of shoot-wrestling and not MMA, so to speak. Now, shoot-wrestling is also considered to be a form of mixed martial arts combat.
It involves legitimate sporting competition between the in-ring practitioners and is different from the entertainment-based pro-wrestling-leagues of Japan and America. Although most shoot-wrestling matches are not counted as pro-MMA bouts, Nakamura and several other shoot-wrestlers are legitimate fighters and martial arts practitioners.
In January of 1989, Nakamura travelled to the U.S. and became a student of Dan Inosanto in Jeet Kune Do (JKD), Filipino martial arts and silat. The JKD lineage goes from Bruce Lee to Inosanto, and from Inosanto to Nakamura.
Nakamura also proudly represents the Shooto lineage- Bill Riley/Frank Wolfe to Karl Gotch; Gotch to Satoru Sayama; Sayama to Nakamura. Furthermore, Nakamura founded the USA Shooto Association in 1992. In the very same year, he became the founder and head instructor of Inosanto-Methods Unified Martial Arts Association (IUMA), in Japan.
Nakamura’s Shooto lineage, the practitioners that preceded him, as well as his disciples, have played an essential role in shaping the sport of MMA as we know it today. Nakamura and his fellow Shoot-wrestling practitioners provided a tremendous impetus to the evolution and refinement of modern-MMA.
Nakamura’s contribution to JKD, Shooto and the grappling arts have landed him the 2nd spot on our list.
#1 Megumi Fujii
This brings us to the Queen of our list, Megumi Fujii.
Fujii was first true legend and Superstar in Women’s MMA’s (WMMA). The history of MMA cannot be written without mention of the Japanese grappling wizard and Strawweight (SW) superstar, Fujii. Fujii’s martial arts foundation is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Judo.
As a professional she had decent striking, however, she mostly played to her strengths and that were her wide variety of submission skills. Her favourite ‘Inazuma Toe Hold’ submission was popularly known as the ‘Megulock’, named after her.
Fujii’s wins over MMA veterans such as Ana Michelle Tavares, Keiko ‘Tama-Chan’ Tamai and several others, made her a staple at Shooto and Smackgirl MMA events. Fujii’s wins over Lisa Ellis, Sarah Schneider and future-UFC SW champion Carla Esparza, cemented her place amongst the all-time greats in her weight-class.
Her two close fights against MMA veteran Jessica Aguilar, the latter of which was stopped due to illegal-eye pokes from Aguilar, served to show that Fujii was competent enough to face the new generation of MMA fighters, especially with Aguilar being one of the top-5 SW fighters in the UFC today.
While Gina Carano and Ronda Rousey are considered to be pioneers of the Women’s 145-pound and 135-pound weight classes respectively, Megumi Fujii is the pioneer of the Women’s SW (115-pound) division. Fujii alongside 145-pound pioneer Marloes Coenen, were at the top of WMMA before WMMA broke into the mainstream courtesy of Carano and Rousey.
Megumi ‘Mega Megu’ Fujii deserves as much respect and adulation, if not more, as compared to what we accord to the Caranos and the Rouseys of MMA. Fujii truly is one of the early Superstars not only in WMMA, but MMA as a whole. She laid the foundation for several talented female fighters to break barriers and be a part of the sport of MMA that was once considered too ‘macho’ and brutal for women.
It is thanks to the tireless work and passionate performances from legends like Fujii that we are privileged to watch performances form fighters such as Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Valentina Shevchenko, Holly Holm, Cat Zingano and many others in the UFC, as well as several other top MMA promotions.
From Canadian legends to Japanese Superstars, the sport of MMA has been built by martial arts practitioners coming from different parts of the world.
As the saying goes: The Public’s memory is short. However, as MMA fans and martial arts practitioners, it’s our duty to acknowledge the pioneers of our beloved sport. Regardless of where they are today, regardless of their current popularity and other such factors, these legends deserve as much acknowledgement as we give the Royce Gracies and the Randy Coutures of MMA.
Several UFC pioneers are well-known and popular even today; some more popular than others. However, regardless of their fame, our respect for them should be the same. A few such not-so-well-known MMA pioneers made our list. Much respect to the legends of our sport.
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