Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2017 18:39:23 GMT -5
Have you guys seen this?!
If not you REALLY have to.
It just came out and I saw it on one of the cable channels the other night.
Here's 2 links for info and the first has a short video trailer you should watch:
www.mmafighting.com/2017/9/15/16309972/tough-guys-documentary-sheds-welcome-light-on-forgotten-mma-tourney-that-pre-dates-ufc-1
mmajunkie.com/2017/09/showtime-tough-guys-documentary-explores-mma-roots-1980s-pittsburgh
I NEVER knew there was any real MMA event before the UFC, let alone as far back as 1979!!
Though it's long, here's the story:
Back in Pittsburgh in 1979 two guys got together and just decided they wanted to make an event that would just take all your average bar brawlers and put them in a ring and allow them to fight with far fewer rules than boxing or kickboxing.
There were some rules akin to those of the early NHB days like no biting or fish hooking and you couldn't kick below the belt at all so I guess there were no leg kicks, and they did wear head gear, but the gloves were open fingered like modern MMA gloves so they could grab and take eachother down and do ground and pound (and submissions I'm sure too though I doubt anyone got any as no one probably knew them and in the clips I saw from the doc. I didn't see anyone get submitted).
No pro fighters or pro boxers were allowed, and this wasn't really intended to be as much of a martial arts event as just more for bar brawlers and street fighters but there were a bunch of guys with Amateur boxing and Amateur kickboxing experience as well as a couple wrestlers and Karate guys as well, but most of the guys were untrained and just learned to fight from growing up rough.
It was pretty fucking brutal!!
They showed a lot of clips, a guy got his teeth knocked into the front row, one guy got his jaw broken and wired shut but STILL came back to fight with it wired shut and won his weight class!!
Knees to the body from clinch, head kicks, ground and pound, guys getting thrown, suplexed, slammed, double legged, punches from all angles, LOTS of blood, real NHB more than MMA with fewer rules than today's MMA except of course for the head gear which would have probably made it safer.
It was basically just a whole bunch of Tank Abbotts going at eachother for the most part.
There were only 2 weight classes: 175lbs and below was lightweight and 176lbs and above was heavy weight.
And the crazy thing was DANA WHITE IS AWARE OF THIS HAVING HAPPENED AND AT THE END THEY SHOWED A PHOTO OF HIM POSING WITH THE TWO PROMOTERS WITH A BIG SMILE ON HIS FACE!!!
I'm not sure how many events there were, I think like maybe only 5 or 6 or something like that, and they only happened between 1979, 1980 and 1981 before it was outlawed and the first law banning MMA was put on the books officially in 1983.
One other thing that happened is that the promoters had started off calling it the "Toughman Contest"...but it was NOT what tough man is today, which is of course just amateur boxing.
What we know of today as "Toughman contests" had been started by a different promoter just one year before the first event of this kind (the NHB one in the documentary of course)...and it was the same toughman contests that still happen today: just boxing.
So this promoter of the boxing--style "Toughman contest" got pissed at the other promoters for taking his name and INTENTIONALLY scheduled one of his own events at the exact same location on the exact same night as the MMA-style event: also called "Toughman", in order to try to basically cock block the MMA promoters.
Everyone and the fighters for both events got all confused cause they weren't sure which event they were fighting in, and the MMA promoters were PISSED and had to cancel and reschedule their event.
So they moved the event to a different venue and started calling it the Tough Guy contest rather than Tough Man so the two wouldn't get confused....not sure how many events they'd had under the old name before it happened but this was the one that really called attention to it cause they were giving out a $100,000 prize.
So yeah, eventually the event was banned, and the promoters said they believed it was all because of the promoter of the Tough Man Contests trying to use his political connections because he thought this new sport was a threat to boxing, but the politicians responsible for signing the bill that banned it said that wasn't true and the boxing promoter had no influence and they just banned it cause it was dangerous and unregulated, but who knows whether or not the boxing promoter did or didn't play a role.
Now I REALLY want to find out if there's a way to see the all of the actual fights from the event from start to finish but I don't know if they will be released.
I REALLY hope they are though and I'm sure everyone here would love to see them.
They show a lot of clips from different fights and guys getting hit and slammed and knocked out and shit, but they didn't show any one fight in its entirety.
CRAZY though to think there was MMA/NHB as far back as 1979 though right??!!
Cavebear is from the Pittsburgh area right??
I bet he'll think it's cool that that environment bred these guys.
There was quite a bit of talk about these guys mostly being as tough as they were because they were literally fighting for their food, a lot of them being out of work steel workers or out of work miners and people who had been laid off from blue collar jobs.
That was a big angle the politicians had at the end: saying that these were poor working class guys getting taken advantage of by the promoters to try to make money off of them, essentially praying on the lower classes and making them fight as if they were gladiators, but a lot of the guys said they'd have done it for free cause they just loved fighting, while others said they did actually do it for the money.
I know this might be TLDR for some of you, but I'd read the whole thing if you want to know about this shit, cause it was REALLY cool.
The earliest MMA event I'd heard of prior to this were some of the Shooto Events in Japan around 1988, but I never knew there was an MMA event 9 years earlier than that!!
I wonder what Dana White would say if asked about this in an interview since he CLEARLY knew these guys.
I HIGHLY recommend it, and you guys should watch the trailer in the first link to see more about it.
If not you REALLY have to.
It just came out and I saw it on one of the cable channels the other night.
Here's 2 links for info and the first has a short video trailer you should watch:
www.mmafighting.com/2017/9/15/16309972/tough-guys-documentary-sheds-welcome-light-on-forgotten-mma-tourney-that-pre-dates-ufc-1
mmajunkie.com/2017/09/showtime-tough-guys-documentary-explores-mma-roots-1980s-pittsburgh
I NEVER knew there was any real MMA event before the UFC, let alone as far back as 1979!!
Though it's long, here's the story:
Back in Pittsburgh in 1979 two guys got together and just decided they wanted to make an event that would just take all your average bar brawlers and put them in a ring and allow them to fight with far fewer rules than boxing or kickboxing.
There were some rules akin to those of the early NHB days like no biting or fish hooking and you couldn't kick below the belt at all so I guess there were no leg kicks, and they did wear head gear, but the gloves were open fingered like modern MMA gloves so they could grab and take eachother down and do ground and pound (and submissions I'm sure too though I doubt anyone got any as no one probably knew them and in the clips I saw from the doc. I didn't see anyone get submitted).
No pro fighters or pro boxers were allowed, and this wasn't really intended to be as much of a martial arts event as just more for bar brawlers and street fighters but there were a bunch of guys with Amateur boxing and Amateur kickboxing experience as well as a couple wrestlers and Karate guys as well, but most of the guys were untrained and just learned to fight from growing up rough.
It was pretty fucking brutal!!
They showed a lot of clips, a guy got his teeth knocked into the front row, one guy got his jaw broken and wired shut but STILL came back to fight with it wired shut and won his weight class!!
Knees to the body from clinch, head kicks, ground and pound, guys getting thrown, suplexed, slammed, double legged, punches from all angles, LOTS of blood, real NHB more than MMA with fewer rules than today's MMA except of course for the head gear which would have probably made it safer.
It was basically just a whole bunch of Tank Abbotts going at eachother for the most part.
There were only 2 weight classes: 175lbs and below was lightweight and 176lbs and above was heavy weight.
And the crazy thing was DANA WHITE IS AWARE OF THIS HAVING HAPPENED AND AT THE END THEY SHOWED A PHOTO OF HIM POSING WITH THE TWO PROMOTERS WITH A BIG SMILE ON HIS FACE!!!
I'm not sure how many events there were, I think like maybe only 5 or 6 or something like that, and they only happened between 1979, 1980 and 1981 before it was outlawed and the first law banning MMA was put on the books officially in 1983.
One other thing that happened is that the promoters had started off calling it the "Toughman Contest"...but it was NOT what tough man is today, which is of course just amateur boxing.
What we know of today as "Toughman contests" had been started by a different promoter just one year before the first event of this kind (the NHB one in the documentary of course)...and it was the same toughman contests that still happen today: just boxing.
So this promoter of the boxing--style "Toughman contest" got pissed at the other promoters for taking his name and INTENTIONALLY scheduled one of his own events at the exact same location on the exact same night as the MMA-style event: also called "Toughman", in order to try to basically cock block the MMA promoters.
Everyone and the fighters for both events got all confused cause they weren't sure which event they were fighting in, and the MMA promoters were PISSED and had to cancel and reschedule their event.
So they moved the event to a different venue and started calling it the Tough Guy contest rather than Tough Man so the two wouldn't get confused....not sure how many events they'd had under the old name before it happened but this was the one that really called attention to it cause they were giving out a $100,000 prize.
So yeah, eventually the event was banned, and the promoters said they believed it was all because of the promoter of the Tough Man Contests trying to use his political connections because he thought this new sport was a threat to boxing, but the politicians responsible for signing the bill that banned it said that wasn't true and the boxing promoter had no influence and they just banned it cause it was dangerous and unregulated, but who knows whether or not the boxing promoter did or didn't play a role.
Now I REALLY want to find out if there's a way to see the all of the actual fights from the event from start to finish but I don't know if they will be released.
I REALLY hope they are though and I'm sure everyone here would love to see them.
They show a lot of clips from different fights and guys getting hit and slammed and knocked out and shit, but they didn't show any one fight in its entirety.
CRAZY though to think there was MMA/NHB as far back as 1979 though right??!!
Cavebear is from the Pittsburgh area right??
I bet he'll think it's cool that that environment bred these guys.
There was quite a bit of talk about these guys mostly being as tough as they were because they were literally fighting for their food, a lot of them being out of work steel workers or out of work miners and people who had been laid off from blue collar jobs.
That was a big angle the politicians had at the end: saying that these were poor working class guys getting taken advantage of by the promoters to try to make money off of them, essentially praying on the lower classes and making them fight as if they were gladiators, but a lot of the guys said they'd have done it for free cause they just loved fighting, while others said they did actually do it for the money.
I know this might be TLDR for some of you, but I'd read the whole thing if you want to know about this shit, cause it was REALLY cool.
The earliest MMA event I'd heard of prior to this were some of the Shooto Events in Japan around 1988, but I never knew there was an MMA event 9 years earlier than that!!
I wonder what Dana White would say if asked about this in an interview since he CLEARLY knew these guys.
I HIGHLY recommend it, and you guys should watch the trailer in the first link to see more about it.