The Strange Case of Yoshinori Nishi

Yoshinori Nishi squares off with Rickson Gracie at Vale Tudo Japan 1994

Despite being a pretty big fan of Rickson Gracie, I never actually bothered to watch Vale Tudo Japan '94. I saw the highlights. I saw Rickson dominated and figured that was the whole story. I did watch Vale Tudo Japan '95 not long after it made its way through the tape traders market and fell in love with the "aura" and mystique that was BJJ after having mostly been something of a Pancrase/Shoot/Catch devotee.

I always knew about VTJ '94 though. I knew the names Bud Smith, David Levicki and Yoshinori Nishi better than some of my second cousins. I knew Smith and Levicki were mostly unheralded and had come from traditional martial arts (Levicki having previously fought in UFC 2). Nishi was another story.

I've read varying accounts stating that Nishi was either a judoka with a direct lineage to Masahiko Kimura or a karateka of some note in Japan. Some sources list him as a "Daidojuku champion," which was a sort of proto-mixed martial arts. His age is also something of a question as there are sources that say he was at a very advanced age when he faced Rickson, but it seems his birth year was 1955, which is not that far off from Rickson's own of 1958. He had won the Lumax Cup Tournament of J in 1994, which was another sort of proto-MMA event that served as a launching point for other stars of Japanese MMA such as Sanae Kikuta and Tsuyoshi Kohsaka.

In any case, Nishi, bringing whatever skills he had with him, faced off with Rickson and was dispatched fairly quickly. He did defend fairly admirably from his back using an early prototype of Eddie Bravo's celebrated lockdown until he tried to bridge and ended up mounted, getting pummeled and choked.

Shortly thereafter, Nishi went on to found his own hybrid style called Wa-jutsu which was sort of a blend of judo, catch, wrestling and some jiu jitsu elements. Students of this style included Caol Uno, Yushin Okami and K-Taro Nakamura, all of whom have had decent MMA careers and have really carried the banner for Japanese grappling over the years.

Much as Rickson's defeat of Yuki Nakai in VTJ '95 led to the founding of the first Japanese Gracie jiu jitsu school of note in Paraestra, his defeat of Nishi would lead to the creation of the Wa-jutsu shoot sect.

Ultimately the story of Rickson Gracie's MMA career in Japan does not rest with whether or not he faced credible opposition. In fact, this is only relevant with the benefit of hindsight, because really, who in the wide world of martial arts and combat sports really knew who Rickson Gracie was in 1994--aside from some anecdotal comment of Royce's--or even for sure whether the Gracies hadn't just gotten lucky in the first couple UFCs?

The real story is what doors it opened. Yoshinori Nishi, while little more than a footnote in Rickson's story and a tomato can in some historians' judgment, went on to be one of the most influential people in the evolution of Japanese MMA. The legacy of that fight in the summer of 1994 was a group of champions who gave Rickson's Brazilian jiu jitsu successors all they could handle from the mats of the submission grappling scene to the rings and cages of MMA.

Gracie vs. Nishi