Not to mention, we’d have all been at school The next day, going on and on about how they didn’t let Kung fu or Karate guys because they’d obviously have KO’d the pajama-wrestlers.
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The young guys growing up with the later UFC’s don’t realize it was a completely different world before UFC1. No one had any idea what style would be superior. Wrestling and BJJ were not even on the menu of possibilities.
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Also, maybe it was set up for bjj to win, but not so much that they’d even sent their best bjj fighter. They sent one of their lightest and youngest.
In the 80’s, everyone knew a guy that was a BB in karate and nobody dared mess with them.
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that’s why i loved it. as a wrestler i knew wrestling would dominate. bjj screwed that up for a little while though.
I think he could have definitely beat a few guys
Except skinny BJJ guy had probably already fought a bunch of big, jacked, roided-up wrestler-brawlers behind close doors and knew what he was getting into.
Ken, by his own admission, didn’t.
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Let’s think about this for a moment. The UFC knew they weren’t getting any of the top name guys simply by the fact they had no real money to offer.
But saying they did becomes part of the marketing ie. The fighters that did show up answered the call. But the reality is they were specifically scouted as well.
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The choke itself wasn’t illegal?
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Who was the other commentator in the early UFC who had actually trained with the Gracie’s and had a clue about what was going on? I can’t remember his name. He came off as kind of a know it all. I think Jim Brown yelled at him once.
The early UFC was kind of like watching a slow motion car crash, because you really didn’t know what would happen. I think a lot of people were waiting for some Tibetan warrior monk to hear about this and come kick everyone’s ass. I think once we got to like UFC 7 or 8, most people who followed it had a good idea about who would win usually.
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I find it highly doubtful that the Gracie’s were intimidated by Don Wilson. With all due respect to a legitimately great kickboxer, why would they be afraid of Don but not Ken Shamrock or Gordeau, Pat Smith or Tui, who were all bigger threats in an NHB setting?
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This continued until Machida won the title and never ends
They should have offered him the million dollars lol and see what kind of excuse he would make up. If he did take the fight the publicity would have easily made them that money back..
Or Killed them… 
Wrestling wasn’t even looked at as a Martial Art. Only those of us who had ever wrestled and gotten in a street fight knew how effective it really was.
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Right. I was just talking about general public perception.
As a teen I took a little bit of American JuiJitsu before UFC1. There was no ground work at all. It was mostly redirecting the opponent and joint locks. Basically aikido
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The purse for the whole tournament was 50k
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I think some Judo Olympians would have done it but at the time it was new and seemed like a seedy thing with no international implications.
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