Bill Wallace
American martial artist and former kickboxer
Is this who you’re thinking of?
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To the common American…yup Wrasslin was Moon Dog Mane and Andre The Giant.
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I miss the “Wild West” like feeling the old tournaments had.
I’m amazed some semi-evil rich fucks haven’t started a NHB tournament league in some seedy Eastern Euro country. NHB, no weight class, no testing, no time limits. Tap, give up, knockout, or towel is the only way it ends.
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No it was some other guy. Wasn’t Wallace the guy who burped loudly when they did the intro at the first UFC?
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In the 80’s? I’m pretty damn sure @Dioxippus and @Thrill_Hammer know a guy.
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The tooth kicker eye gouger guy was legit dangerous for a karate guy. He pissed Royce off with the eye gouge so he kept the choke on longer.
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I am a fan of don the dragon Wilson as he was a truly great kickboxer with decent wrestling ability. That said, I remember him saying that he had been in around 100 street fights and didn’t lose any of them and wasn’t taken down once 
Royce Gracie fought a bunch of credible opponents in his UFC run, who went on the have solid careers.
It wasnt like he was fighting handpicked bums like ‘Bad’ Bud Smith and some random Padball guy in Japan.
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Was Blatnik a pro wrestler? Did you mean to write that? If he was actually a pro wrestler, it’s news to me.
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Solid point but do you feel ufc promoters purposefully kept out any fighters that could have beaten Royce? Again I’m talking about when the gimmick was style vs style? If so, who were these guys they kept out?
Sure the fighters were scouted as they wanted entertainment but they also did try to get the best shoot boxers, kickboxers and karate guys to my knowledge .. again I don’t think they ever refused to let certain grapplers into the show
Just checked…he was never a pro wrestler.
Corrections made to my Blatnik and Babaloo posts,
I have met him and he’s an intimidating dude physically. But couldn’t have been nicer.
I figured it was just a clerical error. I hate that the term “pro wrestler” is such a different thing than a person who practices wrestling as their career. It’s so stupid.
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They ran a small show in Colorado with low pay. They didn’t need to exclude guys like Rob Kaman and Branko Cikatić.
The prize money for the inaugural 1993 K-1 World Grand Prix was $100,000 USD****. [1, 2]
Croatian fighter Branko Cikatić won this first-ever tournament—held on April 30, 1993, at the Tokyo Dome in Japan—by knocking out Ernesto Hoost.
At the inaugural UFC 1 event in 1993, the tournament winner, Royce Gracie, was awarded $50,000 in prize money
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I remember when they banned practitioners of the Fetal Fighting arts. Many disagreed with that decision, but I didn’t. Many did though.
They had the purse set at how much the financial backers were willing to pay.. $50k was a nice payout for a single night of work in 1993.. the ufc was holding its first event so it had to start somewhere - you really think if they offered double or triple that that the top kickboxers would take it and join the tournament? I sure don’t
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Yeah. A prime Karelin would have pissed all over pretty much everyone at UFC 1 just on size and explosive power.
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If they offered more than k1 they might have and they could have legitimately said they tried to get the best.
Probably