Monday, November 21, 2011

Judo in the Early UFC: "Antiquity" and Mixed Martial Arts - Remco Pardoel Edition

Before the UFC, before MMA exploded into the scene, before Yoshida fought in Pride, before Ronda Rousey began her armbar demolition of women fighters......there have been other great mat work specialists.

For those uninformed, Newaza, or Ne (ground) Waza (technique) is the term for the ground aspect of Judo.
Behold, it exists!


Guys like Kashiwazaki, Neil Adams, and other have taken down, pinned, and submitted fellow Judoka on the mats since Judo began.

A common misconception about Judoka is a relative lack of skill on the ground.
The rules in Judo, specifically due to short(er) time on the ground allowed, differing rules on legal submissions, and the ability to win by pinning akin to wrestling dramatically changes the mat work.


Kosen, or what has become high school Judo rules in Japan still allows for much longer mat work. Additionally, in training Judo 5-6 days a week, the body simply cannot routinely do full speed throwing/randori without injury. As such, often mat work is done in the morning and/or on off nights while standing, throwing, randori occurs on the other nights of the week's training.

At any rate, this post was going to be about Flavio Canto, but I think I'll hold off on that for the time being, and instead, rewind to one of the earlist Judokas in the UFC and semi-modern MMA. (interesting that we now view early UFC's at old or the pioneer days of MMA and it only dates back to 1993). Being present for the birth of a cumulative combat sport is awesome. 

At any rate, Remco Pardoel fought waaaay back in UFC 2. He finished his first 2 opponents before succumbing to Royce Gracie.

Remco would go on to continue fighting after the UFC in other MMA organizations to a final record of 9-6-1.
Here's Remco taking down and submitting at Karate practitioner at UFC 7.


And here's a general tribute/HL of Remco Pardoel:


Happy Trainingz!

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