Almost all major championships in sports are decided by a tournament. Whether it’s the NFL playoffs, the NCAA basketball bracket, Olympic wrestling or the World Cup, matching the best against the best and seeing who emerges from the pack has long been the most popular way to determine which athletes can claim superiority.

The UFC relied on the tournament format for nearly all of its first 20 events, and from those violent nights emerged such popular figures as Don Frye, Tank Abbott, Mark Coleman and Mark Kerr. By contrast, the executives at Pride Fighting Championships completely avoided requiring its athletes to fight more than once per event for its first several cards, instead choosing to structure things in a way far more familiar to modern MMA fans. While this strategy allowed Pride to showcase its stars without the fatigue that accompanies a tournament, after eight very successful shows, Pride had yet to crown a champion.

And so we arrive at the Pride Grand Prix 2000.

The idea was simple: Gather 16 of the best/most popular fighters in the world and make them compete against other until only one man remained. Unlike the first handful of UFC tournaments, which because of the nascent nature of MMA in the early ’90s attracted a smorgasbord of dojo tough-guys, Pride was able to use its comparative financial largesse to pick from the top players in the game. Among them were the first UFC Heavyweight Champion, a K-1 kickboxing pioneer and three former UFC tournament winners – including the man whose exploits introduced the entire sport of mixed martial arts to the American public.

The first Pride Grand Prix also established the template the promotion would use for all of its future major events. The Grand Prix 2000 was not just a martial arts tournament – it was a spectacle. While the UFC hosted its first card in 2000 at the Lake Charles Civic Center (capacity: 7,450), Pride’s inaugural tournament took place at the legendary Tokyo Dome in front of nearly 50,000 eager fans, and its success helped solidify the promotion as the world’s best.

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Opening Round (Jan. 30, 2000)

The idea that Royce Gracie, Mark Coleman, Masaaki Satake, Nobuhiko Takada and Kazushi Sakuraba would all be competing for the same championship would have seemed like a fever dream even one year prior to the Pride Grand Prix. At the beginning of 1999, Coleman was in the midst of a three-fight losing streak that would soon be extended to four after his ignominious Pride debut. At the same time, Satake was on the other side of his prime as a K-1 kickboxer and Gracie was entering his fourth year of inactivity, having not competed since UFC 5. Sakuraba was an experienced and successful fighter by the time Pride executives asked him to participate in the Grand Prix, but he’d yet to face anyone with the combined size and skill of some of the other entrants.

When the lights came up that night in January 2000, though, there they all were. Joining them was a variety of other fighters who were looking to use the opportunity to increase their own popularity among fans. Kazuyuki Fujita was a mid-card pro wrestler who had never competed in mixed martial arts before the Pride Grand Prix. Enson Inoue was a well respected veteran of Shooto who also fought in the UFC and Vale Tudo Japan (where he notched a submission victory against once and future UFC Heavyweight Champion Randy Couture). Guy Mezger was definitely a familiar face to those who’d previously followed Pancrase and the UFC, but his association with the Lion’s Den had perpetually left him in the shadow of Ken Shamrock.

Throughout the night, fans would generally see one of two varieties of combat: Total dominance resulting in an unconventional and brutal submission, or a fifteen-minute decision serving to advance Pride’s more popular/expensive athletes. The tournament’s opening bout lasted all of 51 seconds, as Gary Goodridge took professional wrestler and MMA newbie Osamu Kawahara to the mat and then submitted him with a forearm choke – literally putting the blade of his forearm against Kawahara’s larynx and then pressing down from side control. Kazuyuki Fujita submitted experienced Dutch striker Hans Nijman with what was officially termed a “scarf hold” but in reality was the result of Fujita trying to separate Nijman’s head from his torso. Mark Coleman, no doubt eager to prove his mettle after his recent skid, got in on the violence by quickly putting Masaaki Satake on his back and executing the rarely seen but always effective neck crank. While Satake was an ultra-popular karate and K-1 veteran, his complete lack of experience on the ground was immediately exposed by the former NCAA Division I national wrestling champion, who gave him a free and very uncomfortable cervical-spine adjustment.

On the other side of the spectrum, half of the evening’s contests went the 15-minute distance and didn’t exactly inspire thrills from the crowd. Akira Shoji and Igor Vovchanchyn each secured easy victories over their opponents, showing why they were still among Pride’s best fighters, if also among the promotion’s least heralded. Mark Kerr dominated the much smaller Enson Inoue, taking him to the mat almost immediately and using his superior control to stifle any attempted counterattacks.

The night’s main-event fight was also far from its most exciting, despite the enormous combined star power of Royce Gracie and Nobuhiko Takada. After a minute or so of circling each other, the two fighters clinched up and danced around the ring for a bit before Gracie pulled Takada into his guard. From there, Gracie engaged in a series of slaps to Takada’s head and kicks to his lower back in an effort to sweep into mount or set up a submission. Takada – always more resilient than skilled – took the punishment and did not give an inch. It was a valiant effort, but one that resulted neither in a win for Takada nor a particularly memorable headlining fight. Still, Gracie would advance to the finals where he’d participate in one of the sport’s most legendary bouts.

An early Pride Fighting Championships event wouldn’t be complete, however, without a little controversy, and on this night, it was spurred by someone who wasn’t even competing.

Before the event began, the participating athletes were told that each fight would last a maximum of one 15-minute round. If there was not a stoppage before the 15-minute time limit, the winner would be decided by a panel of judges. Every fight in the Grand Prix Opening Round followed one of these two paths – a stoppage or a judge’s decision – except for one, and the notable diversion further cemented Pride FC not only as a place where fighters could get paid a lot of money, but also where head-scratching administrative decisions would become all too common.

In the middle of the Opening Round’s card sat a fight between two very capable fighters who were seen as the right-hand-men of two more established stars. On one side of the ring stood Guy Mezger, a true pioneer of mixed martial arts and a man who already had 33 professional fights under his belt when he entered the Pride Grand Prix. As a member of the Lion’s Den fight team, though, Mezger’s considerable success was dwarfed by the enormous celebrity of Ken Shamrock, who despite having left mixed martial arts in 1996 was the face of the sport for many American fans.

Mezger’s opponent that January evening was another man who’d established himself as a formidable force in MMA, but who also was still being shunted aside in favor of his more illustrious mentor. Heading into the Pride Grand Prix 2000, Kazushi Sakuraba had only lost one of his 11 pro fights – his first one, against a much larger and more experienced opponent. Since then, he’d gone on to establish himself as one of Pride’s most popular home-grown talents. Sakuraba appeared in every Pride Fighting Championships event from Pride 2 through the Grand Prix and notched significant victories against Carlos Newton, Vitor Belfort and Royler Gracie. Like Mezger, however, Sakuraba’s spotlight was significantly obscured as a result of his association with Nobuhiko Takada.

The fight itself was a by-the-books encounter between an experienced striker and a slick, creative grappler, with Mezger trying to damage Sakuraba with kickboxing combinations while fending off the wrestler’s frequent takedown attempts. Sakuraba tried just about every conceivable angle to get Mezger off of his feet, but was largely unsuccessful until late in the round. After 15 minutes of this back-and-forth action, neither fighter could put his opponent away and the result was left in the hands of Pride’s ringside judges.

According to Mezger, because his contract specifically stated that the fight with Sakuraba would be limited to a single round, he was not expecting the judges to call it a draw and order an overtime period. That’s just what they did, though, and what happened next would for many fight fans become one of the unfortunate signature moments of Mezger’s entire career.

As soon as the ring announcer shared the judges’ decision with the crowd, fans watching live in the U.S. probably heard what sounded like a loud thud on their broadcast. They were not imagining things.

That thud was caused by a set of headphones being abruptly discarded by a man with whom just about everyone with any interest in Pride Fighting Championships was surely familiar. This man was one of the pioneers of mixed martial arts, led one of the sport’s most prominent gyms and, on that particular night, was working the commentary booth alongside Stephen Quadros and Bas Rutten in advance of officially announcing his return to professional fighting after a lucrative sojourn to the World Wrestling Federation. When the Mezger/Sakuraba draw was announced, however, Ken Shamrock lost it.

Sprinting from his broadcast position to the ring, Shamrock was apoplectic, berating the referee and Pride officials for altering the previous agreement seemingly on the fly and ordering Mezger to go back to the locker room. While Mezger was no shrinking violet – and, in fact, was a more experienced fighter than Shamrock when the Pride Grand Prix took place – he knew not to go against the most famous man in the sport, and stepped through the ropes and out the door.

The fight itself was ruled a win for Sakuraba by TKO due to Mezger’s “retirement,” allowing one of Pride’s most popular fighters to advance to the tournament’s next round. Mezger was reportedly compensated by promotion officials for the confusion, but his competitive efforts would regrettably be marred by the contest’s immediate aftermath.

At the end of the Pride Grand Prix Opening Round, eight fighters remained in the field and would prepare to meet again in a single-night tournament a few months later. The way the bracket was set up suggested that the title would be determined by a final battle between Royce Gracie and the winner of a fight between longtime friends and training partners Mark Kerr and Mark Coleman, but in reality two of these three men wouldn’t even make it to the semi-finals.

Finals (May 1, 2000)

Beyond the crowning of the very first Pride champion, most fans who watched live in May 2000 or, probably more likely, caught the event later on DVD remember the Pride Grand Prix 2000 for one thing: the fight between Royce Gracie and Kazushi Sakuraba. While it didn’t determine – or even feature – the tournament’s eventual winner, the battle between two of the sport’s most decorated grapplers won Fight of the Year from the few journalists covering MMA at the turn of the century and would for years be considered among the most grueling displays of courage ever seen in a ring.

As was their wont at the time, the Gracies insisted on a special ruleset for Royce’s match with Sakuraba. While the tournament’s other fights consisted of a single 15-minute round, after which the result would be determined by a panel of ringside judges, Gracie vs. Sakuraba would do away with both the judges and the time-limit. The result was a six-round, 90-minute marathon that ultimately ended when Gracie’s corner threw in the towel.

Better writers than me have already composed vast volumes of analysis on Royce Gracie vs. Kazushi Sakuraba, so I’ll save all of us the time by foregoing a round-by-round breakdown. In a nutshell, Gracie spent the majority of the fight trying to bait Sakuraba into his guard, while Sakuraba countered by throwing leg-kicks to wear Gracie down. There were other brief moments of stand-up action, but the greatest portion of the fight’s six rounds saw Gracie on his back with Sakuraba standing over him measuring the distance for kicks. When it was all over, Gracie’s mystique disappeared along with his previously undefeated record. He’d never win a truly meaningful fight again, while Sakuraba was on his way to becoming one of the sport’s most celebrated and legendary stars.

After the Gracie/Sakuraba epic – and, of course, the championship fight to determine the winner of the Pride Grand Prix – the highlight of the evening was the return of MMA pioneer Ken Shamrock, who was returning to unstaged combat for the first time in nearly four years. Shamrock first cut his teeth in the world of Pancrase before becoming the face of the early UFC, appearing in eight of the promotions first ten events, and winning the promotion’s first Superfight Championship (the precursor to the UFC Heavyweight belt). He became known to an even wider audience after he was lured to the World Wrestling Federation, where he’d win a couple of secondary titles and make himself regularly present in the promotion’s various evolving storylines. During a time when “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and The Rock were the promotion’s primary figures, however, Shamrock never really broke through to become a true main-eventer. No doubt the Pride promoters were also offering him ever-increasing sums to make his MMA comeback, so after a successful sojourn into pro-wrestling’s “big leagues,” Shamrock returned to his roots.

For this comeback bout, Shamrock would face fellow wrestler/fighter Alexander Otsuka, whose 1-4 record probably did not inspire terror from the vastly more experienced Lion’s Den captain. Otsuka was an enormously popular professional wrestler in Japan, and thus an incredible draw for Pride’s fans, especially against someone like Ken Shamrock, but he was basically moonlighting in MMA, and was never considered a championship contender.

The fight went about how one might expect it to go, given that one of its participants was a longtime MMA veteran coming back after a long layoff and the other was a far less experienced martial artist who nevertheless had a few grappling chops. Shamrock controlled the action from the start, but didn’t put Otsuka away as quickly as he might have done before his sabbatical. Eventually, though, Shamrock landed a brutal punching combination that sent Otsuka to the canvas. A perfunctory follow-up strike was enough for the referee, who stepped in to end the contest near the end of the first round. If nothing else, it proved that Shamrock could still compete in legitimate fights, though the remaining fights in his career would put his body’s wear-and-tear on obvious display.

The evening’s main event was the culmination of Pride’s ambitious 16-man tournament, and crowned the promotion’s first true champion. It also served to validate one man’s decision to keep fighting despite the enormous odds against his success.

Mark Coleman’s journey to the championship match of the Pride Fighting Grand Prix 2000 has been told and retold countless times. The elite NCAA and Olympic wrestler blasted his way through the UFC’s post-Gracie/Shamrock era en route to two consecutive tournament wins and the inaugural UFC Heavyweight Championship. The sport caught up with him, though, and he was dispatched by talented strikers in each of his next three fights. He then found his way to Pride where he – ahem, shockingly – lost to Nobuhiko Takada, and it seemed like the best days of “The Hammer” were long gone.

Not all was lost, though, and Coleman came back just a few months after his fourth straight loss and dominated the somehow much larger Ricardo Morais to earn a decision victory. From there, he punched his ticket to the Pride Grand Prix.

After submitting Masaaki Satake in the opening round, Coleman was matched against the always-tough Akira Shoji for the quarterfinals. At the time, Shoji had only lost once in his Pride career, despite appearing on eight of the company’s first nine shows, and against Coleman he again showed why he was so difficult to put away. Coleman managed to grind out a convincing decision, though, and advanced to the tournament’s penultimate round, where he was slated to face another enormously sturdy Japanese fighter in Kazuyuki Fujita.

Here’s where things get a little squirrely, though.

Instead of getting an opportunity to avenge his friend Mark Kerr’s loss to Fujita earlier in the evening (more on that later), Coleman was given a de facto bye through the semifinals when Fujita’s corner threw in the towel immediately after the bell rang. This meant that Coleman automatically advanced to the tournament’s final match, and would enjoy a significant rest period in between his fights. There might not be anything suspicious about this development if not for two factors:

First, if Fujita knew he was unable to fight to the degree that he immediately forfeited when the bell rang in his match against Coleman, why didn’t he and his corner withdraw beforehand? That is, why go through all the pre-fight rigmarole – walk-outs, fighter introductions, etc. – if he was just going to throw in the towel? Coleman claims that Pride would not have paid Fujita unless he stepped in the ring, and that the planned alternate, rising star Wanderlei Silva, was apparently not in attendance. Pride briefly considered reinserting the previously eliminated Gary Goodridge into the tournament, but ultimately Fujita was the one facing off with Coleman listening to the referee explain the rules.

Secondly, Coleman previously did a favor for Pride’s promoters when he took a suspicious loss to the company’s top draw, Nobuhiko Takada, at Pride 5 the year before. Perhaps the gift of an immediate Fujita forfeit was their way of thanking him? Regardless of the reasons, Coleman would square off in the tournament’s final match against Igor Vovchanchyn, who already fought more than 25 minutes that evening when he defeated Goodridge and then Sakuraba to punch his ticket.

With the benefit of hindsight, the result of the Pride Grand Prix 2000 Finals almost seems like a foregone conclusion. Coleman was the larger, fresher fighter, and almost immediately took Vovchanchyn to the mat and kept him there to in order neutralize the Ukrainian’s obvious striking advantage. Coleman employed this ground-and-pound offense for the duration of the opening round, and the exhausted Vovchanchyn simply had no answer. The second round was more of the same, until Coleman managed to maneuver into a north-south position over a grounded Vovchanchyn. From there, all it took was a few very violent knees to the top of Vovchanchyn’s skull to secure Coleman the TKO victory.

Coleman reacted like he’d just won the lottery, famously flubbing an attempt to vault over the ring’s top rope before making his way into the roaring crowd like a conquering hero to soak up the well deserved adulation. It was the pinnacle of Mark Coleman’s MMA career, and capped off an improbable comeback for the then-35-year-old fighter.

Moreover, though, the two evenings proved that the fight-loving public still had an appetite for tournaments, as long as the names in the brackets lived up to the already high standard that Pride had set. It would take a few years, but Pride Fighting Championships would not only bring the format back, but would make tournaments like the 2000 Grand Prix its signature annual events.

The Smashing Machine, Part II

When we left Mark Kerr, he was in the hospital after overdosing on painkillers. His last fight ended in a No Contest after Igor Vovchanchyn landed multiple illegal knees. Still, Kerr’s aura of indestructibility had disappeared, and his career was at a crossroads.

Choosing his health over his career, Kerr enters a rehabilitation facility in order to gain some small measure of control over his crippling addition. A few weeks later, he’s bright-eyed and back to the gym to work with famed trainer Bas Rutten. Kerr has been chosen to fight in the Pride Grand Prix 2000, which takes place only a couple of months after his exit from treatment, and he needs to prove to himself that he still has what it takes to compete at the sport’s top level.

In the Opening Round, Kerr faced Enson Inoue, who charged straight into a takedown in the bout’s opening seconds. From there, Kerr employed the same stifling offense audiences had come to expect from him, keeping Inoue on his back and chipping away with short punches without giving up control to the dangerous jiu-jitsu practitioner. Fifteen minutes later, Kerr’s hand was raised as he earned a decision victory to advance to the tournament’s quarterfinals. While it was far from his most violent victory, it was a dominant one, and it suggested that Kerr was still very much among the fighters in the sport’s highest echelon.

Unfortunately, Kerr’s newfound sobriety and rekindled success would not last long. In the documentary version of The Smashing Machine, the audience sees Kerr’s attention split between his training and his personal life, with his girlfriend, Dawn Staples, and while the film probably leans a little too heavily into the Sampson/Delilah narrative, it’s clear that Kerr’s performance in the ring is directly impacted by his relationship conflicts outside of it. Nowhere was this more apparent that in Kerr’s lone fight in the Pride Grand Prix 2000 Finals.

As the brackets were revealed for the eight-man quarterfinals, it appeared that Pride was indeed looking for a championship match between Royce Gracie and Mark Kerr, who were on complete opposite sides of the draw. First, though Gracie would have to get through Kazushi Sakuraba and Kerr would have to beat Kazuyuki Fujita and then, it was assumed, take on his best friend and occasional training partner Mark Coleman. As you read above, none of these things ended up happening.

While Sakuraba’s victory over Gracie was certainly an upset, and Coleman was far from a betting favorite to win the tournament, there was no bigger surprise in the first three years of Pride Fighting Championships than Mark Kerr losing to Kazuyuki Fujita. Kerr was a (technically) unbeaten multi-time UFC tournament champion who was considered the very best fighter in the world since 1997. Fujita, while also an accomplished amateur and professional wrestler, had only fought in three previous MMA contests before his bout against Kerr.

As the fight began, Kerr displayed his usual grappling acumen, slamming Fujita to the mat with an impressive high-angle double-leg takedown and proceeding to break him apart with punches from top position. Kerr then landed a knee flush to Fujita’s face that would have sent most other fighters on their way to Dreamland. Unlike most other fighters, however, Fujita just ate it and kept going. This anomaly not only marked the turning point of this fight, but in some ways it’s the single moment when Mark Kerr’s fighting career changed forever.

Kerr, like anyone else watching his fight with Fujita, was probably pretty bewildered when his opponent was still standing after taking some very powerful strikes. No matter, though, because Kerr was a well conditioned professional athlete and former NCAA champion wrestler who easily went the full 15-minute distance in the tournament’s first round … right?

This is where the documentary’s previous allusions to Kerr’s divided attention begin to show their significance. When Kerr can’t put Fujita away in the fight’s first handful of minutes, he begins to wither away, exhausted from the effort. Soon, instead of Kerr dominating the offense, it’s Fujita taking Kerr to the mat and landing several unanswered strikes. By the closing stanza, Kerr is completely gassed and being used as a prone punching bag for the ultra-tough Fujita. The final bell rings, and Fujita receives the decision from the judges, and Kerr goes to the locker room to get stitched up.

As Mark Coleman celebrates his tournament victory, Mark Kerr has to reckon with his first true loss. He still might be one of the world’s best fighters, but it’s clear that he won’t be able to coast on his previous talents any longer.

What Could Have Been: Kurt Angle

Back in 2009, the UFC offered Olympic Gold Medalist and Professional Wrestling Champion Kurt Angle a half-million dollars to appear on it’s reality show, The Ultimate Fighter. At that point, Angle was on the wrong side of 40 and had endured decades of debilitating injuries, including breaking his neck during the 1996 Olympic trials. In addition, Angle was reportedly in the midst of a significant substance dependency, and UFC President Dana White commented that the wrestler likely would not have passed the required physical examination to appear on the show.

But what if Kurt Angle never got into professional wrestling in the first place?

Acknowledging that even MMA’s current champions take home a fraction of what other professional athletes do, that earnings disparity was even more stark in the mid-90s, when even the very best fighters were getting paydays in the mid-five-figures. Imagine, instead, a world where ex-Olympic wrestlers could have make a decent living by fighting from MMA’s earliest days. In this imaginary land, Kurt Angle heals up from his significant injuries after winning the gold medal, moves to Ohio to train with Mark Coleman, Kevin Randleman and the rest of Team Hammer House, and then begins fighting professionally in the UFC sometime around 1997.

We’ve seen the success that other elite-level wrestlers had in the formative days of mixed martial arts – Coleman, Randleman, Dan Severn, Mark Kerr, and Dave Schultz to name a handful – so it stands to reason that Angle, the literal best heavyweight wrestler in the world at the time, would have likely made quick work out of all but a few of his potential opponents. As an Olympic champion, Angle would also garner a lot of interest from Pride if he had any level of success in other MMA promotions (or, honestly, even if he decided to fight professionally and was looking to debut in Japan for the most lucrative possible paycheck), and his amateur wrestling rivalry with Kerr would have made for an easy main-event fight to promote.

Had Angle chosen MMA, he’d have at least three years of sport-specific training by the Pride Grand Prix 2000, and he would have been a very difficult person to leave out of the bracket from a popularity standpoint. Certainly he could have taken the place of Osamu Kawahara or Ebenezer Fontes Braga, and his cardio endurance alone would have made him a heavy favorite in an event where the winner was ostensibly required to fight three times in a single night.

Perhaps the addition of strikes would have been too much for Angle, but given his excellence in both amateur and professional wrestling, he displayed the sort of world-class athleticism and work-ethic that would have made him an ideal student for MMA’s best coaches and a premiere personality for Pride to promote.

Recommended Fights:

Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Guy Mezger
Mark Coleman vs. Masaaki Satake
Mark Kerr vs. Enson Inoue
Royce Gracie vs. Kazushi Sakuraba
Mark Kerr vs. Kazuyuki Fujita
Mark Coleman vs. Igor Vovchanchyn