One of my best friends trained with Vale for a short period while he was in college in Florida. He said Vale had very limited skill, BUT he put full force in everything he did. He left after like 3 months and had tapped Vale EVERYTIME they rolled before he left. He said he only saw Vale tapping either total newbies or much, much smaller opponents.
Jarvis
Didn't Din Thomas originally train in Vale's organization?
I can't remember the org... but I was on their mailing list, which had some shootfighting info, and a technique page. It had Bart show the "catch the leg, sweep the other leg, drop into an ankle lock" that everyone knows.
I don't remember the MTV spot, but he did have a spot in Sports Illustrated waaaay back talking about Shootfighting in Japan, how he was brought in because of his size and martial arts background, and how his name was "SUPER NINJA!" when he pro-wrestled in America.
What was the deal with Tracy Kempo anyways? They had some interesting ads..
Max
Honestly, I can't think of many 270 pound guys that are highly skilled. The best teachers are usually lighter weight.
Bart Vale has a very old school closed minded mentality, which, in my opinion, goes against the concept of shootfighting. Not to mention that he trademarked the term shootfighting! That's BS, like trademarking the word Karate or Boxing!
When I lived in Miami I tained with Gus Parrera who is one of Bart's instructors. I never had the "pleasure" to train with Vale, but I wasn't impressed with what I saw of him in extreme fighting. On the other hand Gus was pretty cool and always manged to get you in a good heel hook or leg lock, he also had some pretty crazy neck cranks that he'd get you with.
Dan Severn beat Vale into a bloody mess.
Murakami Kazunari is has always had alot of potential but has never really trained it. Its kind of sad.
I always thought Vale had a good idea and concept for a system, but was just too hung-up on his days in Japan doing triple kicks and airplane spins. Seriously, some of the things he was doing were just plain WACK.
I was a huge UWFi fan and their matches were at least 10X better than Gumi's. At least Takada and Albright made for believable badasses.
Vale would likely get a lot more respect if he'd just own up to his old fights being works. Again, I don't think anyone is questioning his "vision" so much as him personally.
"Back then, the only other place to train in Miami was with Conan Silviera, and he is even worse than Bart Vale was!"
worse than vale? lets hear it
"Back then, the only other place to train in Miami was with Conan Silviera, and he is even worse than Bart Vale was!"-
I'd like to hear more too. Conan is a legit BJJ black belt, and I believe even beat Mo Smith after Mo Smith beat him.
I never heard or saw Conan beat Mo smith and I used to buy every freakin taped event under the sun......
Mo BEAT Conan.
They had a rematch in 1999 in which Conan won, it was in the WEF.
I didn't know that. Is it a good fight?
Mo beat Conan. Years later they fought in another event (can't remember the name). I think Conan submitted Mo. Don't remember the sub but I think it was a kimura.
The Conan/Mo rematch was in WEF 7 I believe. I saw the fight once, and all I remember is Conan winning by arm triangle.
Really interesting about conan, besides, didn't he just got busted this year for some drug related problems?
Slapsymaxi: I saw the mtv ad, he caugth a kick that was trowed to his face whit his hands and turned it into a achiles hold and tapped the guy it seamed really good and legit back then.
JarvisKolen: what had your friend trained before going to bart's and what leve was he?
Fabio
How about the seminar where he's demonstrating the technique of the achilles lock on some poor schmuck, everyone's watching, for dramatic effect he CRANKS it and arches hard while showing the technique, and POP... "AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!" goes the guy he was using to demonstrate on.
LOL what a master.
Conan got royally fucked. He got caught with over 1mill of Extacy and like 500k cash in his place. Him and a few of his friends are gunna get put away for a while.
I Know a few ppl who have trained with Vale and said he sucks. I watched him fight some guy who weighed like 150lbs in some old event and he even looked like shit against him.
The guy had no trained and was out weighted. All Vale did was lay on him.
I used to fight in old SHootfighting events that Vale pu ton in Miami back in '97 or so. The first time any of my friends weould see him walking around all tough they would laugh their asses off. The mullet and 70s porn mustache were great.
His best student was Martin Vila and he ankle locked everyone. His other students would be trying to keylock guys while they were mounted and trying to reach around guillotine while in someones guard.
FabioVargas: At the time he was just a purple belt in BJJ who wanted to do something else as I had gotten him into Submission Wrestling/Shootfighting by taking him to train at the Lions Den.
Jarvis
Martin Vila will be fighting Obake in February if all goes well...