The Ultimate Fighting Championship II: No Way Out! (March 11 1994)
- This was back when SEG favored roman numerals in their titles.
- Changes in the format: 16 men in the tournament (Royce Gracie v. 15 tomato cans, basically), no rounds this time.
- The original announce crew is gone and replaced with Brian Kilmeade and stuntman Ben Perry, along with dead weight Jim Brown.
Open Weight tournament preliminary round
Royce Gracie (Jiu-Jitsu) v. Minoki Ichihara (Karate)
"Here's a profile on a fighter we don't know anything about!" That's a direct quote. So the first 7 fights were dark matches in the prelim round, and they saved Royce's for PPV, I'm guessing in case the unthinkable happened and someone beat him. Both are in gi here. Royce takes him down immediately and wraps him up, then throws strikes. Gotta say, this announce team is immediately more engaging and relaxed than the first one was. Ichihara is hopelessly trapped in Gracie's mount, and without referee mandate to stand them up, the end result is inevitable. And indeed, he lets Ishihara get up long enough to roll him over in the armbar at 5:05. Ichihara was tapping like crazy immediately and Big John was actually very slow to get in there and stop it. Textbook Gracie.
- To fill time and educate new fans, we get an interesting look at the different disciplines on display (karate, kickboxing, kung fu, wrestling/grappling and "exotics"). What's interesting to me is that the eventual style that now dominates UFC is based on kickboxing melded with grappling and the rest have completely gone by the wayside.
Open Weight tournament quarterfinals
Scott Morris (Ninjitsu) v. Patrick Smith (Kickboxing)
Smith just destroys Morris in 10 seconds, knocking him down and out off the bell and then pounding his face into hamburger with sick elbows until the corner throws in the towel. Morris had absolutely no defense on the ground.
Fred Ettish (Kenpo Karate) v. Johnny Rhodes (Karate)
Ettish is a sub for an injured prelim winner, and it's another gi sighting. They trade some punches and Ettish goes down, trying to fight from his back, but Rhodes just unloads on him with knees to the head. Today Big John stops it immediately because Ettish isn't defending himself, but Rhodes lets off and it's allowed to continue. Ettish is bleeding all over the place and he's clearly overmatched here. Rhodes gets full side control and chokes him out with ease at 3:00. This should have been stopped 15 seconds in, but maybe that's just the modern viewer in me talking.
Orlando Weit (Kickboxing) v. Remco Parduel (Jiu-Jitsu)
Remco gets a quick takedown and fights for the arm, but Orlando fights him off, so Remco elbows him RIGHT IN THE FUCKING FACE, into unconsciousness at 1:30. Oh my god. I'm so glad they banned knee and elbow strikes like that, because that's terrifying. He could have shattered the bones in his face from that position.
Royce Gracie (Jiu-Jitsu) v. Jason DeLucia (Kung Fu)
DeLucia shoots in on Gracie, but Royce just wraps him up from the guard position and then casually turns him over into full mount and then pretty much breaks his arm with a hanging armbar at 1:00. That's pretty evil, as he lets DeLucia think that he's escaped, but he's got control of the arm from the bottom the whole time. That's just UNFAIR.
Open Weight tournament semi-finals
Patrick Smith v. Johnny Rhodes
They go with the standup fight, but Smith catches him on the fence and guillotines him to finish at 1:00. I'll be glad when we get to the shows where these guys actually have training to defend against basic stuff like that.
Royce Gracie v. Remco Parduel
Gracie shoots in and hangs on like a bulldog before taking Parduel down and controlling from the rear. Gracie ends it with a choke after a relatively marathon 1:30. Well Parduel lasted longer than I thought he would, I'll give him that.
Open Weight tournament finals:
Royce Gracie v. Patrick Smith
Royce patiently waits for Smith to try the takedown, at which point he hangs on and goes to full mount, dismantling Smith's defense and pounding him for the win at 1:18.
This was truly some wild west crazy shit from the early days, with some of the most blood-curdling finishes you'll ever see on a UFC show, back from the days before rules and true skill. Royce Gracie absolutely slicing through the tournament is amazing to watch and this makes for an unexpectedly entertaining show. Strong recommendation, as long as you can stomach a couple of the finishes.
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`Tags: 1994, 24, No Way Out, Sting, UFC, Ultimate Fighting Championship
UFC2 is an awesome. I have that one on tape.
One card you really really need to check out, as far as modern brutality goes, is “UFC Fight For the Troops” (also known as Ultimate Fight Night 16). It is by far my fav card of all time as far as ufc goes and made me a Steve Cantwell fan for life.
You are right, UFC 2 has some of the most memorable finishes of all time. That armbar on Delucia still makes me cringe. And the Smith/Morris finish was just pure aggression. Delucia (who became a Gracie convert) and Pat Smith hung around in MMA for years.
Now that I think about it, I think Delucia was in a dark match in UFC 1. They should really include those fights on the DVD releases.
BTW, elbows are still allowed on the ground in the UFC, but no knees. It was the opposite in Pride (knees, no elbows).
More specifically, *some* elbows are allowed on the ground under Nevada rules – but they ban elbows thrown “12 to 6″. Of course, wrestling fans would easily identify these as “bionic elbows”, but they can’t say that because, well, you know.
I kinda miss the knees from the north-south. Sure, they do a ton of damage and are scary, but every time you see someone sprawl and then not really have anything to do you remember how good they were at containing pointless takedown attempts in PRIDE.
(Oh, and apparently the guillotine was very effective on the UFC 100 undercard. That thing will never go away as a finish against overly-aggressive fighters.)
A horrifying end would strike Jason Delucia again when he returned at UFC 23. In a match against Joe Slick, Delucia’s knee buckled on him when they were in a standing clinch, you could easily hear him screaming in pain as they both hit the ground, as he had to tap out immediately. Also, Fred Ettish, now at the age of fifty something, is actually planning a return to MMA. Yep, the same guy who was clearly overmatched, as Scott put it, even in those early years when he was younger and the competition was far less skilled. Must be a glutton for punishment. Btw Scott, if this is the DVD you have, three of the unseen first round fights are on the extras.
Remco!
Yes, this was a lot more exciting than UFC one for me and my friends.
Too bad our video game and WWF fueled brains always picked the wrong guys that looked more exciting than Gracie. He just seemed so boring, especially when you have no idea what is going on. Now it’s kind of boring in the reverse direction where it’s like he is practically cheating by being so good. =P