The 'Today I Learned...' MMA Thread

[jimufctna24]

I probably read this years ago but forgot about it. Mark Kerr and Royce Gracie were scheduled to fight in 1998 at Pride 2. The fight was cancelled due to Gracie suffering a back injury, and Kerr having a legal dispute with the UFC. The fight itself isn't that interesting to think about in my opinion. I'm pretty certain Kerr would have won rather easily. However, I do think it's interesting to consider how the result would have shaped MMA history.

Firstly, the Sakuraba vs Royce may not have happened at all, let alone been such a memorable moment. Secondly, I suspect Kerr, as Rutten and Sakuraba were, would be proposed as an opponent for Rickson. I doubt Rickson would have entertained fighting Kerr though. Thirdly, the fight itself would probably be seen as a landmark moment in MMA evolution, and Kerr would be remembered for it as much as he is for the HBO documentary (I sadly suspect Kerr would have still self-destructed even if he had beaten Royce).

Edited October 16, 2025 by jimufctna24

[wandshogun09]

3 hours ago, jimufctna24 said:

I probably read this years ago but forgot about it. Mark Kerr and Royce Gracie were scheduled to fight in 1998 at Pride 2. 

Yep. Royce was supposed to headline Pride 2 against Mark Kerr. Or ‘Mark Keer’ if we go by the original poster…

Royce had a lucky escape there. Genuinely can’t think of anything he could’ve done to Kerr physically. I know the selling point with BJJ back then was that a small man could beat a big man using BJJ but there comes a point where it’s just not happening is it? The difference in size and strength between Royce and Kerr would’ve been like a child fighting a fully grown man. Kerr could’ve probably just brute strengthed his way out of whatever Royce tried on the ground. 

[jimufctna24]

@wandshogun09

After our chat over the weekend I refreshed my memory about Fedor's dealings with the UFC in 2015/2016 and the fallout from them.

Apparently Fedor called Finklestein in 2015 (his manager from the mid 2000s-2012) and instructed him to open talks with the UFC on his behalf. Finklestein did this as a favour to Fedor, as he hadn't had a contract with Fedor since Fedor initially retired in 2012. During talks, Fedor agreed to drop some of his old demands, such as co-promotion, etc, and asked for a contract to be sent to him via mail, which it was. For some reason, Fedor decided not to sign the contract, despite Finklestein claiming the terms were very generous towards Fedor. In turn, Fedor broke ties with Finklestein for good and brought in a completely new management team (and showed up in Bellator)

Cast aside, members of his previous management team started to talk more openly about Fedor's character. The gist of their claims was that Fedor had called all the shots during negotiations that took place during his first career (including the 2009 UFC talks) and that Finklestein was merely his yes-man (others also claim that Finklestein either mismanaged Fedor's money or scammed him out of a lot of it). It was also claimed that Fedor's fight camp at the time, which included Baby Fedor and younger versions of Nemkov and Tokov, was a glorified vanity project, where the fighters trained in the middle of nowhere with outdated facilities and training methods, and where the camp revolved around Fedor to the expense of the younger fighters' careers.

Add in the questionable refereeing and judging during his mid-2016 fight with Maldonado with the above, and it's easy to see why Fedor's reputation was at an all-time low in the mid-2010s. Thankfully, ill-feelings towards him passed and he remains one of the most beloved MMA legends today. 

[wandshogun09]

Cheers for that @jimufctna24, sorry just catching up on here and only just got around to seeing this. I do vaguely remember the talk of those 2015 negotiations now you mention it but the rest I’ve either forgot about or never knew at all.

Whatever happened with the 2009 talks, I’ll never forget the buzz at that time that he might finally sign. After all the shite with the proposed Fedor vs Randy Couture fight we never got to see in 2007, leading to Randy’s big fallout with the UFC, I really thought he was finally gonna sign with the UFC in 2009. And the fact it was all being negotiated just after UFC 100 with Brock smashing up Frank Mir in their rematch, the sport never felt hotter to me than it did that summer. Then Fedor went to Strikeforce.

In hindsight, as much as I wish we got Fedor in the UFC even just once, part of me thinks maybe it was for the best that he didn’t at that time. In 2009 we weren’t to know that he was about to go into a slump and the winning streak was coming to an end. Obviously, if he went to the UFC it wouldn’t have been Werdum breaking the streak, maybe it would’ve went on a bit longer for all we know. But the slump he went on in 2010/11 did signify the prime was over and makes me think he probably would’ve lost in the UFC when you consider they still had the likes of Brock, Cain, Carwin and JDS at that time. Would’ve been cool to see those fights but if his first real loss came in the UFC can you imagine the fucking gloating the likes of Dana and Rogan would’ve done about how ‘this proves the UFC is another level/better than Pride’ and all that shite? Would’ve been unbearable. In that sense, if Fedor had to finally lose, I’m glad it happened somewhere else. 

Edited December 19, 2025 by wandshogun09

[jimufctna24]

@wandshogun09

By the way, your previous point about Dana sharing some of the blame for the failed 2009 negotiations with Fedor is probably still valid.

Bas Boon claims that he was the brains behind Fedor leaving Russian Top Team for Red Devil/M1 in 2003. Boon, with his knowledge of how much other Pride fighters were being paid, provided Fedor with evidence that he was being criminally underpaid while under the management of RTT, which prompted Fedor to sign a mangerial contract with M1(with Boon also as a secret manager under Miro Mijatovic's name). However, Boon and M1 fell out soon after in 2004. This was because Pride executives framed Mijatovic and Boon for stealing money from M1/Red Devil (Yakuza showed misleading invoices to M1/Red Devil).

As a result, Boon was more than happy to fly to Vegas and advise the UFC and White on how to sign Fedor in the late 2000s. Boon believed he could force a wedge between Fedor and M1 (Finklestein) as he had done between Fedor and RTT in 2003. This now appears to have been quite pointless. As I posted previously, Finklestein is now believed to have been merely a yes-man to Fedor, who also mismanaged Fedor's money, but I assume Boon held a grudge against Finklestein/M1 and wanted a bit of revenge.

However, Dana eventually opted to ignore Boon's advice, and Boon believes today that the UFC were merely using him (Boon claims he will detail why he believes this in his book). Boon also believes that Dana perhaps didn't want to use his brain while negoitiating with Fedor and instead just wanted to throw money at him. 

I agree that in retrospect it was probably for the best that Fedor didn't sign with the UFC in 2009 (or 2016 for that matter). You mentioned all the reasons why I am glad he never signed too.

[Egg Shen]

Today I learned boxing ring announcer Thomas Treiber, he of "Dillian The Babysnatcher Whyte" fame and current Ring show announcer was once a pro wrestler, WCW jobber named Tommy Tanna, who knew?

[wandshogun09]

D-d-d-daz knew.

I think it’s came up a couple of times on here over the years. Definitely came up in the Vault thread recently. Check out the gif I posted of the Equalizer nearly crippling the poor sod here…

 

[Egg Shen]

Missed that, cheers Wand.

[Egg Shen]

This tweet is doing the job for us:

 

[jimufctna24]

Today I learned (or rather remembered) that Scott Coker and some investment bankers were in serious talks to buy Pride in early 2007. The deal fell through as Sakikibara placed a 14 day deadline on Coker's camp to close the deal, which wasn't enough time for Coker's and company to do their due diligence on the sellers or the Pride organisation itself  - The Secret History of Strikeforce - Part 2 (substack.com)

The UFC later closed a deal to buy Pride without officially doing their due diligence on Sakikibara until after the deal was closed (obviously, they were aware Sakikibara was Yakuza all along). This was probably so they could appease Sakikibara with a consultancy deal, have him release some of Pride's assets to them, then run background checks on Sakikibara after the deal which would enable them to void part of the consultancy deal and let battle commence in court (which it did, as both sides sued one another, until they settled out of court) - UFC background check: Former PRIDE CEO Sakakibara ‘not a person of suitable character’ - Bloody Elbow (archive.org) 

Coker buying Pride is a fascinating "what if". Whatever can be said about Coker nowadays, he did a really good job as promoter of Strikeforce in the late 2000s and early 2010s. With the exception of the shows featuring Fedor, who Coker overpaid for, the Strikeforce shows were apparently profitable. The promotion had a good relationship with Showtime, their shows featured world class fighters in multiple divisions, and the sale to the UFC only occurred because their parent company wanted to concentrate on their hockey team. It's possible that Coker could have done a similar job with Pride in the US. The biggest challenge would have been resurrecting the brand in Japan, which Coker intended to do alongside running shows in the states. Even the UFC couldn't land a new TV deal for Pride after buying it, and parts of the media continued to give the Pride brand bad press long after its death (it's estimated it would have cost 12 million to run a Pride show without a TV deal post-2007). 

Edited June 4 by jimufctna24

[Dai]

Great post! My memory is hazy, but wasn't PRIDE dead and buried when they were bought out. In the same way WCW was, most of what they had was the video library? The fighters coming in was all separate anyway wasn't it, or am I mistaken?

My memory is also shaky on Strike force, but I think that even tailed off toward the end in terms of success for Coker. Again, could be way off on that too.

Basically, surely Coker buying PRIDE would have been a giant waste of cash. Cash which would have been better just getting contracts of some of the big fighters who would be out of work.

[jimufctna24]

30 minutes ago, Dai said:

Great post! My memory is hazy, but wasn't PRIDE dead and buried when they were bought out. In the same way WCW was, most of what they had was the video library? The fighters coming in was all separate anyway wasn't it, or am I mistaken?

Things are a little hazy on this. 

The story goes that a lot of the contracts were either invalid or illegal. However, Mark Hunt's contract, and I would assume others, were transferable. The UFC offered a sum to buyout Hunt's contract, as he was on a losing streak at the time, but Hunt declined and the UFC were obliged to honour the contract. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the likes of Sokoudjou and Nakamura fought in the UFC under their Pride deals (they debuted in the UFC very quickly after the sale)

Pride was pretty much dead in Japan after they lost their TV deal in 2006. However, the UFC probably didn't realise that initially and set up on office in Japan after the sale. As I noted above, a Japanese magazine was still running articles associating Pride executives with Yakuza activity, which made a TV deal difficult to secure (there is a rumour that workers from the magazine even told UFC staff that they were not going to stop running articles on Pride). I can imagine the Japanese FBI telling Fuji TV to take Pride off the air pnly a year earlier also weighed on TV network's minds too. In turn, the UFC shut the office in October of 2007. Part of Sakikibara's counter suit against the UFC, was based on the allegation that the UFC bought Pride to essentially close it down, but if that were true, the UFC wouldn't have spent the time and resources to set up an office in Japan and seek a TV deal. 

53 minutes ago, Dai said:

My memory is also shaky on Strike force, but I think that even tailed off toward the end in terms of success for Coker. Again, could be way off on that too.

 

They did make some matchmaking and business errors in 2009 and 2010. As I noted above, they overpaid for Fedor, which meant the shows he was featured on lost money and the promotion's profits declined overall. They also signed Henderson, which wasn't a bad move at all, but booking him to fight Jake Shields in his debut on national TV (who wasn't a stylistic nightmare for Hendo and not a draw), was in hindsight.

However, even the shows Hendo headlined in 2010 broke even or made a small profit. It's said that the promotion as a whole was still profitable overall in its final year under Coker, and the ratings for events on Strikeforce were still strong. 

1 hour ago, Dai said:

Basically, surely Coker buying PRIDE would have been a giant waste of cash. Cash which would have been better just getting contracts of some of the big fighters who would be out of work.

I do think the Pride brand name would have helped Coker initially. There would have been more eyeballs on a Pride show in the US between 2006-2008 than a Strikeforce show. 

But aye, fair point. 

 

[wandshogun09]

Thanks to a random clip on Twitter of Din Thomas mentioning it, TIL that Max Holloway’s uncle was a MMA fighter. That led me down a little rabbit hole and apparently he was a bit of a pioneer for the sport in Hawaii. This guy…

Stephen ‘Bozo’ Palling. He went 11-7-1, fought in Shooto and the usual Hawaiian shows like Superbrawl and Rumble On The Rock. He fought a bunch of names. Lost to the likes of Takanori Gomi, former WEC fighter Alexandre Nogueira, Din Thomas, Gilbert Melendez, Hiroyuki Takaya and Jens Pulver. Also has a 38 second submission win over WEC’s Antonio Banuelos and a couple wins via doctor stoppage due to cuts over Mark Hominick and KID Yamamoto! Tried to find footage of those Hominick and KID fights but no joy. But according to Tapology, the Hominick fight lasted 16 seconds and the KID fight only went 30 seconds. Sounds a bit flukey maybe but for him to do it twice, maybe he was just a bastard with elbows or something. Regardless, a win’s a win and those are two great names to have in anyone’s win column. Mad what a 10 second clip can lead to. If Max has mentioned this before then I’ve missed it. 

[Egg Shen]

I remember the name, but cant recall any specifics. I probably saw him fight on the Rumble on the Rock shows. 

Ive stated on here beford but those old school shows in Hawaii are some of the best shows from that time frame of MMA.

[wandshogun09]

Yeah same, the name and even his face look vaguely familiar. Given the names he’s fought, no doubt we’ve seen at least one or two of his fights over the years. Didn’t know he was Max’s uncle until today though.