As a UFC judge who has regularly worked some of the big pay-per-view shows such as Anderson Silva vs. Rich Franklin and Chuck Liddell vs. Babalu, it’s a little strange today for me to hear people talk about how “extreme” and “over the top” the current incarnation of mixed martial arts is. While it is definately a shock to some people who may have only seen boxing before, there are far more brutal martial arts in the world that will NEVER see the light of day in a cage or on national pay-per-view.

The original version of the UFC was actually not mixed martial arts at all. It was based on the original Brazillian combat contest originated by the Gracie family called “vale tudo”. In Portuguese that means “anything goes”. While people tend to forget how big the impact of that first event was, there were no time limits, no weight classes, no restrictions on moves or attacks, and fighters would have three or four matches over the course of a single night! In fact, it was rumored that one of the ways to win that was listed in the original UFC rules in Denver 1993 was “death”.

Nowadays, of course, I’ve seen fighters not accept a match with an opponent due to a weight difference of one or two pounds. Compare that to the hundred-plus pound weight difference in some of the first UFC matches. Vale tudo proved to be too extreme for the powers that be and soon it was toned down and referred to as “no-holds-barred”. Tournaments were done away with, weight limits were instituted, and rounds were implemented. When the athletic commissions got involved and started to license fighters then “no-holds-barred” finally transformed into what we know today as “mixed martial arts”. Now it is not so much style vs. style but rather athlete vs. athlete. No one represents a particular branch of martial art such as karate, kung-fu, or silat and everyone trains the same basic way with Brazillian jiu-jitsu, wrestling, and muay Thai.

There is one martial art, however, that you have never seen in the UFC and never will: full-contact stick fighting. The reason I know this is because during the first years of the UFC, as one of the 12 original Dog Brothers we tried to get the UFC to allow us to do a stick fighting exhibition and were told by Art Davie, the original UFC founder, that it was “too extreme for the cage”.

As students of Filipino Kali, Eric Knauss, Marc Denny and Arion Sanford, were known individually as “Top Dog”, “Crafty Dog”, and “Salty Dog”, respectively, and collectively as “The Elders”. Around the late ’80s, they started having full contact stick fights with hardened rattan sticks using the motto “Higher consciousness through harder contact”. This was basically just an excuse for us to beat the crap out of each other in a park. As the news of their full contact matches got around they were joined by the “12 Originals”. I was given the name “Surf Dog” because I would go surfing in the morning and then show up for a stick fight later that day. “Crafty Dog” could never understand why I did that and my nickname was given.

When the UFC started we came up with a plan to hold a full contact stick fight in the UFC Octagon between matches. While there was some original interest in the plan, Art Davie and the rest of the UFC soon balked when they learned that we planned to fight in the Octagon without ANY protective gear. They were sure someone was going to get killed on television and the deal went bust. In their letter back to us Art Davie said, “Stickfighting such as your group has pioneered here in the United States is just too extreme for our format at this time.”

We were disappointed, of course, but we actually considered Art to have given us a badge of honor. What other martial art has been called “too extreme” for the cage by the founder of the UFC? The original letter is now in the possession of Marc Denny, but I still keep a copy of that letter on the wall of my school to this day. Stop by sometime and I’ll show it to you. Who knows, if I’m feeling generous, I might even give you a pair of sticks and let you have a go at me!