funkywb,
So what did your whole wrestling team think when a skinny little Royce Gracie beat Severn?
Thanks.
Prof.
We didn't get to see the end because the PPV cut out 10 minutes into the match. When we heard the results, however, our reaction was the same as the rest of the world...."WTF?".
Royce sparked the interest and solidified it when he beat Kimo. Lost interest and then Belfort came along.
UFC 4 was the first one I ever watched. My dad use to train in judo and I remember him telling me "jiu jitsu is kind of like judo, so the Gracie guy will probably win". Little did we know what Gracie Jiu jitsu was or what it would become to be. I became hooked on it ever since. It's funny because I was just a young kid when I first saw it and none of my friends had ever heard of it. I was hooked though and rented all the video's blockbuster had to offer. I contiued to watch all the UFC's I could on pay per view and never even knew about this forum until about early last year. It's kind of cool to know there are other fans as enthusiastic about the sport as me.
The crazines and unpredictibility of the early UFC's, Jeff Blatnick and Bruce Beck.
UFC 1
Like the originator of this thread, I saw the ads for UFC 1 and ordered the PPV. My cable box screwed up, so I ended up seeing the replay, rather than the live event. So some of you have been fans for three hours longer than I have.
UFC 1 wasn't what I expected at all. I imagined something like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, with people frozen in the air doing fancy jump kicks and stuff. I basically imagined it looking like the pages of black belt magazine.
Saw the first couple ufcs. Loved it, but didn't follow it. Then I started training BJJ and still didn't really watch it, til Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock. Now I watch them all.
A best friend of my son's kept bringing over tapes he had copied from the PPV's. How I wanted to strangle James Lopez for introducing them to that crap.... my front & backyard become an octagon to many unknowing & sometimes unwilling participants. My beautiful grass covered with thick layers of old padding & carpet for the "wrestling" events.
I even banned him from bringing the tapes to the house, explaining I wasn't going to have a death on my property. Knowing that soon as I'd leave, out the tapes would come & it was "on" & then back to normal, except for a few bloody noses by the time I got home. (very inventive excuses were given for them).
The day after graduation, my middle son starts packing up & informs me he's on his way to become an Ultimate Fighter who will fight on PPV someday. Being miles away from any big cities & knowing he had never driven out of the small desert area, and remembering all the times when he was 6 & wanted to run away from home, he'd ask me to go cause he didn't know his way around very well.....
Threatening him didn't work, crying didn't work, he had his mind set, so I figured he'd get lost on the 6 hour trip, call & we'd go get him. Instead he called to say he made it.
Being 17 & realizing he "knew it all" cause he had countless times informed me since he was 6, he hit different places with no luck, having only enough money to last a few days, I still had hope he'd show up back home starving (cause he could eat more than anyone I've ever seen without exploding afterwards) & ready to get a job.
He stuck notes under the doors of the places not open, leaving his name, cell number & what he wanted to learn. Someone finally called him. Then about 6 months later, I'm invited to watch him get massacred (what I thought).
So I started looking up stats of deaths in the sport so I could convince him of the dangers while I consoled him after he was mangled. I couldn't even find any serious injuries! First thing I noticed was the sportsmanship between them. And I saw way more blood in my own yard from their "proving who was tuffer that day" matches!
So, not only did the mangling not happen, but I was yelling & jumping up & down so much during the fights, I couldn't speak any louder than a squeak for a week!
Here I am, totally hooked on MMA. Talk about a backfire....... sheesh.
my cousin Rory got me into the sport after one Christmas when he told me this crazy ass story of how he went to Iowa to check out MFS. He told me how he was just doing thenormal workouts and shit that they do and then he told me when he was brought downstairs and met Hughes, Horn, Pulver...all those guys. So he trained all day and it was an unreal expieriance. The story is a bit longer but Pat and the boys brought Rory so some local fight night thing going around with amateur fighters...What Rory didnt know is that he was going to be fighting that night! He didnt know what to do but he knew he had to prove himself so he said yeah lets go. He ended up knocking the shit out of the guy he faced, I heard that he sent him thru the ropes knocked out cold. And ever since then hes been training at MFS and fighting for the past 2 years. He has a 4-1 record and I havent missed one of his fights and won't ever miss one of his fights. Ive ever since been obsessed with the sport.
TBidness
cool stories guys.....keep em coming
Momita has my vote for the coolest mom EVA!! Great story!
UFC 3 was the first UFC I saw and I thought it was cool as hell and wanted to watch everyone since and competition started last Saturday and I plan on fighting more and more.
"Gary Goodridge KO'ing Paul Herera w/ Elbows in UFC8."
Saw it before but that got me hooked.
1)Bloodsport (the movie)- Van Dam vs. Bolo Young (sp?)
2)Ken Shamrock
3)Royce
4)Royce again
5)Fucking Royce ...
I had always been into grappling, read grappling mag, heard about jiujitsu, wanted to do it. My dad told me it was similar to judo, after giving up on finding a bjj place (this was in 1997 in toronto) I started in judo.
I would watch mma highlights on sherdog but thats about it. Until i heard about Royce X Yoshida. Judo vs. Jiujitsu. I started watching at that point. Here and there.
I also saw one of the UFCs where tony dasouza guillotined some guy. That was hella cool.
After i quit judo i took up bjj.
Everybody at my club seemed really into mma, saw a few ppvs. Liked it.
To be honest im not into mma and regularly miss ppvs. I love it, but I'm not obsessed with it - probably cuz I havnt started striking.
Grappling will always be my #1
The clash of styles was the biggest drawcard, and apart from the talent, skill and heart on display, it's still the big thing for me.
I wont say the brutal destructions didn't have appeal though, that was fun too, but much less interesting for me these days.