It’s a long thread, but absolutely worth the read. First hand info from a guy who was there from day 1.
Just really savage training. Everyone [presumably] juiced up and always going 100% or close to it. Stories of Frank Shamrock being the bottom guy in the totem pole. Stories of early UFCs and Pancrase.
This was a good one:
It was when Suzuki went to Australia to try out papadupalus, he had just won some big jj tournament. Suzuki rolled with him kinda just to see how he moved. Papadupalus went for broke and choked Suzuki out. So when I was fighting papadupalus Suzuki came to my dressing room and I still had just my neoprene knee sleeves on to not get raspberries from the mat. Suzuki told me leave those on and don’t put on the knee pads and go out there and really hurt him bad. So in the end I knocked him out with a Liver punch,broke 2 ribs and beat him up. For me to be turned absolutely loose in Pancrace was a dream come true and I made the best of it.
He wasn’t exaggerating. Those rib shots are nasty.
We went down and trained with the Lions Den in San Diego (whales vagina) a couple of times. A lot of conditioning and guys that went old school hard. The hardest part was the conditioning.
Imagine if those guys weren’t constantly in a state of brain trauma/recovery. They might have succeeded more in their pro fights. Being tough is one thing. Being dumb and tough is not conducive to longevity.
Exactly. I’m smart enough to know training that causes injuries and ACTING like an alpha douche mouth breather is counterproductive to meeting/sustaining goals. (Proceed to argue while it’s a fact half these guys are dead and the other half are physically decrepit now).
It’s interesting to watch, as Papadopoulos had a huge grappling advantage, (Bessac admits that he dislikes grappling and doesn’t know it well) and Pancrase rules didn’t allow closed fists strikes standing.
Bessac managed to get the W through sheer toughness and brute strength.