Fighter Retrospective - Volk Han

Welcome to Leg Kick TKO, a MMA blog that's main defensive tactic is being too stupid to knock out.

This time on Fighter Retrospective, a look back at a submission-crazy Russian moon boot aficionado, Volk Han.

What's this guy's deal?

Volk Han, known to his mom as Magomedkhan Amanulayevich Gamzatkhanov (Because being born "Wolf Khan" is pretty much too awesome to fathom), is a Russian sambo practitioner, shoot wrestler and mixed martial artist that primarily plied his craft in the RINGS organization. While with Fighting Network Rings, Han teamed with noted potato-man Fedor Emeliananeko and other ovoid guys of varying hirsuteness to form Team Russia to do battle against the rest of the world.

While in RINGS, Han won the Mega Battle Tournament (It's a major award!) twice, and made the semi-finals twice more in a four-year span. Unfortunately, that was in the hazy years where RINGS was probably more pro wrestling than mixed martial arts, but as we all know, nobody in Japanese pro wrestling is aware that anything is supposed to be fake (And thus, everyone just beats each other into various stages of near-death), so I still hold it to be a significant accomplishment.

What the hey? I thought this was a (bad) MMA blog, and this guy's main accomplishments were in PRO WRESTLING?!

Han did compete in MMA when RINGS transitioned over, but he was already in his late 30s at the time, so he didn't have the kind of smash success that a time-displaced 20 year old Volk Han probably would have had. He still had a fairly respectable record, including two wins over Japanese legend Kiyoshi Tamura (A one-time Mega Battle Tournament winner himself).

Han essentially retired in 2001, at the age of 40, but his official final match came more than a decade later, against fellow submission grappling ace, Masakatsu Funaki (I am totally going to write up a retrospective on him, hopefully within the decade). As befitting the nature of the two men involved, and the fact that it was probably a little worked (My face is going to be both red and covered with egg when it turns out that the entirety of MMA has been worked from jump street), the contest ended in a draw.

That being said, there's still some pretty good showcases of Han's grappling skills what is probably entirely legitimate competition. For example, his win over freestyle wrestling champion (NCAA Division II does too count!), Branden Lee Hinkle, as seen above.

Despite me mentally questioning the veracity of every scrap of video footage of Han online, he's still undoubtedly a very good grappler, and that's enough for me to praise him. Additionally, he helped break open sambo* to mixed martial arts, and we all reap the benefits of that with noted heroes of this blog, Rustam Khabliov, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Frodo Khasbulaev, Shahbulat Shamhalaev, and Alexander Shlemenko.

* - Sambo, as translated from the original Cyrillic, means "Come, friend, let us practice our judo. But, wait, what is this? The wolves have eaten the pantaloons of our judo pajamas! Fret not, we must grapple anyway".

Fighter Retrospective - Ikuhisa Minowa

Welcome to Leg Kick TKO, a MMA blog that's proof that if you have a dream, go ahead, anything is pasta bowl!

Today on Fighter Retrospectives I'm taking a look at one of the more pro-wrestley guys, Ikuhisa "the Punk" Minowa, more commonly known as MINOWAMAN. He's also currently active, so this is more of a Fighter Appreciation than a Retrospective, so leave appropriate vitriol in the comments for such an egregious goof up.

Who is this man, and what does he do?

A typical Wednesday for MINOWAMAN

Ikuhisa Minowa is a grapple-man made out of a mullet, a red speedo, dropkicks, and pure amazing (Yes, part of his training includes racing airplanes).  He's most well known for challenging guys with at least fifty pounds on him, but far inferior skills.  This is because Japanese MMA is both ridiculous and great, and cares not for fighter safety or fair fights.

Minowa got his start in 1996 and went 1-8-1 in his first ten fights, most of them taking place in Pancrase (Apparently I can only do a Retrospective if a Fighter competed amongst other Hybrid Wrestlers). Undaunted, Minowa continued fighting, and slowly started to even out his record, finally getting to .500 in 1999 with a 10-10-5 mark. He reached a true winning percentage in 2000, getting to 12-11-6, and he currently stands at 55-34-8, with over a quarter of his fights contested as Openweight bouts (Japanese MMA, you are truly, truly outrageous).

Minowa is impressive in the ways he wins, too, with 39 of his 55 wins coming by way of submission (71%), with 12 different types of submissions used to finish fights. He's mostly a leg specialist, with 18 wins coming below the waist (46% of all his submissions). He does have two wins by scarf hold armlock, which is about as many as the rest of the MMA world combined.

He Ever Win a Title?

Has he ever! MINOWAMAN only won the most glorious and prestigious tournament in the history of combat sports, the DREAM Openweight tournament, also known as SUPER HULK! It was a grueling contest, pitting three non-heavyweight mixed martial artists (plus Jose Canseco, because Japan) against four super heavyweight fighters.

Minowa's first match was against the enormous Bob Sapp (This was before Sapp decided to just collect a paycheck, and probably have at least a quarter of a fuck left to give). Minowa easily dispatched "The Beast" with a leglock in round one.

Next, came the even more gigantic Hong Man Choi, the only super heavyweight to win his opening round fight (Because it was against Jose Canseco. Again, JAPAN).

Minowa won again with another leglock, but it took him until round two to dispatch the biggest man in the tournament.

The tournament finals pitted Minowa against "The African Assasin" Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou. Sokoudjou had won both of his fights with impressive ground and pound stoppages, and though he was bigger than MINOWAMAN (The smallest competitor in the tournament), he appeared to have some amount of fighting skill. It was to be an epic showdown.

In a hilarious turn of events, MINOWAMAN knocked out Sokoudjou.

With the win, MINOWAMAN now laid claim to the greatest prize in the history of combat sports, the SUPER HLUK title!

 The prestige is overwhelming.

MINOWAMAN and the SUPER HLUK title's creator.

Anything else?

He does pro wrestling, sometimes just as MINOWAMAN, but apparently he's also Tiger Mask V. Allow MINOWAMAN into your heart, for all he wants is to make it brighter.

Fighter Retrospective - Bas Rutten

Welcome to Leg Kick TKO, a MMA blog that will always let you bang, bro.


This time on Fighter Retrospectives, I’ll be taking a look at a Dutch maniac, Bas “El Guapo” Rutten.

Who is this guy?

Bas Rutten is a guy from Holland that was very good at killing people’s faces.  He began his martial arts career in Tae Kwon Do and Kyokushin karate, then later transitioned into Muay Thai kickboxing (I think 80% of all Dutch people are skilled in Muay Thai), before participating in mixed martial arts.

He started in Pancrase, a Japanese organization that had a fair amount of professional wrestling influences (Combatants were allowed rope breaks for submissions during a match, for instance, and closed fist punches to the face were illegal.  The rope breaks were in finite supply, though, and once you used them up, the next rope grab would end the fight.).  Bas was initially very good at knocking out people with his excellent striking background, but would quickly become lost when a fight went to the ground.  One of the top stars of Pancrase, Masakatsu Funaki took on Bas and several other fighters to train submission skills simply to give himself more of a challenge (Rest assured, I’ll be writing about Funaki in the future).  Rutten learned the ground game very well and started submitting people with numerous different holds.

Were any of his fights any good?

Boy howdy, were they!  Bas had some very impressive and fun fights with such peoples as Jason DeLucia, Frank and Ken Shamrock (Individually, of course, this was Pancrase, not ZST), and Masakatsu Funaki.

Rutten versus Frank Shamrock III - The Fighting Clown, Frank Shamrock

 Bas struggled against the Shamrock family, going 2-3 overall with the grappling brothers.  This fight is to unify Bas's King of Pancrase title with Frank's interim KoP title.  Bas is on commentary because he's awesome.  There's a good mix of grappling, striking, and conversation to start things off.  Oh, they also spill out of the ring during a takedown attempt by Frank.  Crazy times in Pancrase!

It's not really until the latter stages of the fight that Frank starts goofing around.  He throws a turtled-up backhand, and during a leg lock attempt, just pulls ridiculous faces as Bas tries to punch his way out.  Frank ends up with a cut over his eyebrow, and that's the official reason for the end of the fight, but Bas says, and I'm inclined to agree, that Shamrock just looked like he was done, cut or no cut.

Check out more about Bas after the (splits) jump!

Fighter Retrospective - Genki Sudo

Welcome to Leg Kick TKO, a MMA blog that’s a worse judge of fights than Cecil Peoples.

Fighter Retrospectives is when I take a look back at retired fighters (Or at least a guy that’s been fighting at least 15 years) and try to convince you why they are super-duper awesome.   Today, the focus is on the Transforming Trickster, the Neo-Samurai, Genki Sudo.

Wull, why should I care about this guy?  (That’s you)

Genki Sudo is probably my favorite fighter that I never saw live, and sometimes he’s my favorite fighter, period, with no qualifications.  He was predominantly a grappler, having done Greco-Roman wrestling in high school, and then later taking up Brazilian jiu-jitsu.  His striking wasn’t awful, and he even fought in some K-1 kickboxing bouts (to extremely limited success, going 2-4), but his hugging prowess easily overshadows his kickpuncher skills.  What really draws me to Sudo is his ability to mix showmanship with skill.  He had ridiculous entrances that not only blew most other fighter entrances out of the water (Pretty easy, since other than like five dudes all walk-outs are boring and bland), but were way better than a lot of professional wrestling entrances, too.  The antics didn’t stop inside the ropes (Or, for like three fights, the cage), though.  Genki would dance around during a fight, dropping his hands to do the robot, turn his back on his opponent, and basically refuse to take things seriously.  He claimed it was never to embarrass or make fun of his opponent, but his attempts at elevating the fight to a true art form.  His overarching message is We Are All One, a concept he enforced by carrying a banner with that phrase and various flags of the world stitched onto it.

Okay, wull, lemme see some of these “awesome entrances” I guess.  (You, again)

A Genki Sudo entrance is a great thing to behold because it always involves costumes, backup dancers, rad, choreographed moves, and usually the dramatic removal of the aforementioned costume.

He’s walked out to the fight as, among other things, several different space robots, a Chinese drunken boxer, some sort of aboriginal person, and Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn.

Check out more Genki Sudo radness after the jump.