Coming Overseas: A Story Of How U.S. MMA's Long Layoff Returned to Dominance

Mixed Martial Arts is a sport that is technically hundreds of years old, with its early origins in Greece known as Pankration it was seemingly lost to the world once the Christians reformed the Roman empire.

However, lost to the world the sport was something later picked up centuries later by a family known as the Gracies in the 1920's. The Gracies challenged all comers in all styles to challenge their own unique family style.

These competitions lasted for a long time but was mostly in isolated challenge in Brazil. However, with the advent of Japanese pro-wrestling many skilled grapplers became sick of staging worked matches and decided to create the Pancrase organization in 1993.

Essentially, Pancrase was considered "Hybrid Wrestling" and pitted some of the most skilled martial artists on the planet against one another.

Way across the Pacific Ocean in the U.S.A. the Gracie's returned with a fury only several months after the formation of Pancrase. It was here the world stage of competition between the U.S.A. and Japan was formed.

Both organizations the first of its kind, both battling for no-holds-barred supremacy, both with its unique and interesting rule systems.

Pancrase the less brutal of the two offered a rule system where open handed strikes were only allowed to the face, ring escapes similar to pro-wrestling was allowed, and a muay thai style shin pads had to be worn.

The UFC chose the opposite approach, Rorion Gracie and Art Davie the creators built an organization of where anything goes and death was a very real possibility. With only a few gentleman rules in place: no eye gouging, fish hooking, and hair pulling; besides that there was nothing off limits.

The UFC dominated as the international organization for these mixed fight competitions, taking all the credit for creating mixed martial arts and reaping all the benefits.

The best fighters of the Pancrase organization wanted a piece of the pie and many of them got themselves that nice big piece.

Ken Shamrock was the first to come over from Pancrase he fought well and showed his skill over all the rest, but there was always Royce Gracie. Soon followed many other good Pancrase fighters like Guy Mezger, Bas Rutten, Frank Shamrock, and Semmy Schilt all being extremely successful.

The brutality of the UFC though is not only what made the sport but actually destroyed it as well. The enormous popularity drew immediate attention from politicians and nervous moms stating that it was human cock fighting.

Leading this fight was former Republican presidential nominee John McCain, who had noted ties to boxing sponsors.

Campaign against MMA single handily banned it in 36 states, these were the dark days of the UFC.

The sport fell into a slump having to plan shows in smaller venue states like Indiana, and on various Indian reservations. With a dying franchise the UFC found it more and more difficult to pay their super star fighters.

In enters Japan with a new rising force behind the MMA scene known as RINGS. RINGS had been a Japanese pro-wrestling circuit since 1991 but later switched its focus to MMA. Attracting many good UFC fighters away from its homeland to come and fight where pay was steady and fights were often.

Some of the fighters to make the jump to RINGS where noted UFC stars: Randy Couture, Jeremy Horn, Enson Inoue, and Matt Hughes.

The RINGS popularity waned and a new better, and much improved organization known as Pride FC was born in 1997. Attracting many fighters away from RINGS some of the old UFC vanguard returned but some went overseas to fight in this new organization.

Fighters, Mark Coleman joined the team along with Kevin Randelman and several others. PRIDE was offering bigger pay outs, better recognition amongst the Japanese fans, and competition from all across the globe.

However, the UFC was not out of the fight game and was slowly but steadily creeping back to the forefront of MMA dominance.

With the purchase of the UFC by  Zuffa in 2001 a series of reforms began taking place under president Dana White's leadership to move it back into rivalry with boxing in the U.S.

PRIDE continued its success and continued its tradition of high production values, and international brand appeal. In 2000 they held their first Grand Prix and former UFC tournament champion Mark Coleman took the prize.

However, it wasn't until around 2005 that Dana White's efforts finally payed off, with the success of a UFC clip show on SPIKE TV a new deal was inked for 2006 with the television network.

The biggest factor in contributing to major U.S. recognition of MMA in the new millennium came in the form of a reality TV show. The Ultimate Fighter launched several successful careers for future mixed martial artists, and made it an easily accessible avenue for fans to jump into the sport.

With the UFC seeing major U.S. success Japan began to run into some snags. Rumors were abound that PRIDE had ties to Japanese Yakuza- the mob.

PRIDE lost cable deals, and many of their sponsors, this of course was a major blow and PRIDE found itself losing money fast.

Finally in 2007, a now bankrupt PRIDE FC was Acquired by the Fertitta's, the owners of the UFC. Creating the organization PRIDE World Wide, the Fertitta's promised  PRIDE-UFC cross promotions but instead buried the once popular organization.

The UFC had successfully eliminated the most popular MMA organization in the world, and forced several jobless fighters to either seek retirement or employment else where.

Many fighters had options to fight for the UFC and many choose to go someplace else. With claims of reduced pay and UFC exclusive contracts only a few choose to make a new home in the U.S.

Some saw success and some did not, fighters like Anderson Silva, Quinton Jackson, Fabricio Werdum and  Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira for a brief period saw some success.

However, some where not so fortunate namely Wanderlei Silva who has tasted defeat twice in the walls of the Octagon. Several other under card fighters made the UFC cut but time ran short for them; guys like Donojonosuske Mishima, and Marcus Aurelio.

With PRIDE fighters spread to the far corners of the world MMA scene, the U.S. became the premier country for MMA competition. Organizations like Elite XC, WEC, Bodog fight,WFA, IFL, and Strikeforce sprung up, and many were disbanded or bought by the UFC after less than a year of business.

International fight talent found themselves forced to come to the U.S.; the call of fame and fortune where becoming to great for they're pride and respect.

The UFC has become powerful enough to control the market of the sport within the U.S. preventing many companies from seeing the light of day.

However, the UFC slowly began to alienate fighters and people where either fired or decided to move to new organizations.

Across the Pacific Japanese  businessmen began creating organizations to replace PRIDE and combat the UFC these organizations are: Sengoku and DREAM FC. However, neither one of these organizations have been able to catch the spark of the Japanese public and MMA viewership has been on a decline. 

Affliction opened their doors in 2008 to the world of MMA and is looking to be the rivalry the UFC hasn't had in over two years. With its first show being incredibly successful, attracting many top veterans and paying the highest overall U.S. purse to its fighters.

But now instead of a East vs. West rivalry their is only the West vs. the West. UFC has reclaimed its dominance, and shifted the international attention from Japan back to the United States.