America’s Most Controversial Sport
Extreme Fighting
The Marquis of Queensberry established the rules of prize-fighting in 1867. In many respects he was not a very nice man — he hounded Oscar Wilde to jail and to death — but it’s quite probable that the Marquis would have deplored and indeed might have tried to ban Extreme Fighting, had he lived to see it.
“Sport?” one can hear him snort. “It’s not sport. Two men going at it bare-fisted, no holds barred, anything goes? That’s a recipe for mayhem.”
Roy Goodman, a New York state senator, has another word for it — in fact, a number of words. “It’s animalistic and extremely dangerous to the contestants,” says Goodman. “It is no more than human cockfighting, and it has no place in a civilized society. … [T]his type of organized street brawl … is conduct civilized society should be protected against.”
The good senator was in large part responsible for the last-minute change in venue of a scheduled live program for pay-per-view TV of Extreme Fighting in a Brooklyn, New York, armory last November. Some 4,200 people were to pay from $19.95 to $250 each for the privilege of savoring the clash in person. Widely, not to say loudly, publicized as “the most brutal fighting event in the history of television,” the whole shebang had to be moved at the 11th-going-on-12th hour to a 500-seat sound studio in North Carolina when something called the New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs, invoking an obscure and arcane clause in the state’s bylaws relating to whether or not an event held at the state facility was indeed “in the best interests of the state,” canceled the armory lease. (The producers of the event promptly filed a lawsuit for breach of contract and resulting damages. At press time, this suit was on appeal.)
Scenes from Extreme Fighting: “Man-to-man all-out war … whatever it takes to win!”
By then, New York Governor George Pataki and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani had got into the act, along with various lawyers, judges, district attorneys, sports writers, columnists, college professors, and miscellaneous moralists. “Extreme Fighting: Whatever It Takes to Win. … Where the money’s big and the fighting is fierce. … [M]an-to-man all-out war.” That’s the way Battlecade, Inc., bills these matches, the one unheld in Brooklyn, the one held in North Carolina, the one coming up in April. In the all-out war of Extreme Fighting, anything really goes except eye-gouging and biting. Everything else is permitted: kicking, pounding, wrestling, slugging, kneeing, twisting, jumping on, and, most controversially, choking. The choke-hold — sometimes in combination with the neck-pound — can, and often does, render an opponent unconscious for several seconds. An Extreme Fight, as a matter of fact, only ends when one of the combatants passes out, usually from a choke-hold, or “submits” (calls it quits) by rap-rapping on the canvas or the fence that surrounds the ring, or when the referee calls a halt, or when a towel is thrown in from a corner. Actually, there are no corners. Extreme Fighting takes place in a circular ring, 27 feet in diameter, surrounded by a sort of chain-link fence. There are no rounds, no time-outs.
Battlecade, Inc., is partially owned by General Media International, Inc., the parent corporation of Penthouse and other magazines, with an arm also into film, TV, new media (including the Internet), etcetera. That multifaceted division of the company is run by Anthony Guccione, who is also the chairman of Battlecade, Inc., as well as the son of Penthouse founder and General Media C.E.O. Bob Guccione.
Anthony Guccione is not shy in replying to the moralists and critics. “I first saw Extreme Fighting on television a year and a half ago, and I said to myself, we absolutely have to get into this event. One of the things I find so fascinating about it is the stunning simplicity of the conflict’s resolution, in which one man is left standing victorious.”
“Human nature hasn’t changed over thousands of years,” he adds, “although social trappings may have become more sophisticated over time. But human nature remains largely elemental, with what some people might call the baser instincts still at its core: desire, fear, and raw competitiveness.”
“Extreme Fighting is a legitimate sport, an exciting sport, with its roots in martial-arts competitions that date back two millennia. It responds directly and immediately to those elements that are part of all mankind,” he says emphatically.
“Nevertheless, we’ve been legislated against unduly in an effort of certain vocal politicians to raise their own profiles by latching on to a controversial issue. Barring us from the armory is not an action based on law. It’s a myopic overreaction to a nonexistent problem and an unreasonable attempt by a small minority to prevent the majority from having new and exciting entertainment alternatives.”
“If two guys find enchantment in choking each other,” said a New York Times writer, “we should find it in the goodness of our hearts to let them.”
“These guys are very uninformed. I really question their knowledge of this sport. When I debated Dennis Vacco, the New York State attorney general, on ‘The Phil Donahue Show,’ he’d never seen any Extreme Fighting, hadn’t even seen a videotape of it. He had predicated his entire witch-hunt on what he’d heard. We’re being persecuted by this type of ignorance, while at the same time the public is denied the opportunity of seeing a riveting sport performed by athletes of high skills.”
Guccione came to his appreciation of Extreme Fighting by way of another sport. “I’m a big fan of boxing, as is my father,” he says. “But the reality is that in the past 80 years many boxers have been killed in the ring — four last year alone. And there’ve been no deaths at all, nobody’s sustained any serious injuries whatsoever, in the 80-year history of this type of sport in Brazil. But New York State sanctions boxing — and now authorizes the death penalty, which many view as barbaric — while it tries to ban Extreme Fighting!”
“Well, we openly invite the various state legislator, governors, and attorneys general to form with us a sanctioning body. We invite intelligent and informed regulation.”
“Politicians like Roy Goodman and Senator John McCain of Arizona,” Guccione points out, “are ill-informed fanatics who are wasting the public’s hard-earned tax dollars posturing against Extreme Fighting instead of concentrating on genuine social ills, like poverty and crime, that infest our society.”
Guccione’s father has a few remarks of his own. “Any attempt to stop the sport or regulate it out of existence is censorship,” says the publisher, who’s been fighting censorship all his adult life.
“The Republican battle cry is less government, less oppressive regulation, but every time you turn around they are attempting to regulate something else. People have a right not to watch this contest, but you can’t tell an athlete that his chosen sport doesn’t meet the prevailing political criteria for entertainment.”
Something of the same sort was voiced, a touch unexpectedly, by Ira Berkow, a top-rank sports feature writer for The New York Times.
“Sorry, Senator,” Berkow wrote a few days before the Brooklyn donnybrook was to take place, “but I side with the Extreme forces. Civilized society has higher priorities: bad schools, dangerous streets and parks, indecent health care, miserable housing, and corrupt police departments, to name just a few.” “The effort to wipe out ‘Extreme Fighting’ — or at least to try to convince its enthusiastic belligerents that an activity like, oh, hitting their heads against a wall might be better for their health — is noble on its face, but it pales in the broader scheme of things.”
“If two guys find enchantment in choking each other, we should find it in the goodness of our hearts to let them.”
The Times-man also pointed out that “no one is dragging these guys kicking and screaming into the ring.… The fighters are not conscripted, but are eager volunteers, and wind up with a payday, to boot.”
A payday, indeed. The take from pay-per-view television for some two hours or so of these mano a manos has run as high as $3.8 million to $4.9 million the past couple of years. Extreme Fighters don’t get paid what Mike Tyson does — at $25 million a shot, who does? — but many of them are evidently glad enough to walk away with several thousands — or tens of thousands — of dollars for what may be only a few minutes of (quite difficult) work.
The published rules for Extreme Fighting are brief and to the point: (1) No rounds, no time-outs; (2) a fighter wins either by submission, a knockout, or if his corner throws in the towel; (3) the referee or doctor has the authority to stop the fight; (4) a mouthpiece and groin protection are mandatory; (5) no biting or eye-gouging.
So on the night of Saturday, November 18, some 600 people packed, admission free, into Wilmington, North Carolina’s Carolco Studios with its 500 seats, and stood, many of them, through the three heavyweight, three middleweight, and three lightweight extremities. Admission free because there was no time to sell tickets, thanks to the joint machinations of New York City and New York State officials.
What they saw, and what hundreds of thousands of televiewers paid to see, was a matchup of gladiators from Brazil, Russia, Japan, Las Vegas, New York, and California, introduced by Mr. T in fantastic headgear, growling, “These guys are bad — badder than me,” and sparked by a stroll past the cameras during breaks by the amply endowed and suntanned Gina LaMarca, 1995 Penthouse Pet of the Year, together with an assortment of equally beautiful Penthouse Pets. Also at a microphone was John Perretti, three-time world kickboxing champion and savvy matchmaker for the event, who has imparted a new level of professionalism to the sport.
Two of the Brazilians were cousins from Rio de Janeiro, lightweights Ralph (pronounced “Halph”) Gracie, age 24, five foot nine, 159 pounds, and Carlson Gracie, Jr., “Prince of Brazilian Jiujitsu,” 26 years old, five foot nine, 156 pounds. They and many others enmeshed in the sport are offshoots of the famed Gracie family, in which Extreme Fighting (or some equivalent of it) has been handed down from generation to generation. Carlson and Ralph Gracie are the grandsons of the originator of Brazilian jiujitsu, Carlos Gracie.
“The Gracies don’t fight one another,” we are told. That November night in North Carolina, Carlson, a heavy favorite, fought to a surprising draw with John Lewis, a 159-pounder from Las Vegas and an expert in judo, sho kon du, and kickboxing.
Ralph Gracie was matched against karate, judo, and shootwrestling champion Makoto Muraoka, a 27-year-old his own height and weight, born in Sapporo, Japan. Gracie entered the ring in white pajamas that accentuated his dark-brown short-cropped hair (the better not to be yanked by one’s curly locks, kiddies), big round bulging jaw, and almost theatrical Roman nose. His record coming in was 12 wins and no losses. Muraoka, who seemed shorter than Gracie even if he wasn’t, wore knee pads (Gracie didn’t) and had his wrists taped (Gracie didn’t). His record was eight wins and zero losses.
Muraoka said a quick little Japanese prayer as they both did a bit of warm-up dancing and menace-type staring at the opposition.
The fight began. They sparred for a few seconds, then closed in on each other. In an instant they were on the floor, Gracie on top, his arm around Muraoko’s neck. Then, almost as soon as it began, it was over. Muraoka was shockingly, immediately defeated, and Gracie left the ring in triumph. For a moment it was as mysterious as the end of the Sonny Liston-Cassius Clay World Championship dethroning. But a videotape shows in slow-motion replay what happened. Gracie, on top, with the two men locked together in a scissorlike grip, had pounded with his two bare fists at the arteries in Muraoko’s neck, then applied the choke-hold. Muraoka passed out.
“He’s not losing air, this happens all the time,” said Dave Bontempo, the television M.C. and commentator. “As soon as he [Gracie] gets the hook in, the game is over.” Gracie had got the hook in and the game had been over in 40 seconds flat.
The heavyweight final matched Marcus Silveira, nicknamed “Conan,” Miami-based Brazilian, 29 years old, six foot three, a very big Extreme Fighter at 245 pounds, against Gary Myers of Muncie, Indiana, “the Iron Bear,” 30 years old, five foot eight, 228 pounds. Conan, heavily tattooed all over his back and arms, sneered down with disdainful eyebrows at his much shorter opponent.
Silveira is the 1994 Brazilian jiujitsu champion, with an undefeated 26-0 record. Iron Bear Myers, who is bald and goateed, looked a little like the actor Hector Elizondo. He also looked very tough-as well he should, being a six-time world champion in Greco-Roman wrestling with a 150-1 record. They went at each other, fists and feet, for several minutes, then fell together to the floor in one of those double scissorlocks that to some fevered imaginations might bear a certain Goya-esque resemblance to copulation.
Suddenly there was blood, and handlers jumped into the ring to wipe it off their respective warriors. Myers brushed the assistance away. But then, just as suddenly, this fight, too, was over, and Silveira was doing a body-roll over the fence to embrace his pals and fans before crossing the ring to hug the defeated Myers. Silveira had twisted Myers’s head in “the Guillotine,” until Myers reached out and with his right hand went tap-tap on a ringpost, ending the fight “by submission.” Four minutes and 25 seconds had passed.
The longest embroilment that night, and the toughest, pitted middleweights Mario Sperry of Rio de Janeiro, 27 years old, six foot two, 198 pounds, against Igor Zinoviev of St. Petersburg, Russia, and Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, 28 years old, six foot one, 190 pounds, with a muscled physique seemingly cut out of stone. Sperry is known as “the Zen Machine — baddest dude on the planet.” Many observers put him in a class with his mentor, Carlson Gracie, Sr., legendary elder of Extreme Fighting. Sperry is also, according to some biographical notes supplied by Battlecade, Inc., an airplane pilot, and has a degree in economics.
“Mild-mannered, down-to-earth” Zinoviev, said commentator Bontempo, was up against the inevitable: Sperry’s record at that moment was 273 wins and zero losses, one win having been picked up in a semifinal against Rudyard Moncayo earlier that very evening. (The limit imposed by the Battlecade management is no more than two fights per man per night.)
Zinoviev in his semifinal bout had disposed of Harold German of New York City in one minute, but that wasn’t going to help the Russian much, one gathered. Not against the Zen Machine’s 273-0 record.
“The beginning of the end is right here,” said Bontempo to Mr. T and the world at large as Sperry pinned Zinoviev beneath him on the mat, much as Gracie had done to Muraoka. But Zinoviev kept wriggling and struggling and flopping, like some giant lizard or Gila monster. This went on and on for quite a few minutes, then some more. “Igor isn’t over yet,” Bontempo allowed. Then, in a flash, Zinoviev was out of Sperry’s grip and up on his feet, bloodied — quite bloodied around the nose — but unbowed.
“Holding on ten minutes against Mario Sperry — that’s big news in itself,” said the breathless Bontempo. “A match of this sophistication …,” he murmured, then broke off, perhaps thunderstruck, as Sperry flew over Zinoviev’s shoulder, hit the canvas, and collapsed in agony. The referee, in his white gloves, stopped the fight, declared it over. The Zen Machine was not going to get that 274th straight victory. Zinoviev had beaten him.
How had he done it? As Sperry, for whatever reason, had slipped and rolled over Zinoviev’s greased shoulder — all the combatants come to this ring shiny with grease — the Russian, a kickboxing and judo champion back home, had caught Sperry smack across the face and forehead with his upward-smashing knee. Matchmaker John Perretti said with awe, “The best match I could set up, and here it is — the strangest ending.”
The day after the fight, the Wilmington, North Carolina, Star News carried some heated comments from local onlookers:
Businessman Ross Montgomery: “I think it’s great — it’s two guys going at it, beating each other. It’s real. There’s nothing phony about it. … The blood helps.”
Edward Williams, there with his wife, Nicole: “We wouldn’t corrupt our children with this kind of violence.” No, the Williamses said, they don’t actually have any children.
Kris Johnson, a contractor who’d come to the fights with his pal Larry Feildstra: “We enjoy it. It’s two guys beating each other up to see who’s the toughest.”
Bob Spitzen of Wilmington, a protestor outside the gates, as the crowd entered: “You should be ashamed of yourselves. It’s barbaric. What is this telling the youth of our society?”
The next event, Extreme Fighting 2, is scheduled, as of this writing, for April 26, 1996. Where? Nobody’s saying at this moment. What is certain, however, is that it will be on pay-per-view TV and will highlight the return of Ralph Gracie, Igor Zinoviev, and Marcus Silveira to fight for the championships of their respective weight classes.
And you can bet by approximately 273 to zero that there’s going to be one hell of a hue and cry, wherever these gentlemen have at it. — Jerry Tallmer
Time marches on — or life goes on — as philosophers from Tracy Lawrence to Oliver Tree have taught us. The Gucciones, and indeed General Media, have left Penthouse, but true to their vision, Extreme Fighting has evolved into an MMA popularity that can feel astounding. Heck, it could be that some day the President of the United States would choose to attend an MMA event rather than worry about silly little thing like war in the Middle East which could blow up into WWIII. One needs priorities, after all.
