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00:01KONIEC
00:30KONIEC
00:30New angle
00:32BUILDING A REPUTATION
00:33AS THE MOST BRUTAL
00:34MMA PROMOTION
00:35ON EARTH
00:39JON
00:39DON
00:39I'M SORRY
00:41SO WITH FOR?
00:42IT'S FOR NOT GIVING YOU
00:42GOOD ENOUGH FIGHT
00:43SEEING YOUR CRAZY
00:44YOU GIVE ME A BETTER FIGHT
00:45YOU'RE KILLLEDITE
00:46PRIDE'S FIRST RULE
00:47THIS IS HORRIBLE
00:48THIS IS LIKE
00:49THIS IS LIKE JAWS
00:51IS THAT
00:52THERE ARE NO RULES
00:53PRIDE WAS JUST A
00:54CIRCUS OF US
00:55THAT'S HOW CRAZY IT WAS
00:56THEY WANTED YOU TO BE ON
00:57WHATEVER YOU WANT TO BE ON
01:00They offered him extra money to lose the fight.
01:03He took it.
01:04How the hell did that happen?
01:06And secretly calling the shots of this outlaw MMA promotion.
01:09He was somebody you don't want to mess with.
01:13Are genuine gangsters.
01:14They can do everything they want.
01:16They rule the city.
01:18Criminals willing to do anything to keep control.
01:20He hung himself.
01:22What? Why?
01:23Was he murdered?
01:26It's hard to say.
01:27And not only that.
01:30You don't want to say on TV.
01:48In Japan, martial arts have been practiced for centuries.
01:52Karate.
01:54Sumo.
01:55Aikido.
01:56And Jiu Jitsu.
01:57All trace their origins to the land of the rising sun.
02:02But for much of the 20th century.
02:06It's pro wrestling that reigns as the most popular Japanese combat sport.
02:12Including all Japan pro wrestling.
02:16And Antonio Inoki's New Japan pro wrestling.
02:20No.
02:20No.
02:20No.
02:21No.
02:21No.
02:22No.
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02:40No.
02:46No.
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02:52No.
02:53No.
02:53No.
02:54No.
02:56KONIEC
03:26KONIEC
03:56KONIEC
03:57KONIEC
03:57KONIEC
03:58KONIEC
03:59KONIEC
03:59KONIEC
03:59KONIEC
04:00KONIEC
04:00KONIEC
04:00KONIEC
04:01KONIEC
04:01KONIEC
04:01KONIEC
04:01KONIEC
04:03Wszyscy z
04:05Polskieńska
04:06Polskieńska
04:15Wszyscy z tym
04:17WniosÄ…
04:18WniosÄ…
04:19WniosÄ…
04:20Jak to możliwe?
04:22Kiedy jesteś dobrym, nie musisz być
04:24Bawas Rudinier
04:26Przemysław Człowień w Jepce
04:29I was a UFC heavyweight champion.
04:31The Graces were freaking ruling the submission game
04:34because that was their bread and butter.
04:37Back in Japan, promoter and former pro wrestler Satoru Sayama,
04:41also known as Tiger Mask,
04:45is inspired by the UFC's free-for-all format.
04:49In 1994, he launches his own MMA event called Valle Tudo.
04:56Valle Tudo takes its name from a no-rules combat sport in Brazil,
05:01and Satoru recruits Hickson Gracie to be his main contender.
05:05This is the closest thing of a real street fight ever happened in Japan before.
05:11Valle Tudo 94 brought to the public attention the realistic aspect of the MMA.
05:17My name is Hickson Gracie.
05:18I'm one of the members of the Gracie family,
05:21which has been involved in martial arts since day one.
05:26Unlike the uniform fighting styles seen in K1 and Pancrase,
05:30at Valle Tudo, anything goes.
05:34For me, it's always a pleasure to see this kind of introduction to MMA,
05:40to the Japanese audience.
05:45The Gracie's Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is both familiar and different
05:49from anything Japanese fight fans have seen.
05:55Of course, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is coming from the Japanese Jiu-Jitsu.
06:00But Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu becomes like a everything goes type of fight,
06:04which requires much more of the fighter.
06:06The Gracie fighting style has already proved effective in the UFC.
06:10It's one of the fundamental positions in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu right now.
06:14Where Hickson's brother, Hoyce, wins his second tournament
06:17months before Hickson's debut in Japan.
06:20He's gonna snap his arm. He did too.
06:22So it's a disorganized confrontation,
06:24and makes Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu more effective than others,
06:26because we can adapt.
06:28We're comfortable in every aspect of the fight,
06:31different than the traditional Jiu-Jitsu was.
06:34We repackage Jiu-Jitsu.
06:36We make a better, more effective art,
06:39and bring it back to Japan.
06:41And they love that.
06:43Hickson submits three fighters in one night,
06:45and issues a challenge.
06:49We say, we can beat any other martial arts.
06:52Gracie Jiu-Jitsu, number one again.
06:55So we created the Gracie Challenge,
06:56which was an open challenge for any martial artists
06:59who try to test themselves against us.
07:02I'm pretty confident.
07:03I don't know if somebody out there can beat me up.
07:07I'm here already to keep defending the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu tradition.
07:16Vale Tudo turns Hickson into a celebrity in Japan.
07:20You know, I could not go anywhere without the crowd going around me.
07:23That's kind of put me close to the heart of the Japanese audience.
07:27And I felt very blessed by that.
07:30But Hickson is not so popular with Japan's pro wrestlers,
07:34who worry the rising popularity of mixed martial arts
07:37is killing their sport.
07:40The world of wrestling, they start losing terrain.
07:43So when they say, oh, we do MMA too, I can fight MMA,
07:46I want to fight Hickson.
07:48Japan's Universal Wrestling Federation, the UWF,
07:52publicly taunts Hickson to fight one of their own.
07:55Professional wrestlers start using my name
07:58to become a possible challenge in their arena.
08:10And I could not accept that because in that arena, they fake fights.
08:15Undaunted, the UWF names the wrestler to fight Hickson.
08:32Yoji Anjo, a heel, is one of Japan's most popular pro wrestlers.
08:36Again, they were pro wrestling promotions.
08:38They wanted to try to convince the audience that it's a real fight.
08:42Pro wrestlers, for 10 years,
08:45I will show the strength of the people who've been doing.
08:50Anjo invited me to fight for real.
08:53He said he want to come into LA to kick my ass.
08:56I said, if you come, you come.
08:59Mr. Yoji Anjo went to California with all the pro wrestling journalists.
09:04On December 7th, 1994,
09:07Yoji arrives at the Gracie Academy in Santa Monica, spoiling for a fight.
09:12The day they come, I was in my house eating,
09:15and my assistant called me and said, Hickson, they're here.
09:19I immediately get into my car,
09:21start to drive into the academy.
09:23As I arrive, at the school at the time,
09:26it was about 20 guys practicing.
09:28And then Anjo, with another about six or eight different press guys, reporters.
09:34I saw just the president of UWF, and he asked me,
09:38Mr. Gracie, the fighter is outside.
09:40If you want, he can come in to fight you.
09:43I said, yes, bring him in.
09:46The Japanese reporters are forced to stay outside.
09:50Inside, the rest of Yoji's entourage and Hickson students
09:53suddenly have front row seats to an international showdown.
09:58He's my height, little thicker.
10:01I made 185 pounds.
10:03He made 220.
10:06Anjo has some skills.
10:08He's a great martial artist.
10:10He's been fighting forever.
10:11And he was a tough guy.
10:16I run to the ground, start to beat him up.
10:19He turns around, expect me to choke him.
10:23But I was not intent to choke him.
10:27If I just choke him and he wake up, said, oh, nothing happened.
10:30He can lie.
10:30He can do whatever.
10:32I have to hurt him, make him bleed.
10:35Break his nose and beat him up.
10:37And then he turns back again to me.
10:39And then I choke him out and put him to sleep.
10:47In less than five minutes, the fight is over with Yoji left lying in a pool of his own blood.
10:52The pro wrestler suffering a beatdown by the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu master.
10:57When I won, my students get me and lift me up and they party a little bit.
11:02But it was not something I am proud of myself.
11:04It was just something I have to do to keep my reputation on.
11:08Instead, it's Hickson's reputation that takes a beating.
11:11The fight makes headlines in Japan with a photo of Yoji emerging battered and bloodied from the Gracie Academy.
11:17With the reporters left outside, Yoji feels free to claim he was ambushed inside the gym.
11:23He said he was jumped by the crew, by my guys.
11:27He did what he had to do to keep his image, to promote controversy.
11:32But fortunately, I have the tape.
11:35Hickson's assistant had filmed the entire fight.
11:38So Hickson calls a press conference to counter Yoji's claims, and the videotape becomes Exhibit A.
11:44It was a great, lucky move for me to get this all recorded.
11:48I actually saw the tape of that fight.
11:52I saw when Hickson took the back of Mr. Anjo.
11:55He stuck his two fingers right into Mr. Anjo's nose and pulled back and went for the choke.
12:02There was no rules.
12:04But that ended up making Mr. Hickson Gracie very famous in Japan.
12:07Eventually, the public will see, I may be going to show this tape one day.
12:13He's rated R, too violent.
12:19As with all memorable fights, the Hickson and Yoji dojo fight gets everyone thinking one word.
12:25Rematch.
12:26An ambitious TV producer, Nobuyuki Sakakibara, sees an opportunity.
12:31And that's where organizers invite me to fight him in a big event called Pride.
12:37They said, I want to bring a new event to capitalize on your audience, to capitalize on the momentum.
12:42So, could you be interested to fight in this new event? I intend to do it.
12:46I said, yes.
12:47If the rules are proper, if it's a serious business, I'm in.
12:54Out of the Hickson-Yoji grudge match, a new MMA promotion called Pride is born.
13:00Hickson Gracie's name will help lure some of the best fighters in the world to Japan.
13:06But Pride will also attract a notorious criminal organization.
13:10One that will move in on the promotion and threaten the lives of anyone who gets in their way.
13:19The controversy surrounding the bloody unsanctioned brawl between Hickson Gracie and Japanese pro wrestler Yoji Anjo provokes a grudge match.
13:28It also prompts TV producer Nobuyuki Sakakibara, fellow executive Naoto Morishita, and a mysterious financier named Hiromichi Mimose, who invests
13:39$50 million to team up and promote the bout.
13:43Pride Fighting Championship's inaugural event will pit Gracie against Yoji Anjo's master, Nobuhiko Takada, the number one pro wrestler at
13:53Japan's Universal Wrestling Federation.
13:59Because of the fact that Anjo lost, like, terribly, it's not like, oh, Hickson, you have to beat Takada now.
14:04It's almost like a Takada. You have to get up and beat this guy. Otherwise, you know, you just beat
14:09up your students. And as a master, what are you going to do?
14:11The pro wrestler thought they are the toughest. They are the strongest. And if somebody claims that I'm better than
14:20you or, you know, pro wrestler is fake, let's do it.
14:24My name is Tadasi Tanaka. I'm a journalist and critic in the field of MMA, more than, I think, 50
14:31years.
14:33Initially, people were fascinated by this idea of who is the strongest, Takada or Hickson Gracie.
14:41With Takada and Hickson headlining, organizers fill out the card by importing three fighters from the struggling UFC.
14:48Oleg Taktarov, Dan the B-7, and Gary Big Daddy Goodrich.
14:55Hey, how you doing? I'm Gary Goodrich. I'm a star.
15:00UFC, they weren't keeping me busy enough at the time.
15:03So Pride called me up and said, Gary, you want to fight here?
15:06I said, yeah, okay, let's go.
15:07I knew it was in Japan. I said, that's all I knew.
15:12On October 11th, 1997, Pride's debut inside a 50,000-seat stadium may have been overly optimistic.
15:21He was at the Tokyo Dome, and he didn't really sell out.
15:25But still, it was big news in a way that very popular pro wrestlers are really stepping in to do
15:31a big, real fight.
15:33The main event, Hickson Gracie, like him or hate him, has got killer instincts.
15:41In 13 years, no one has defeated Hickson in a professional fight.
15:45Takada plans to be the first.
15:48He's a dangerous fighter. I see him with the potential to beat me up if I make a mistake.
15:54The hometown crowd cheers for Takada, waiting for Gracie to make that mistake.
16:00Back position, beautiful, tight it down.
16:03They wait in vain.
16:05Worst case scenario has just unfolded for Takada.
16:08I set up the arm lock.
16:10He's gonna go for arm bar.
16:11There it is.
16:11There we go. Oh, he's got it.
16:12So when I have a perfect lock, I felt like he was done.
16:16Takada's got the hands locked. Takada taps out.
16:19Mr. Takada got smoked.
16:20That was a quick one, folks.
16:23This is when many of the so-called fight fans in Japan and pressing fans in Japan realized that, okay,
16:30maybe BJJ fighters are the best fighters in the world.
16:34There's Yoji Andrew, the man who Hickson beat down in the studio.
16:37Yep.
16:38He was the first so-called foreign, non-Japanese MMA fighters who really captured the heart of his Japanese fans.
16:46And in hope of flaming that passion with foreign MMA fighters, Pride organizes three more events the following year.
16:53Hickson gets the mount again.
16:55Oh, my.
16:57And after that, Pride gets the best fighters in the world, doing the most sensational fights.
17:02While Japanese support for Pride's unrestrained fighting style is growing, its American competitor, the UFC, is imploding from governmental repercussions
17:12over its no-holds-barred format.
17:17Known for its blood-soaked battles in the cage, the UFC incurs the wrath of state legislators who begin banning
17:25mixed martial arts in states across the country.
17:27The UFC was dying. Pride was very well funded. And they appreciated your training and your skill and your knowledge
17:34that went into it. Sacrifices. A lot of sacrifices.
17:39They would tell you, we don't care if you win or lose. Just give us a great fight and you'll
17:44be back.
17:45I never quit. And always give them their money's worth. Plus some.
17:50Pride aggressively incites the conduct that is getting the UFC banned, instituting a card system to encourage more violence by
17:58financially penalizing inaction.
18:00You know, they have a red card, yellow card. If you get the yellow card, you get deduction on the
18:05points. And same for the red card, you know. And you lose the part of the purse, too. So you
18:10get a yellow card, maybe 10% loss.
18:12Why don't you give me a yellow card?
18:14Okay, I get it.
18:15So Pride fighting championships wanted action. And it will tell you in the rules meeting, if there's no action, you're
18:21going to get a yellow card.
18:22So in that sense, I think yellow card and red card was a part of the plan to make fighters
18:27aggressive.
18:30Pride's rules-free format allows fighters to engage in the most brutal tactics imaginable.
18:36They did prohibit head or butt to the face. No fish hooking, you know, no punches to the balls.
18:41Oh!
18:42But still, they left some of the rules like stomp into the face, sucker kick to the head on the
18:49ground with the opponent, which will never be allowed in MMA here today.
18:53He's left! He's left!
18:55Oh my God!
18:57Pride's goal of building the world's most violent and bloody fighting promotion informs their every action, or inaction.
19:04What was the drug testing like at Pride?
19:12Uh...
19:14Non-existent, you know?
19:16They took your pee, and nothing ever happened.
19:19They'd just take your pee and throw it out in the sink.
19:22Sometimes that wouldn't even take it.
19:24I think they wanted people to look like Greek gods.
19:28They wanted people to look huge, big muscles in this, because it made their show better.
19:33They wanted you to be on whatever you want to be on.
19:36If you see a guy completely veined out, freaking traps everywhere, you know he's on something.
19:42Right? So, I don't know what those pee tests were testing.
19:46But, yeah, there were some gigantic guys there. Let me say it like that.
19:50And what about having competitors fight in their weight class?
19:54That's for the wimps at the UFC.
19:56Pride is an open-weight competition.
19:58He's gonna be tired in five minutes because he's too big.
20:02Which leads to some jaw-dropping pairings in the ring.
20:05I've never seen a human being that big in my life.
20:08Pride fighting championships, it was just wild.
20:10They, you know, if you see a sumo wrestler who's 500 pounds fighting a guy who's 180 pounds.
20:15No! Don't do it!
20:17You gotta be out of your mind!
20:19This is horrible. This is like, this is like jaws.
20:22And then the 180-pound guy beats him. You know, that's crazy.
20:27Pride was just a circus almost. That's how crazy it was.
20:32Looking to steal away fans from other fight promotions,
20:35Pride approaches former Pancrase champion, Boss Rutten, to join the circus as ringmaster.
20:42They said, we're gonna go live in two shows from now.
20:45It's gonna be the championship, the 2000 championship.
20:47We're gonna go live to America.
20:49Do you want to be a commentator?
20:51Sure.
20:52I'm Boss Rutten. We're gonna be working together.
20:55I don't know. I was a crazy guy there.
20:56They go, what is she doing?
20:57I said, well, just let him go. Just let him go.
20:59Looking sharp, boss.
21:00I had no leash. I could do and say whatever I want.
21:05But Pride likes to keep its foreign fighters tethered.
21:08Even ordering some to take a dive as a way to create and maintain their preference for Japanese champions.
21:15For the first couple of Prides, they had a lot of fake fights.
21:19They had Japan really fighting against everybody else.
21:23And they wanted you to lose.
21:24They used to tell people what they wanted them to do.
21:26I want you to win this fight. I want you to lose this fight.
21:30And I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it.
21:33Nobody ever asked me to throw a fight.
21:35It kind of hurt my feelings.
21:36I think that they figured eventually I'd get hurt and wouldn't be able to win myself, you know?
21:43In the business, a predetermined fight is called a work.
21:47And one of the most infamous in Pride's history occurs at its fifth event in 1999.
21:54Organizers have pro wrestler Nobuhiko Takata in a seeming mismatch against the UFC's first heavyweight champion, Mark Coleman.
22:01Mark Coleman, undefeated in the octagon.
22:04Coleman is the godfather of ground and pound and one of the most notorious brawlers in MMA.
22:09Coleman is going to take him down. 100% sure.
22:13It was a lot of talk. It already slipped out that apparently it was going to be your work.
22:17There it is. It gets out of the back.
22:20Everything Kambani knows. All the fighters were talking about it.
22:23And I was always very against that.
22:26Takata has got to move on this.
22:28And when you look at that fight, where Mr. Takata won, it's kind of unnatural, like, submission.
22:35No, no, no, no, he's giving me, what the hell?
22:37Oh, no, no, no, no.
22:38It's easy for Coleman to kind of get out.
22:40There's no, what?
22:42And he tapped it pretty quickly.
22:44He's, oh, no.
22:46I don't believe this. How the hell did that happen?
22:49According to Coleman, he needed the money for his wife's surgery or something like that at the time.
22:54So when they offered him extra money to lose the fight, he took it.
22:58Oh, my God. Takata, Pete Mark Coleman.
23:00Unbelievable. This absolutely defies reality.
23:04I was just really ticked off by it.
23:05But, yeah, that happened, unfortunately, a few times in the beginning.
23:10They wanted the public to follow the game.
23:12So they wanted their guys to win because people followed them.
23:15And I understand it's his business.
23:18But the business is still suffering.
23:21Even after Pride signs a national broadcast deal with Japan's Fuji TV,
23:25the company is still in the red and losing money fast.
23:30Pride was never really successful in the beginning.
23:33Pride 2 show, when they had the Yokohama Arena show,
23:37they probably failed maybe 2,000 seats out of 14,000 seats.
23:40I was there and I remember maybe I counted maybe 2,000.
23:44So what they did was they did turn off all the lights on the second floor.
23:49So it won't look that empty on television.
23:52As the company lurches towards financial disaster,
23:56it's a colorful pro wrestler who surprisingly pulls Pride back from the brink.
24:09Despite Pride's early promise to be the mixed martial arts antidote to staged professional wrestling,
24:15organizers struggle to fill arenas and pay their bills.
24:19So it's not without irony that their potential bailout comes from a popular UWF pro wrestler named Kazushi Sakuraba,
24:26who defects to Pride in 1998.
24:30He's just a young boy in a pro wrestling system.
24:34Fufu is Sakuraba.
24:37Sakuraba has been rolling a lot, so he knows his submissions.
24:41And suddenly he decides to start fighting for real.
24:44He was a little guy, but he had the striking, he had the submissions, he had the ring peasants.
24:51He's already used to fighting in front of a crowd, so there's no nerve, no nothing.
24:57Sakuraba's pro wrestling theatrics combined with his eccentric persona to make him a much needed draw for Pride.
25:03Sakuraba was a Japanese favorite.
25:06He was very famous, the most famous athlete and fighter, you know, in the country.
25:12He's just walking money is what he is, just walking money.
25:15Then they realized, oh, we got a Japanese fighter who's very dominant.
25:19Now Pride just needs to keep the myth of Sakuraba alive.
25:23They wanted Sakuraba to win.
25:25So in the beginning, they brought in fighters who were good, but not super good.
25:31Eventually, you know, you're going to have to get great fighters.
25:36Pride finds a storybook opponent.
25:39Hoyler Gracie is Hickson Gracie's brother.
25:41It was Hickson who humiliated Japanese wrestler Novo Hiku Takada back at Pride's first event.
25:48Sakuraba can avenge that loss if he somehow defeats another Gracie skilled in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu,
25:54one of the best fighting systems in the world.
26:01I mean, just to name Gracie, you know that these guys have been training since they were puppies, right?
26:07Two, three years old, they were arm barring people in their freaking diapers.
26:12But in a surprising upset, Sakuraba quickly dominates Hoyler, easily bending the match and Hoyler's arm to his will.
26:20The world three has stopped the fight.
26:22It's a freaking Gracie, right? And he beats that person.
26:26So now there's interest how it could be a fluke.
26:29In fact, it's the beginning of an ongoing feud between Sakuraba and the Gracies.
26:34In May of 2000, another brother steps up to defend the family name.
26:39A lot of people that have to shut up over there.
26:42I gotta shut them up.
26:44Hoyle Gracie, the three-time UFC champion, will battle Pride's King of the Ring.
26:51Sakuraba was going to face Hoyle Gracie.
26:53And Hoyle said, I don't want to do a 30-minute fight.
26:55I want to just keep on going.
26:58You know, we do 15 minutes, you have a break 15 minutes all the time,
27:01and we just keep on going until there's a submission or a knockout.
27:05Dressed in his traditional gi, Hoyle turns his clothing into a weapon.
27:09We have always the option to fight with the gi.
27:12I can trap a limb of yourself and hold my own gi.
27:16I can use my gi to get my own collar and have you choke here with my own collar.
27:21So I can use my gi to end my favor.
27:24But my opponent can also use the gi to control me.
27:30Hoyle may be UFC royalty.
27:32Sakuraba's having fun out there.
27:34But Sakuraba is now the Prince of Pride.
27:37He was a pro wrestler, but he used real techniques.
27:40He's not worried. He just has control.
27:43In Japan, they use strong style.
27:45And that means they use real submission techniques.
27:48Here in America, it's not.
27:49They grab an arm and they go, oh, I feel this, you know.
27:51There they only use real submissions.
27:53Remember, Hoyle demanded they fight until one of them can't fight anymore.
27:58That fight was an hour and a half.
28:00Just sitting there like he's bored.
28:02I think he wants Hoyle to run out of gas.
28:05It's a request Hoyle will regret.
28:09Sakuraba has great wrestling skills, submission skills.
28:13He's a great fighter, good brain, you know, calm, under pressure.
28:17He is very valid.
28:19And at the end, Sakuraba was more physical and has the ability to win the fight.
28:26Sakuraba won that fight by, you know, by stoppage.
28:29Just throwing in the towel.
28:32So tired, he couldn't come out.
28:34He couldn't continue anymore.
28:36That is an epic fight.
28:39That was an amazing, amazing battle.
28:43Oh, he did it!
28:44To this day, the match remains the longest fight in MMA history.
28:48At the end of the night, even the Gracie family's famous patriarch, Helio Gracie, the godfather of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu,
28:56has to acknowledge that Sakuraba, the pro wrestler, is the real deal.
29:03With W's against Hoyle and his brother Hoyle, Sakuraba earns a new nickname, the Gracie Killer.
29:10He's not even the best pro wrestler in Japan, but he's still beating Gracie's.
29:15And he isn't done.
29:17By December of 2000, the Gracie Killer has added two more to his legend.
29:22Sakuraba was not just a fighter, but an athlete.
29:25The help of an athlete to be able to stand there, you know, take the punch and avoid the punch
29:29and give it back.
29:30A pro wrestler who beats four Gracie's, till this day, it's unheard of.
29:35It's something that nobody ever did.
29:38Sakuraba went through him like a knife through butter, yeah.
29:41Sakuraba's an amazing, amazing fighter.
29:45Oh, car wheel!
29:46He's like a precision surgeon.
29:49Looks like he broke his, dislocated the elbow.
29:51Twisted all the way around.
29:53But there is still one Gracie Sakuraba hasn't faced.
29:57The one who first launched Pride.
30:00The momentum for me to fight Sakuraba will start to building to the point was,
30:04I have the best approach to fight Sakuraba.
30:07And unfortunately, my son departed from this earth.
30:11Hickson Gracie's son, 19-year-old Hoxson Gracie, another promising young Gracie fighter,
30:17is found dead from a drug overdose in a New York City hotel room.
30:21Reeling from that tragic loss, Hickson cancels his fight with Sakuraba.
30:25To this day, it remains one of the biggest what-ifs in mixed martial arts.
30:32It was the fight I supposed to do and I didn't, because God didn't give it to me.
30:37I feel like it would be the biggest fight in my life and it didn't happen, so I have to
30:41live with that.
30:44Hickson, the man who helped kickstart an MMA revolution in Japan, never fights professionally again.
30:52The beginning of 1993, Gracie is the king.
30:57And that story changed because of the Pride and Sakuraba.
31:01If Mr. Sakuraba didn't emerge, I don't think Pride would ever continue.
31:06That's when the Pride took off to become a big brand name and became a big promotion.
31:13While Sakuraba helps clean up Pride's reputation around the legitimacy of its fights,
31:18there remains something nefarious in how the business operates.
31:22There was a guy there all the time with a baseball hat.
31:26I think he came up one time and he gave me, I think, like $5,000 US just for a
31:32good fight.
31:33People don't do that, you know? My spider senses were tingling.
31:38The man in the hat is Hiromichi Mimose, Pride's shadowy money man.
31:43And the company's roster of fighters know he could be their most dangerous opponent.
31:48He was somebody you didn't want to mess with.
31:52I feel the fighters were invited out to go and have dinner with these people, huh?
31:56Nobody has to tell you anything, you just know.
31:58These are the guys you're supposed to be happy and smile with.
32:01Don't matter if you don't want to, do all your guests and smile with that.
32:07Pride's mystery men expect the fighters to put on an even bigger show in the ring.
32:11And in the summer of 2002, organizers present a mind-blowing matchup that no other company would dare promote.
32:19They will deliver the intensity that we want.
32:30Former pro wrestler Kazushi Sakuraba uses his showmanship and submission skills to get Pride fighting championships off life support.
32:39Pride's revival is even attracting promising new American grapplers to the promotion.
32:44Mark Carr, Kevin Randallman, all those wrestling elite came to Japan at that time.
32:51Top U.S. wrestling guys actually competing in Japan.
32:55You have a guy like Quinton Jackson coming in and he's wearing a chain, but then he started just destroying
33:01people.
33:01Unbelievable!
33:02That's when you also saw that the foreigners start taking over the game.
33:06Ooh, they're gonna go here!
33:08Including former UFC champion Don Frye.
33:12On June 23rd, 2002, Pride presents Demolition with Don Frye vs. Japan's Yoshihiro Takayama as the main event.
33:21The 6'5", 275-pound Takayama towering over Frye is a modern-day David vs. Goliath, with the fans in
33:30attendance rooting for Goliath.
33:32I'm looking up at him, turned to read into his eyes, and finally I saw a little bit of doubt
33:40in there.
33:41Okay, I got you now, partner.
33:43Go!
33:43When the bell rings, Frye and Takayama wastes no time.
33:49Grabbing each other right at the scruff of the neck and then just went to pounding, you know.
33:53Just stood there and took it.
33:57Just trying to knock the head off the other guy.
34:02I'm gonna lose by hearing the crowd is so loud.
34:05We had such a good fight.
34:09Takayama looks like he's crying on Don Frye's shoulder here.
34:13Six minutes into the first round, Frye manages to take down the giant Takayama.
34:18The fight also goes down as one of the greatest in MMA history.
34:26We were walking through the hallway, and it's going to the bus, and Takayama comes out, and he looked like
34:34hell, you know.
34:35He broke, you know, three or four bones in his face.
34:39You know, he suffered physically, you know, from that fight.
34:43But, hell, that fight made him a hero.
34:46He said, Don, son, I'm sorry.
34:49I said, what for?
34:50It's for not giving you a good enough fight, you know.
34:53He said, you're crazy.
34:54You give me a better fight, you're gonna kill me.
34:56It was my best fight ever, and my best opponent ever, you know.
35:02God bless him.
35:06Two months later, on August 28th, 2002,
35:10Pride puts on an even more spectacular event called Shockwave.
35:17This pay-per-view battle royale pits fighters from Pride
35:21against those of its strongest competitor, the kickboxing promotion K1.
35:29It's a level of spectacle never before seen in modern combat sports.
35:35Pride at the time was a big event.
35:38Sensational, because they tried to make something unseen, you know, in terms of lights, in terms of show,
35:43size of the arenas, and the level of the fighters.
35:47The production value of Pride Fighting Championships is uncanny.
35:50I mean, it's the most insane thing.
35:52They had these guys on with huge drums.
35:57Boom!
35:58Boom!
35:59I was thinking at the time, I was thinking, holy shit.
36:01It was just a massive, massive thing.
36:05It was just incredible.
36:07Shockwave's opening ceremony features skydivers and a colossal Olympic-sized torch,
36:12lit by Helio Gracie and pro-wrestling god Antonio Inoki.
36:16With an estimated 91,000 spectators, it's the largest live audience in MMA history.
36:23It wasn't just a fight, you know, it was like the Super Bowl.
36:27And nobody leaves disappointed.
36:30Antonio Noguera, he fought Bob Sapp.
36:33Both Noguera brothers, you know, they were amazing.
36:37They came to win, that was the one thing they were determined to do.
36:42You saw Bob Sapp pick up one of the brothers and slam him down on his head.
36:48Slam him down on his head, almost broke his neck.
36:51You know, and Noguera, he kept fighting, and he came back and beat Bob.
36:57Vandley Silva's always great to watch.
37:00Vandley Silva, the ex-murderer, that's his nickname.
37:03Just a freak of nature.
37:06It's scary.
37:07Amazing things that some of those fighters pulled off.
37:11In the main event, K-1's Mirko Krokop faces off against Pride's favorite son, Sakuraba.
37:20And in a shock to Pride fans, Krokop beats the Gracie killer.
37:26Krokop's just like a robot.
37:29You know, he doesn't seem like he's natural.
37:33He's designed, you know, in a laboratory.
37:38Shockwave helps make 2002 Pride's most successful year.
37:42In January of 2003, Pride's chairman and co-founder, Naoto Morishita,
37:48holds an upbeat press conference where he expresses nothing but confidence in Pride's future.
37:53He'd come out and made the announcement of what their event schedule for 2003 was going to be.
37:59I'm Miro Mialtovich, and I was the most powerful fight manager and agent in the peak of Japanese fight industry.
38:07I'd heard they'd gone through a lot of difficult issues with their funders,
38:10and the fact that he'd made then the announcement of having their 2003 event schedule
38:16was seen as very positive and exciting news for Pride.
38:19But only a day later, a devastating reversal.
38:26Morishita, he was found dead in a hotel room at the Tokyo Hilton.
38:30He hung himself.
38:32What? Why? What's going on?
38:34Supposedly he was with his mistress or lover in the room and she disappeared very soon after that.
38:41People in the entertainment industry in Japan or in the gangster world, they will know that that has all the
38:48usual elements of basically a yakuza hit.
39:05Oh, man, that guy was a sweet guy. He was a sweetheart.
39:11He was a good man. And, um, you just could tell. He was, he was just, he was a great
39:16guy, man. I really liked that guy.
39:18Do you remember what you heard about his death?
39:20I heard that he, he died and, yeah, just that he died.
39:27Yeah.
39:28I kind of don't want to step on toes at all.
39:31So I'm trying to give you a story without stepping on the toes at the same time, but trying to
39:36give you what I know.
39:37Was he murdered?
39:39Um, I don't know. According to everybody else, yes. But for myself, I don't know. You know, I, it's hard
39:48to say. And not only that, you don't want to say on TV.
39:52For those aware of the shady characters working in the shadows at Pride, Naoto Morishita's death the day after his
39:59upbeat press conference is suspicious.
40:03But what authorities see is an open and shut case.
40:06The police concluded, it's just an accident. Who knows? Who knows? It's an accident, they say. It's a kinky, S
40:16&M stuff. That's what they say. And then by mistake, he hung himself.
40:23I don't know. I'm not sure.
40:26Do you believe that story?
40:27No, I don't.
40:35The Yakuza is Japan's homegrown crime syndicate. And while organized crime has been linked for decades to combat sports across
40:46the world, in Japan, the Yakuza is a multi-headed hydra with tendrils wrapped around many aspects of Japanese life.
40:54The mafia is involved in the coffee shop. The mafia is involved in the laundromat. The mafia is involved in
41:01the movie theater. They can do everything they want. They rule the city.
41:05Who's obviously a big part of the country. But for some reason, you're not supposed to admit it.
41:13It's very customary for a Yakuza, a mobster to be associated with the entertainment business. Every major Japanese record company,
41:24entertainment company hired ex Yakuza to be their executive so they can accommodate the Yakuza.
41:31And while there's no known link between Naoto Morishita and the Yakuza, following his death, Pride announces his successor will
41:39be the promotion's co-founder, Nobuyuki Sakakibara. And here, things get murky.
41:46Mr. Sakakibara was a businessman who was running Pride with Mr. Morishita. He was basically a number two of the
41:54company. So when Morishita passed away, it was natural for a number two guy to step up to the number
41:59one spot.
42:00But when Sakakibara assumes control, a new Yakuza family enters the picture.
42:07I sort of had this thing that the more you get involved in talking about all the Yakuza stuff, the
42:14more that you're going to have to be involved in that game.
42:17I mean, my policy was, I don't know anything about this, and I don't want to know.
42:24And then suddenly, I saw, you know, some sort of gangster war was about to happen in front of my
42:29eyes. It sort of, for me, it was just like, oh, this is just the shit that happens.
42:34And that gangster shit starts happening at a Pride event in November of 2003.
42:40Two groups of big Yakuza's were fighting. All these Yakuza's were in backstage calling shots or demanding something.
42:49That's when, I can't name names, the original Yakuza group who was backing the Pride got pushed over by a
42:57new group that came in with the new president.
43:02All right, now they're going to have a gang war in Tokyo Dome while their biggest event ever is being
43:08telecast on live TV.
43:09It's like, yeah, of course, Pride, that's what they're going to do, right?
43:13While Pride's future is now in the hands of Sakakibara, who denies any involvement with the Yakuza, by 2003, the
43:20company's legacy as a world-class fighting promotion is already assured.
43:25Pride fighting championships was the greatest thing on the planet. Before Sakakibara got involved in it, you know, it was
43:31a great place to work, a great place to do business, you know?
43:35Pride, from 1990s to early 2000, it's a golden era, first golden era of MMA. They did produce one of
43:42the best fights in history, one of the best tournaments in history.
43:49I think it left a profound impact on many MMA fans' minds.
43:55I think fans was hoping that Pride will continue.