Working on this right now:
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Bas did the best backstage interviews.
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Hilarious and charismatic, that Bas.
One of my biggest inspirations
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New article is up!
This one talks about a few squash matches made over the years. Hint: Ken Shamrock is in it.
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THATS
What Im Talkin Bout Willis
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In January of 1995, Pancrase found a lamb and slapped it on a platter for Shamrock to feast on. He was a training partner of Bas Rutten, who Ken had two wins over, and was coming into this matchup as an 0-1 professional, with his sole fight being a loss to Vernon White by heel hook. Now Vernon White was a good fighter who was probably closer to being a natural middleweight, and he was fighting guys much bigger than him, who (almost) all had a grappling or wrestling background. He also churned out some solid wins in his career, including a later win over Dave Terrell. All this to say that while White was a pretty good fighter at the time, if youâre losing to him on the ground by heel hook, youâre probably not ready for The Worldâs Most Dangerous Man. There was nothing to suggest that the fight between Ken Shamrock and Leon Van Dijk should have been made, other than they needed to make a fight and it needed to make their star look good, so it was made, and boy did Ken Shamrock look good.
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Bas Rutten has since described Leon as his âmain training partnerâ in the 90s and has also alluded to Leon being an utra-tough and violent guy, presenting him as a loose cannon who got into many fights on the streets of Holland. All of that aside, Leon comes from a Dutch kickboxing background, which he displayed well against Vernon, pressuring him and forcing him to look for a takedown. On the ground he displayed rudimentary defense, something that would be eaten alive by Ken Shamrock, ultimately fleecing Leon. Heel hook was a specialty of Shamrock and he was one of the most feared groundfighters in the world, taking the feet of many poor souls and twisting them into oblivion. The contest would last less than five minutes. When the action started, Leon opened with a low kick, to which Ken countered brilliantly with a PIVOT-SIDESTEP-LEFT HOOK. UFC FIGHTERS, ARE YOU TAKING NOTES? Shamrock easily takes Van Dijk down. From here itâs clear Leon has done his homework: Heâs clasping his hands together to prevent an armlock, something we saw him do against Vernon White. While Shamrock is distracted trying to break that grip, Leon would either pull Kenâs head down close his own chest, or sweep one of Kenâs legs to stop him from standing up (which Ken needs to do in order to roll for a leg lock). Despite this, Ken gets ahold of Leonâs left leg anyways, but gets overzealous and doesnât control Leonâs hips. Van Dijk uses this to his advantage and briefly gets top position, which Ken reverses. After narrowly escaping a kneebar with a rope escape, a tired Van Dijk is taken down again, and this process is repeated again and again as Van Dijk gradually gets worn down by the grinding pressure of Shamrock, until Ken easily steps over into full mount. Shamrock gets ahold of Leonâs left leg again and rolls into a heel hook, turning his foot and squeezing with his left arm to hold it in place. The silence of the crowd is broken with a verbal tap of âAHHHH! AHHHHH! AH SHIT!â coming from Van Dijk, his desperate cries met with concern from the ring officials. Leon Van Dijk was in serious pain. With almost no strikes landed and most of his time spent being dominated on the ground, four minutes and forty-five seconds proved Leon Van Dijk had nothing for Ken Shamrock, and suffered a broken ankle for his troubles. It was clear this fight shouldnât have happened to begin with. In a 2015 interview, Ken talked a bit about the heel hook, saying he didnât purposely use unnecessary force:
âThe reason why that one happened was because when I put that on, it was cross-body, and he laid backwards. And when he laid backwards it had put more pressure on his heel, and I was sitting up and I went backwards- and it was just one of those things that happened. I would never try to hurt anybody on purpose, especially at the level that he was at. Like I told you, I even talked to Leon Dijk and Bas Rutten before that, and I made it really clear- Iâm not gonna go in and beat this guy up- heâs a young kid, he doesnât know anything- and so that was not my intention.â
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Fights like this one eventually led to Pancrase banning heel hooks, which led to fighters using ankle locks and other hold modifications to âtoe-tagâ their opponents and make them tap (or hurt them). I will acknowledge that getting thrown to the wolves thirty years ago is a lot different from being a sacrificial lamb now. Back then, there werenât a ton of fighters on the professional circuit, and making fights between two closely matched guys could be extraordinarily difficult, and sometimes nearly impossible. Nowadays itâs much easier to fill up a card, as generally there are lots of fighters on the regionals waiting for their big shot, guys in between fights who need to make more money, or just want to take a fight because they are getting ancy. In the 90s there was a general sense of toughness and desperation, with a lot of men becoming professional fighters out of pure necessity, or because fighting was the only path that stood between jail and death. Were there better or more competitive matchups available for Ken that night? Sure. Of the Pancrase roster, Shamrock never fought Jason DeLucia, who had wins over both Suzuki and Funaki, and Shamrock was never matched up with Vernon White, a longtime Pancrase veteran. Regardless, Leon Van Dijk became another victim of the Ken Shamrock heel hook that night.
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By 2005, weâd seen almost everything. We saw Kevin Randleman knock out Mirko Cro Cop and then Cro Cop submit Randleman with a guillotine, in a surrealist picture that only Japanese MMA could paint. We saw football-player-turned-unskilled-real-life-Blanka Bob Sapp knockout one of the best heavyweight kickboxers, Ernesto Hoost, TWICE. We had seen the rise of fighters like Wanderlei Silva, Fedor Emelianenko, and Kazushi Sakuraba - the latter of which this next fighter has a win over. His name is Kiyoshi Tamura. Kiyoshi was a professional wrestler-turned-fighter, whoâs MMA career was born out of the desire to test himself in an actual fist fight. Following the demise of Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF) in 1990, Tamura turned to its successor, Union of Wrestling Forces International (UWFi). In 1992 he trained under Lou Thesz, who sharpened his wrestling skills, and helped him become the best wrestler in UWFi. After participating in two shootfights (real fights), the wheels started turning and by 1995, he was unsatisfied with the direction of professional wrestling, wanting to participate in real contests, not predetermined works. After negotiations with Pancrase and RINGS, Kiyoshi Tamura made his RINGS debut in 1996. He would collect a record of 26-11-3 by 2005 and defeat the likes of Maurice Smith, Pat Smith, Dave Menne, Pat Miletich, Renzo Gracie, Jeremy Horn, and Valentijn Overeem. He even fought to a draw with Frank Shamrock (who was in the middle of a massive win streak). Tamura was the former 2x RINGS Openweight Champion. These arenât the wins of a bad or even decent fighter, this a resume far beyond that of your average Japanese jobber. Although so far Tamura hadnât had the best luck in PRIDE, having been matched up against Wanderlei Silva and Bob Sapp in his first two fights.
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At PRIDE 29, Kiyoshi Tamura met a man named Aliev Makhmud. Let me just preface this by saying we donât know much about Makhmud. What we do know about him is that he is a multiple time Azerbaijan Freestyle Wrestling Champion, and became the face of wrestling in the Eastern European country for a period of time in the mid 2000s. We can assume PRIDE promised him a lot of money for a last minute fight against Kiyoshi Tamura, and aside from that, Makhmud is an enigma. The fact that Aliev was NOT a professional fighter and had never fought before makes this one of the worst squash matches in MMA history (and worse than Tamura having to fight Wanderlei Silva in his PRIDE debut, but thatâs another story). Aliev Makhmud is introduced as 5â7ââ, 187 pounds. He is 35 years old, and conveniently described as âmaking his debut in PRIDE Fighting Championshipsâ⌠And yet, during fighter announcements, Aliev appears remarkably calm for somebody in a ring for the first time in front of over 22,000 fans, almost like he thinks this is a huge wrestling match (and is wearing wrestling-style shorts). Makhmud comes out in a square stance, hands down, feinting and jumping at Tamura from 8 feet away without coming close to touching him, like a 6 year old boy who just got let out of a dog kennel. Aliev bullrushes Tamura and gets him up against the ropes, landing two decent short punches, which may have been the most significant thing he did the entire fight. Once they are separated Makhmud lunges in again, and eats a nice punching combination from Tamura. I will say that I was impressed with at Makhmudâs reaction to taking punches, he didnât seem to mind them all that much, and it didnât stop him from trying to close the distance and wrestle. Once the bulldog calmed down, Tamura walked into range and slammed him with a middle round kick or low kick, watching and waiting for more unusual tactics from Aliev.
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