The Return of the Axe Murderer

Cung Le marches to the octagon with the air of Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat. Every fevered dream of a fighter we've had in our kung fu ninja anime fueled adolescence converges on his person as he dances in the cage garbed in Topps trading card company decals. If anyone deserves to be immortalized on cardboard as the symbol of martial artistry, it would be Le.

Despite being in his hometown of San Jose, some jeers are audible. Perhaps they recall Le's back kick careening into Channing Tatum's chest and imagine he's not the real thing anymore. He looks a little doughy around the midsection and there's a hint of disinterest in his eyes. He stretches his leg skyward, flaunting and limbering up in the same motion. His professional seeming team hovers on the cage in near silence.

The lights dim. Darude's Sandstorm swells inside the HP Pavilion crawling through the seats and briefly remaking them in the image of Saitama.  A familiar figure steps through the curtains flanked by CSAC officials in royal blue blazers. 

Wanderlei Silva evokes a different kind of dream. His physique is the yield of the lessons of colliding meat in the sweltering humidity of the Brazilian jungle. His eyes, made friendlier through the deft manipulations of a cosmetic surgeon, have hollowed a bit with age making him resemble more the old butcher who stained many a chalk colored canvas with his unrelenting barrages of violence.  Recognizable warriors such as Rafael Cordeiro and Fabricio Werdum trail him. We hear that his former comrade Anderson Silva served as one of his training partners. His eyes tell us the part he will be playing on this night is no act. Despite the relative comfort he today enjoys, hunger grumbles in Silva's belly.  

He stretches his arm, looking old for a moment, then begins his familiar bouncing from toe to toe. His eyes lock on his target and he seems to forget about trivialities like winning and losing. Le looks skyward to retreat from that menacing gaze.

The referee signals for them to begin and Le mistakes Silva's backpedaling for caution, pressing the action. Le employs his unorthodox striking, creating enough confusion to knock the axe murderer to his knees. The golden boy may yet defeat the monster. Perhaps the bogeyman isn't so scary after all. Perhaps the years of battle have made the ability insufficient to match the heart of the once ferocious warrior. Le's fans awaken and begin a cascade of chants demanding the initiative.

Blood flowing from over Le's eye after a straight shot relatively new to Silva's arsenal changes things. The veteran finisher snorts and catches the scent of victory. His paranthropic hooks seek and find firm purchase on every part of Le's upper body. His shin bursts capillaries in Le's leg and then grazes the side of his head. The horn sounds and Silva impatiently turns to his corner, almost ashamed at having settled for punishment instead of decimation.

As the second frame begins, Le attempts to keep the mauler at bay, but Silva's fists seem to drift through the air with a surety borne of having sent so many men to slumber.  The former Pride middleweight king settles back until his moment arrives then explodes forward unleashing a maelstrom of punches, kicks, elbows and the knees that still keep Tony Petarra awake at night.

 Le defends like a traditionalist and is consigned to history like one, falling to his back then belly in hopes of finding a reprieve from the onslaught.  The referee gives it to him.  As Wanderlei leaps atop the cage to bathe in the adulation of the crowd, there is a sense of alignment with the natural order of things, even in a sport so built on the whims of chance. The world is put on notice. The Axe Murderer still walks among you.

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