Your opinion on this, please...

**PhillyLameSauce** · Posted On: 2/25/2008 12:18am

ALright ladies and gents, I havent been the best poster on this site, but I'm looking to you (yeah, pretty much all of you) for some input. So help a brutha out, huh?

After a night of training in Judo, I came home and plopped myself in front of my PC to relax, search the web and perhaps find some things to supplement my grappling skills. After a short detour to the nearest free-porn site, I dove head first into the interwebs vast achive of Kuk Sul Do Man Chu Fu McMartial Art, attempting to find anything remotely realistic, if not helpful. Being a fan of Freestlye Wrestling, I type that into an unnamed search engine, and lo and behold I come across some articles involving Catch Wrestling and Sambo. Intrigued, I click. After some rather interesting results, I stumble across this. http://www.uwf-bushido.com/ which subsequently leads me to the point of this thread, right here

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dgNYyhFIZCQ (I pasted the Youtube version since the site version is fritzy.)

Now, I'm no super-analytical thinker. But this got me thinking, and thats something my HS teachers would kill for. For those who cant or are to lazy to see the site, its basic synopsis is this. Some time ago, back when the creators of UFC were busy raiding local chain-link fence shops, these 'Pro-Wrestlers' in Japan got tired of the 'scripted, dramatic wrestling' and left, forming the UWF. They had people like Karl Gotch, Lou Thesz, and Billy Robinson come on over to their great island nation and teach them 'real' Catch-as-catch-can Wrestling. They then started what was, by the looks of it, the first ever PRIDE/UFC MMA league. The rules were pretty much the same as their counterparts (no eye gouging, fish hooking, knees to the head when they're on all fours, etc) and they took off. Here's my problems...

1. Seen the video yet? Looks realistic. Looks. While the submissions and suplexes seem legit of Catch Wrestling, I find it hard to believe that its completely unscripted, especially since were talking about people whose job it was to make the fake stuff look real.

2. On the site, theres a list of their 'competitors'. I didn't really reognize many of them, but in the 'foreigners' section two stood out: Dan Severn and Bob Backlund. Now, Dan Severn is an accomplished MMA fighter (somewhat) well before MMA was what it is today. However, Dan Severn, along with Ken Shamrock, also did a gig in the WWF for some time. As for Bob Backlund, if hes the Bob Backlund im thinking about, he was also a main stay for the WWF/WWE or whatever else 'Pro-wrestling' organization would hire him. While he does have a legit wrestling background (North Dakota, NCAA Div 1 champ), I also find it hard to believe this 'UWF' is legit, based on the two people I know having had time in the fake wreslting biz.

3. Lastly, even though the site wants you to pay for their 'episodes', youtube ALWAYS has at least one on it, and here it is. http://youtube.com/watch?v=Yb6p-te5IjE&feature=related Its in french, of course, but watch the match. Its between Dan Severn and Kiyoshi Tamura. Again, the techniques seem legit, but I've done my fair share of wreslting matches and rolling, and from what I can see, it seems that they're intentionally leaving openings and allowing the other guy to do a move to him. I think at one point Dan Severn has Kiyoshi in some weird version of the 'Regal Stretch' (opponents legs wrapped in a fig4 position, your weight pinning them to his ass while hes on his stomach, and your wretching his neck back, for all you non rasslin' watching folk out their)

So Id like to get the good, knowledgable opinion of the fine folks here at Bullshido. You think this is legit or not?

**Lu Tze** · Posted On: 2/25/2008 12:44am

You don't recognize the name Kazushi Sakuraba?!?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UWF_International

***Omega Supreme*** · Posted On: 2/25/2008 12:04pm

Originally Posted by PhillyLameSauce

ALright ladies and gents, I havent been the best poster on this site, but I'm looking to you (yeah, pretty much all of you) for some input. So help a brutha out, huh?

After a night of training in Judo, I came home and plopped myself in front of my PC to relax, search the web and perhaps find some things to supplement my grappling skills. After a short detour to the nearest free-porn site, I dove head first into the interwebs vast achive of Kuk Sul Do Man Chu Fu McMartial Art, attempting to find anything remotely realistic, if not helpful. Being a fan of Freestlye Wrestling, I type that into an unnamed search engine, and lo and behold I come across some articles involving Catch Wrestling and Sambo. Intrigued, I click. After some rather interesting results, I stumble across this. http://www.uwf-bushido.com/ which subsequently leads me to the point of this thread, right here

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dgNYyhFIZCQ (I pasted the Youtube version since the site version is fritzy.)

Now, I'm no super-analytical thinker. But this got me thinking, and thats something my HS teachers would kill for. For those who cant or are to lazy to see the site, its basic synopsis is this. Some time ago, back when the creators of UFC were busy raiding local chain-link fence shops, these 'Pro-Wrestlers' in Japan got tired of the 'scripted, dramatic wrestling' and left, forming the UWF. They had people like Karl Gotch, Lou Thesz, and Billy Robinson come on over to their great island nation and teach them 'real' Catch-as-catch-can Wrestling. They then started what was, by the looks of it, the first ever PRIDE/UFC MMA league. The rules were pretty much the same as their counterparts (no eye gouging, fish hooking, knees to the head when they're on all fours, etc) and they took off. Here's my problems...

1. Seen the video yet? Looks realistic. Looks. While the submissions and suplexes seem legit of Catch Wrestling, I find it hard to believe that its completely unscripted, especially since were talking about people whose job it was to make the fake stuff look real.

2. On the site, theres a list of their 'competitors'. I didn't really reognize many of them, but in the 'foreigners' section two stood out: Dan Severn and Bob Backlund. Now, Dan Severn is an accomplished MMA fighter (somewhat) well before MMA was what it is today. However, Dan Severn, along with Ken Shamrock, also did a gig in the WWF for some time. As for Bob Backlund, if hes the Bob Backlund im thinking about, he was also a main stay for the WWF/WWE or whatever else 'Pro-wrestling' organization would hire him. While he does have a legit wrestling background (North Dakota, NCAA Div 1 champ), I also find it hard to believe this 'UWF' is legit, based on the two people I know having had time in the fake wreslting biz.

3. Lastly, even though the site wants you to pay for their 'episodes', youtube ALWAYS has at least one on it, and here it is. http://youtube.com/watch?v=Yb6p-te5IjE&feature=related Its in french, of course, but watch the match. Its between Dan Severn and Kiyoshi Tamura. Again, the techniques seem legit, but I've done my fair share of wreslting matches and rolling, and from what I can see, it seems that they're intentionally leaving openings and allowing the other guy to do a move to him. I think at one point Dan Severn has Kiyoshi in some weird version of the 'Regal Stretch' (opponents legs wrapped in a fig4 position, your weight pinning them to his ass while hes on his stomach, and your wretching his neck back, for all you non rasslin' watching folk out their)

So Id like to get the good, knowledgable opinion of the fine folks here at Bullshido. You think this is legit or not?

The long and short of it is that 80% of those matches were shoots. I talked to Dan Severn about that back in '97. The hits are real and you're only to use 'realistic moves' during the shoot but they were shoots. A few fighters got their start in them and it's where the Pancrase league broke off and started to do more non shoot deals, but they still had a few staged matches. The matches are pretty cool though.

**Vince Tortelli** · Posted On: 2/25/2008 12:38pm

In "Beyond the Lions Den" Ken Shamrock says that the UWF (where he first started learning leg locks) trained its guys like real fighters, but that the matches did have pre determined outcomes. He also mentions a feud between the UWF grapplers and Muay Thai kickboxers, which came out of a Hawaian kickboxing champ Nakaya Nielson (think that is the correct spelling) busting open Funaki with a knee strike during what was supposed to be a worked match.
Ken would later end the bad blood by submitting Nielson with a keylock during a shoot fight in one of the earliest MMA matches in Japan.

And yes, the matches are cool, I have a clip of Glenn Jacobs (WWE Kane) competing in the UWF, I'll see if I can find it and post it on this thread.

**Lu Tze** · Posted On: 2/25/2008 4:57pm

Originally Posted by Omega the Merciless

The long and short of it is that 80% of those matches were shoots. I talked to Dan Severn about that back in '97. The hits are real and you're only to use 'realistic moves' during the shoot but they were shoots. A few fighters got their start in them and it's where the Pancrase league broke off and started to do more non shoot deals, but they still had a few staged matches. The matches are pretty cool though.

I thought shoots were real and works were fake?

UWF were works, but done more realistically, right?

**edtang** · Posted On: 2/25/2008 5:04pm

Originally Posted by Lu Tze

UWF were works, but done more realistically, right?

Yes, you are correct. UWF was most definitely 100% worked.

**Lu Tze** · Posted On: 2/25/2008 5:08pm

You can tell from just looking at them, people grappling for real just don't interact and move like that. Although some of the strikes looked like they landed pretty hard, they certainly earned their money.