TRANSCRIPT 🔗
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Music.
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Catch can be at his own class and then you know he
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you know asked me to come over for saturday and we'll have junko
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lunch after and it's okay i'll be there and then
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i didn't work out i showed up and sat there watch the
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practice translate or something oh no i love watching there you know like actual
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wrestling and how to escape and how to be you know put weight on somebody or
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you know it's kind of leverage moves and all these things i i really enjoy it
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you know oh that's great yeah Then also right after the practice,
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you know, we'll have like a real dojo type Chanko.
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And Miyato is a great cook.
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And we sat another two hours just talking wrestling over lunch.
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I'd really love to try his Chanko someday.
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I've seen so many pictures, advertisements, the Chanko night at the hall or at the dojo.
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Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, and then also we can sat around and talk about Billy Robinson,
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Carl Gotch, UWF and whatnot.
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Yes. Good time. Yeah.
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I was just, I just finished the Hicks and Gracie book and I was,
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you know, I saw Miyato-san there with, you know, he's ringside.
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He's the second of a lot of those fights with Hicks and Gracie.
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Oh yeah. Oh yeah. He was right there.
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Every, every single UWF fight. Yeah. He actually worked underneath.
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So he always had his own match with UWF and UWFI, you know, but he was a little
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bit more famous being second, you know, right there, right there,
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always, you know, and then also,
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unlike other, you know, traditional pro wrestling match, you know, in UWF environment,
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those second thing guys will be really, you know, giving advice and really vocal,
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you know, get this arm, get this leg, this kind of like a boxing match,
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you know what I'm saying?
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And it gives very special MMH feeling you know I think it's a it's a great thing
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for if it's done right for pro wrestling especially if there's no crowd I think
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that could help you know yeah help with energy even with crowd too because people
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can hear you know like giving like a really.
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Seriously shoot advice you know,
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Yeah, step back, step in, step back, you know, get on him, legs open, this, that.
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The Miyato is like, for him, it's so serious, you know?
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That's how UFC was last year without the crowds. It actually worked very well, I thought.
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And you can hear them, huh? You hear everything, and you hear the impact of all the moves, too.
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Okay, there's a DVD from, you know, you and I talked about 1976,
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Anthony Inoki against Muhammad Ali fight, our last episode.
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There's a DVD, four lines, all 15 rounds of Inoki against Muhammad Ali.
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Really? Yeah, DVD's out.
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You should listen to Ali's second. I mean, they are screaming like he will get
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killed or something. Be careful.
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It's not trusting wrestling people. I see.
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Oh, guys, very interesting. Just listen to those guys.
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Yeah. And Muhammad Ali himself arguing back, I'm fighting. Shut up.
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And Gene LaBelle is in the ring too. Oh, Gene LaBelle. Yeah.
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He's a policeman. You know, anything goes wrong, but he's going to get in,
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in right in the middle and just divide those two up. And he's tough guy. Right.
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And, uh, it was interesting. And Korgach himself in Inoki's corner, giving advice.
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I mean, just coolest thing ever. It could be a movie. It could be a fictional
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movie. Just recreation.
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Yeah. And, and, and, and back then he was, like, uh, the critics and the regular real newspaper, TV,
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even the sports news said it was like a rip off the boring and the boredom and
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because they didn't, nobody had eyes for real MMA,
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you know, that, that that's, what's going to happen.
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If wrestling box or far, you know, actually fought pretty much.
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Yeah. And then try to avoid each other.
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And get something in it and that's what's going to happen then this they didn't come up with very.
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Equal equally divided rules i mean
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there's no equal you know because one's gonna box and one's gonna wrestle and
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boxers don't want you to wrestle and wrestlers don't want
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Load full transcript
your box you know you know what i'm saying and that's the but that's the uh
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for the fans that's something that they they need
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something more than just a technique fight like
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a jiu jitsu fight couldn't do is not going
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to do anything for a crowd they need some kind of styles class because
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we all want to know what's going to happen and the Gracie people
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ended up laying on the back on their back most of
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the time oh my gosh I've been reading this
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there's an English like three book kind of series this guy wrote about the history
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of Brazilian jiu-jitsu from you know 1800s until now it's it's got all the newspapers
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it's really really makes the Gracie Elio Gracie I really lost so much respect
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for him And coming up as a Gracie Jiu-Jitsu person,
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it's like losing the kind of your religious belief.
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It's really like, ooh. I mean, he's not a good person.
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Konde Koma, you know, Mitsuo Maeda, who actually had a Jiu-Jitsu fight in Brazil
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against Elio Gracie, you know.
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But the term Jiu-Jitsu is Japanese word, you know.
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It was just them trying to rebrand Judo.
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I suppose. pause but the judo came
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after jujitsu you know but
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the gracie say that that jujitsu and
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japanese judo are weak and and
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what they did was more realistic that was the
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idea a lot of people and and the other
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the other situation i think and it's not addressed enough is that
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you know if we fast forward to the 90s anjo and
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hicks and gracie okay we know what happened but alio
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gracie and carlos carlson gracie they would
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do the same thing they were famous for that in brazil they would go
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to people's dojos or call people out in the news and really
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really trash them pro wrestling style and you
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know that's how because jiu-jitsu wasn't popular in
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1950s 1940s so they
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were this was an elio gracie was
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an aggressive marketing guy he was trying to get this name of
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brazilian jiu-jitsu it's different it's more
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focused on grappling and it's more it's for
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self-defense it's more effective and rich and famous
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celebrities do it and it's just not
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judo it's better than judo and that's what he was trying to pitch but when you
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read the full story there's just a lot more to it and anytime that the graces
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would agree to these fights they would have these crazy special rules that you
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don't see in any other fights and it's not something that developed into anything
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it's It's just the family's,
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you know, way of defending this philosophy. Oh, yeah. Total advantage.
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And it's funny because, you know, with the Kimura and Elio Gracie things happened
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in the 50s, and then it almost kind of repeated itself at pride with Gracie and Sakuraba.
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The Japan versus Brazil, different philosophies fighting against each other.
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And the idea of the people agreeing, having to agree to change the rules for
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the Gracie is when, if you look back 20 years, and you can see how things developed,
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it's more like, oh man, it's not what...
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I don't know I have complex feelings about it I don't know how I feel completely
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oh very much so and also over here
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in Japan the interpretation and like a perception of Hickson Gracie and,
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Horio what's the other one from UFC winner original UFC winner Hoist,
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Hoist younger brother Hoist and Hickson older brother
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those are like two different schools that's how we perceive in Japan it's true
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it's true actually yeah it's true it's two different in business now but it's
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like in if it's a real martial arts and you grew up you know they grew up together
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and in the martial arts war they'd say you need you know you will have the brotherhood.
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But those are like two different marketing, you know, the way you mark,
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you know, to do the marketing on Hickson Gracie and the way you marketed Hoyce
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is two different business or something.
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I'm actually, I belong to Henzo Gracie in New York and that's a different.
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Okay. Henzo. That's East coast.
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Henzo was
different. He has his, he, he was really good.
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You know, he was in rings and then pride and he went and tried to.
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Smaller, smaller though. Yeah. Smaller, but he didn't argue about the rules
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as much. It wasn't as much of production. He would go in and fight and lose.
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Right, right. That's what it was. Oh, for Hickson, you know,
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the two very high-profile Nobuhiko Takada matches at Tokyo Dome two years in
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a row, in 1997 and 1998, big profile.
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Then after that, he had another Tokyo Dome match against Masakatsu Funaki,
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the head honcho of Pancrase at the time.
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And he beat hinaki and it just hickson really
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really proved himself to
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be very something special and hickson gracie
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against sakura but never happened so it's like oh wow
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right he talked about that very a lot in the book he
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talked about that a lot in the book they offered him five million dollars yeah
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the he said the main reason was his son died
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that he he he went through a completely hickson's
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son hickson's son had an overdose he like ran away
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to new york and he overdosed on heroin and it was really bad very
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very sad too because hoxson his
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name was hoxson he was training okay he's maybe 20 or 21 so they said and it
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really it changed his life and he actually stopped competing i don't think he's
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competed ever ever since the funaki fight funaki fight right that's that's right
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that's right well if he didn't fight in japan he wouldn't fight in America, so...
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He puts on tournaments.
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Like, I competed in one of his tournaments in Japan years ago.
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Hickson Gracie Cup or something.
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But it's, like you said, it's not associated... It's Hickson's.
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What is it? Hickson Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. Yeah, his philosophy.
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It's not Gracie Jiu-Jitsu by Horio or other older brothers or uncles.
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He's affiliated with AXIS. AXIS Jiu-Jitsu in Japan is the Hickson's school.
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Oh, it's so complicated.
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Somebody tried to draw this family tree map, and they gave up.
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Yeah. Well, there's a lot of, not bullshit, but there's a lot more going on.
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And pro wrestling is such a big part of it too.
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Pro wrestling has always been a part of it. Of course. You want to beat famous wrestlers.
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Oh yeah. But they were the only ones that people wanted to see.
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People really didn't want to see a jiu-jitsu match with the gi and bad judo.
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No, no. It's a mixed martial arts. Curiosity.
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Curiosity. Yeah. And there was something that developed, you know, telecatch?
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It's Brazilian pro wrestling. It was kind of like lucha with British wrestling.
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They had their own style.
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It's pretty much too far away from me. Yeah, I'm just, it's very hard to even
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find on YouTube, but I'm just reading about it in these books.
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But it was all connected with the Gracie. They were doing pro wrestling.
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From a wrestling community standpoint, you know, that these early MMA.
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Including Gracie school of wrestling, or Jiu-Jitsu, they really stole a lot of wrestling fans.
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And a lot of the wrestling fans in the late 90s, into the millennium,
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they didn't come back to wrestling.
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You know what I'm saying? They stole wrestling fans because even very loyal
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wrestling fans eyes, you know, ah, if it was real, it would look like this.
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They did a better job at selling that kind of reality commodity to people.
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But the issue is that it's about 95% real in ways.
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But MMA is not just about Jiu-Jitsu and Brazilian.
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Oh, it's different now. of it it's you know i'm
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so glad there was you know that like people like federer emilienko
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you know from russia go you know georgia or
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or you had milk or crack up
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from what's what's the croatia yeah croatia
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it's like all these you know ex-soviet countries you know
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not quite from central america south america
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but even these these ex-soviet
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russian countries that we know nothing thing about and coming to
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america it's great you know what i'm saying and that makes not just japan and
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and and
in brazilian but the russians and european and makes more international
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you know that's the really sad part about how the pro wrestling developed in
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north america is because.
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Russia iran yeah these places are massive for mma right now hot just and wrestling
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but you know Freestyle wrestling and Greco-Roman wrestling.
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Yeah. They have some of the best athletes in the world representing them too.
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Khabib, Khabib from UFC.
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The guy is a mega... 28 million people watched his last fight last year in Russia.
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Yeah. But those are completely MMA fans from Russian population. Sure, yeah.
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It doesn't have any link to wrestling. But that's the thing that I think it should...
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The roots caused the roots in politics of the day caused these things not to
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be pro wrestling and other cultures not to mix but I think somehow,
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it's going to develop eventually I don't know how it's going to develop but I think it's,
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to survive i think it's going to be i mean how it's going to develop what
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do you mean like how making an ink with the pro wrestling business i think
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develop the i mean the the style of the content is it
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going to be more realistic or less realistic if it's on a scale is it going
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to be more like you know well if mma becomes you know less realistic you know
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it's nothing to watch then i mean i'd rather much rather stick with what i like
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which is pro wrestling you know yeah,
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I just want I'm very curious about somebody who's 21 years old today because
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that means it's a two different genre two different genre it's like a boxing
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I think I think there are a lot of ties to to what I like in pro wrestling to,
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the like especially in the 90s in Japan and do you like MMA element in pro wrestling
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of course I really absolutely and I feel personally and it's kind of,
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I just feel like if you... You know, I really don't anymore.
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You know, it was... That's what, you know, made...
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Created the dark age of Japanese pro wrestling, really.
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That's in Japan, though. It never hit you. I can only talk about that from here.
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And you're right. It was the style.
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It was the style for the world.
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You know, people like Nobuhiko Takada, the king of UWFI.
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It was the closest thing to what MMA would develop years later.
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He was the most realistic pro wrestler and the best at it. They have this Hickson-Gracy
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match twice get beat fairly easily.
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And the founder of Pancrash, Masakatsu Funaki,
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in a different promotion, created a company was formed just so they can produce
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this match, Funaki against Hickson-Gracy,
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not under pride rules or K-1 rules.
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Was they created another company just so they can produce this Masakatsu Funaki
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against Hickson Gracie Machia at the Tokyo Dome.
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Sure enough, Funaki loses.
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It was like the beginning of the end for this wrestling myth at the end of the century.
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It took the wrestling industry 10 years or so to recover from that damage.
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Really. And the style that we see, if you take New Japan, It's pretty far away
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from that. It's more like the Junior Heavyweight style.
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It's a star-driven, star-powered entertainment, star-powered industry.
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That's right. Yeah, because you need a star, a big star, that people buy tickets for.
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And we pretty much had to wait until the rise of people like Hiroshita Nahashi
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and Shinsuke Nakamura to come up.
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Yeah, the superstars. yeah yeah the
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new new generation superstar of 2000
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you know different looks different style
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already 2021 that's right
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and tiroshi tanahashi in his 40s now you know all of a sudden just like john
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cena you know like john cena in his last summer slam match for the first time
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looked at him he's like wow he's a middle-aged john cena we're watching you
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know what i'm saying yeah john John Sr.
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With his baseball cap and a t-shirt and matching wristband and all these things.
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He was a young superstar, right?
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And the top of his hair is missing a little bit. And now we're watching 44-year-old
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John Sr. Oh my gosh, time flies.
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And Tanahashi is also 44. And is still main eventing pretty regularly this year.
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Oh, because he works like Shawn Michaels in his A-game day. Yeah.
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Pretty emotional match he had recently with Kota Ibushi. I saw there was a lot of tears.
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Oh, yeah, yeah, that too. Yeah, and then also this past Tokyo Dome,
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the single title match against Shingo Takagi.
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Mm-hmm. You know? Mm-hmm. It was really, really, like, really Shawn Michaels,
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Triple H type wrestling match.
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Yeah. He had a match in Los Angeles last month too that was really good. Him and Lance Archer.
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Yeah, I think, you know, the sea more like young legend type you know that hiroshi
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tanahashi or minoru suzuki or satoshi kojima for that matter these and and and
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the yuji nagata those veterans are being sent to america,
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while kota ibushi the shingo takagi that one night or the hiromu takahashi these
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guys are main event in today's new japan you know what i'm saying yeah and i'm
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not saying tanahashi's old or you know nagata kojima minoru suzuki a little
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bit older but they can still go right but they were,
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that for the market in america that they can still main event out there you
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know so there's two separate groups a little bit for new japan roster right
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now i would even say three with
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whoever they got in the Los Angeles-based area, the Rocky Romero crew.
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Right, but Yuji Nagata would be in there. And then.