Go back to when Uno vs Sato happened for the Shooto LW title in 99

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Uno and Sato fought for the Shooto WW title in 99 at the 10th anniversary show but we will call it LW here for simplicity’s sake as WW was 154 lbs in Shooto. So Yuki Nakai was the Shooto LW champ in 95 and relinquished the title when he retired because of the whole eye losing thing from Vale Tudo Japan.

Shooto didn’t hold another LW title fight until Uno fought Sato.

Uno beat Sato and it was pretty big deal and hailed as one of the most technical fights up that point in MMA history. It was still two years away from Uno vs Pulver for the first UFC 155 lb (BW at the time) title fight.

So in 99, Uno, Sato, Edwards, Thomas, Gomi, Pederneiras, Cordeiro, Pulver, Royler, John Lewis and a few other Brazilians, Japanese and Americans were having some LW fights, mainly in Shooto but most of those mentioned fighters didn’t even have ten fights the time. Uno was 8-2 and Sato was 13-2 when they fought in 99 but they were really the most experienced LWs in the world at the time in terms of professional bouts. Din for example was 5-0 when he fought Uno in Uno’s next fight after beating Sato. Pederneiras, Cordeiro and Royler barely had any pro bouts. Pulver was 3-1 in Sep of 99 when he fought Alcaraz in the first ever UFC 155 lb fight at UFC 22. He beat Joe Stevenson at the Bas Rutten Invitational to get that UFC fight.

At any rate, I was looking at how much the Bellator LW talent pool has grown the past couple years and I started thinking of 1999 when the LW division really started to get moving with that Uno vs Sato title fight at the 10th anniversary show. I just remember what a big deal was made of that Uno vs Sato fight and the 10th anniversary show as a whole.

Sakurai, Newton, Hughes, Abe, Gono, Menne, Hallman etc… all fought on that 10th anniversary card. Like UFC 33, Victory in Vegas two years later, the Shooto 10th show was not a very exciting event compared to others, overall.

A lot of us watched a replay of Uno vs Sato in 99 and it just seems crazy we are about to watch Oliveira vs Makhachev in 2022 and within the division the talent pool has grown to an incomprehensible degree. Shooto had like twelve events that year but a lot of them were small with only 5-6 fights and they had weights below 154 lbs and above so its not like there were even that many LW fights.

Not just in MMA but in all sports globally, no talent pool has grown more compared to 99 than the LW talent pool.

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Uno is 5’7 and Sato is 5’6 while Pulver is 5’7 and Din is 5’9 if you want to get an idea of just how much more weight LWs are cutting today vs back then.

Just learned Pulver actually took a fight at 125 lbs in Texas in 2012 before he finished his career at 135 lbs in ONE.

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Jimmy was right about Charles Taylor changing his name.I was on Charles nuts when he was in the IFC.Charles changed his name to Charles Diaz,but he was also known as Charles Marshall.

Charles is who Sato hit the flying armbar on.To Charles credit…it was his first fight.

Charles was also on the forum for awhile.

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That armbar was mind blowing at the time. It was to me anyway watching some crude video clip as a teenager.

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Back in 1999,I was friendly with Charles,and use to chat with him at IFC events.I jokingly called him 680 because he was from San Jose (680 is a freeway in San Jose)

He had a bad reputation of going from gym to gym without paying.

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Looking at Generated Historical Fightmatix LW rankings will give you a pretty good idea of how the division has exploded over the past 23 years.

1999- 9 fighters ranked
2001- 33 fighters ranked
2003-91 fighters ranked
2005- 173 fighters ranked
2010- 620 fighters ranked
2022-750 fighters ranked

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If you were to look outside the current top 25 fightmatrix ranked LWs and look at the guys ranked 25-50 it gives you a sense of how deep the division is in 2022.

Fighters not even ranked top 25:
Current Bellator champ Patricky Pitbull
Current PFL finalist Stevie Ray
24-1 and 6-0 in UFC Ismagulov
12-0 Mark Madsen
Ben Henderson who is coming off a win over 22-2 Mamedov
Kutateladze who two fights ago beat Gamrot who is one or two wins away from UFC title shot.

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But yet Dana feels there is no needs for the thousands and thousands of ranked and unranked fighting men to have three belts to compete for at 55, 65 and 75 but he needed to create a Women’s 145 lb division for Cyborg who then left for Bellator while UFC can’t even find 10 good FW women to sign for their failed division.