October 6, 2016
By Ryan Porzl
Professional Wrestling has an interesting history when it comes to Mixed Martial Arts. However, because of wrestling's status as a red headed step child of entertainment as well as sport, it's largely ridiculed. In the MMA world, it's largely no different. When wrestling is brought up, MMA fans are quick to dismiss it as fake and mock it. Like a lot of people that aren't wrestling fans, they appear to be embarrassed by it. When CM Punk made his MMA and UFC debut, fighters and fans mocked him and wanted him to go back to the fake wrestling. However, professional wrestling and wrestlers deserve far more respect in the MMA world. In fact, professional wrestling and wrestlers are either responsible for legendary moments and/or careers. Some legendary fighters started as wrestlers while others did wrestling afterwards. In fact, wrestling has a deep history in Mixed Martial Arts.
When most fans of these days think of wrestlers going into MMA, they usually look at Brock Lesnar or CM Punk or Bobby Lashley. However, wrestlers went into MMA long before any of these men. One of MMA's first legends Ken Shamrock actually began wrestling long before he debuted in MMA. Shamrock originally trained in wrestling in 1988 and wrestled in the Carolinas as Wayne Shamrock and Vince Torelli before going to Japan by 1990 where he competed in "Shoot Style" promotions (Shoot Style was a more realistic and stiffer form of wrestling that sought to make the action as real as possible while still having predetermined results) like the Newborn UWF and Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi. It was actually in the latter promotion where he met Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki which led to him going to Pancrase in 1993. Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki trained in the New Japan Pro Wrestling dojo with Funaki turning pro in 1984 and Suzuki in 1988. Funaki was also the youngest graduate at 15. The two first wrestled in New Japan Pro Wrestling then went to Newborn UWF and Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi before their MMA careers. Funaki had been wrestling for nine years while Suzuki five when they co-founded Pancrase in 1993. Dan Severn also first started wrestling in 1992, two years before his MMA debut at UFC 4, where he mostly competed for the shoot style wrestling promotion UWFi (Union of Wrestling Forces International). Severn continued wrestling while fighting as he captured his first NWA World Heavyweight Championship in February 1995, two months after his debut in UFC 4. That same year, Severn won the UFC 5 tournament as well as the Ultimate Ultimate 1995 tournament. When Severn went to the WWF in 1998, he did photoshoots with the NWA World Heavyweight Championship as well as his UFC 5 Trophy Belt, Ultimate Ultimate 1995 Trophy Belt, and The UFC Superfight Championship. Kiyoshi Tamura started as a professional wrestler in promotions like Newborn UWF and UWFi before going to RINGS. Kazushi Sakuraba was a wrestler for UWFi as well as the short lived Kingdom promotion and it was as a wrestler in Kingdom where he got his first big break as it allowed him to compete in UFC Ultimate Japan (replacing the injured Hiromitsu Kanehara) where he won the Ultimate Japan Heavyweight Tournament and his famous post tournament speech was "In Fact, Professional Wrestling Is Strong!". His run in UWFi also helped him get his foot in the door in PRIDE due to his association with Nobuhiko Takada and also trained at the Takada Dojo during his prime years. Kazuyuki Fujita started as a wrestler for New Japan Pro Wrestling and began his MMA career because of his New Japan run as New Japan boss Antonio Inoki began forcing his wrestlers to MMA bouts to show legitimacy. Though not a fighter, Mauro Ranallo started his career as a wrestling announcer when he first worked for All Star Wrestling in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada back when he was 16 and later worked a revived version of the legendary Stampede Wrestling years before becoming the play-by-play announcers for promotions like PRIDE, EliteXC, and Strikeforce.
Along with wrestlers becoming MMA fighters, the opposite has happened as well with MMA fighters becoming pro wrestlers. Don Frye had a highly successful four year run in New Japan Pro Wrestling after his run in The UFC where he won two tournaments and main evented two Tokyo Dome shows including main eventing against Antonio Inoki in Inoki's retirement match in front of a record crowd of 70,000 fans. Frye also notably carried his UFC trophy belts during his New Japan run and continued to wrestle on and off over the years while fighting. Josh Barnett also competed in New Japan Pro Wrestling for a year and a half after his original UFC run ended. During his New Japan run, Barnett debuted at the yearly January 4th Tokyo Dome show where he challenged for the IWGP (International Wrestling Grand Prix) Heavyweight Championship which is the top title. Like Frye, Barnett continued to wrestle throughout his MMA career and has also become an announcer for New Japan's American show on AXS TV. Mark Coleman and Kevin Randleman frequently worked for the HUSTLE promotion which was owned by Dream Stage Entertainment (PRIDE's parent company). Bas Rutten wrestled a few matches for New Japan Pro Wrestling in 2002 where he challenged for both the IWGP Heavyweight and Jr. Heavyweight Championships. Masahiko Kimura (best known for popularizing the kimura and defeated Helio Gracie) and Gene LeBell both went into pro wrestling after their judoka days where they were both wrestlers and promoters.
Japanese MMA has also became some of the most popular MMA promotions in history and most of the big ones were either founded by professional wrestlers or professional wrestlers had a big hand in them. Shooto was founded by the Original Tiger Mask Satoru Sayama, Fighting Network RINGS was founded by Akira Maeda, Pancrase was co-founded by Funaki & Suzuki, and Smackgirl was founded by Koichiro Kimura. Meanwhile, Nobuhiko Takada has served as a matchmaker & spokesperson for PRIDE Fighting Championships & Rizin Fighting Federation, Maeda later served as a consultant for K-1 HERO'S, and Sayama began the Vale Tudo Japan events. Because of all this, these professional wrestlers are not only responsible for creating or contributing to these MMA promotions but are responsible for giving many MMA legends their big breaks while introducing them to a big audience. Imagine a world without Shooto, Pancrase, Smackgirl, Vale Tudo Japan, and RINGS while PRIDE, Rizin, and K-1 Hero's weren't what they became. How many legends would the MMA world be deprived of or would never get their break?
Then there were other wrestlers who contributed to MMA in some ways. Antonio Inoki is not only one of the biggest names in wrestling history but one of the top three biggest names in Japanese Wrestling history. Inoki also was a big contributor to MMA. His legendary fight with Muhammad Ali on June 26, 1976 is one of the first cases of "Mixed Martial Arts" and he later did "Different Fight Style" matches which were psuedo-MMA fights that were worked and saw Inoki beat different types of martial artists to showcase wrestling's superiority. Inoki was also responsible for introducing the tradition of New Year's Eve Combat Sporting Events with his Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye events. The events came even before K-1 and PRIDE started doing New Year's Eve events and Inoki was a big reason why New Year's Eve has become the biggest day of the year in the Japanese Combat Sports world. Inoki also introduced the MMA world to Kazuyuki Fujita who was wrestling for New Japan Pro Wrestling when Inoki had him start fighting as he had many of his then up and comers take part in MMA events to give New Japan legitimacy. Inoki also discovered former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Lyoto Machida who trained in grappling at the New Japan dojo and had two fights under Inoki's watch during which time he was referred to as "LYOTO". The first was Machida's MMA debut when he fought at New Japan's Ultimate Crush event in 2003 which was a special event featuring wrestling matches and MMA fights. The second was Machida's third fight when he defeated the then undefeated future UFC Middleweight Champion Rich Franklin at Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye 2003. Wrestling legend and catch wrestler Billy Robinson was the man responsible for teaching catch wrestling to MMA legends Kiyoshi Tamura, Kazushi Sakuraba, and Josh Barnett which became the style they became known for. One of the most popular and replayed fights in Mixed Martial Arts history featured a professional wrestler when legend Yoshihiro Takayama took on Don Frye at PRIDE 21 in 2002. Despite having a 0-4 record and losing the fight, Takayama showed his tolerance for punishment and went six minutes with "The Predator". Not bad for a fake wrestler.
Yes, Professional Wrestling is scripted and predetermined but I think I gave some great reasons why it deserves more respect in the MMA community. Pro Wrestling introduced legendary fighters, promotions, trainer of legends, and great fights. Yes, it can be silly but that still doesn't take away what wrestlers have contributed to MMA. Just remember that the next time you mock wrestling, you may be mocking a favorite fighter of yours who did wrestling or mocking a company that was founded by wrestler that broke in many legends.
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