Fighters Only

Issue 061

April 2010

Chances are that Erik Paulson knows more ways to make you scream in pain than you know ways to butter your toast. “The human body is a submission waiting to happen,” he says with a smile that is simultaneously jovial and terrifying.

The casual MMA fan might be forgiven for thinking that Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) and wrestling are the only styles of grappling worthy of gracing the Octagon. While BJJ is an integral part of the style Erik teaches to his stable of fighters, in all likelihood his Combat Submission Wrestling (CSW) probably has submissions that have never even had the chance to be frowned upon in the training halls of Brazil.

Erik started his martial arts career in Minnesota, USA, with judo in 1974. By the late eighties, the list of ways Erik knew how to hurt people included karate, taekwondo, boxing, jeet kune do, kali, Muay Thai, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. In fact, you name a martial art and Erik has probably trained in it and made people tap with it.

Moving to California in 1989, Erik trained with a number of people who were instrumental in his development, including Dan Inosanto, a black belt in BJJ, and Larry Hartsell, a ground-fighting specialist (both were originally training partners of Bruce Lee). He also worked with the Gracies, in the early days when classes were held in Rorion’s garage, and the Machados, cousins of the Gracies.

It was at the Inosanto academy that Erik met Yori Nakamura, who was freshly certified from probably the toughest gym that has ever existed in Japan: Satoru Sayama’s Tiger Gym, where a blend of catch-wrestling, kickboxing and extremely grueling training produced battle-hardened masters of ‘Shooto’, a martial art covering all ranges of combat.

“In 1989, I took a seminar with Yori Nakamura in Shooto and was hooked. I loved the combination of striking and grappling... the wide-open attacks and dynamic intensity,” he says. Somehow, he managed to bypass the dogmatic mindset that affected many practitioners of traditional styles; he did not give his allegiance to a single master or way of fighting. Paulson was developing himself into the best fighter he could be, and the only way to do it was to mix up his training. “I knew I was one of the few American fighters, at that time, training in all ranges at that intensity. If I found I was weak in one area, I sought out whoever was best at it and trained with them.”

In 1993, Nakamura offered Erik the chance to get real with his training with a professional MMA fight in Japan. He was the first American to do so. His opponent was Kazuhiro Kusanagi, famous for his submissions. Paulson had seen some of his tapes and, displaying the kind of prodigious imitative skill that other legends possess, was able to catch Kusanagi in one of his trademark moves: the reverse triangle.

A string of Japanese champions would fall to the pony-tailed foreigner, much to the surprise and probably chagrin of the Shooto organization. “We were always the foreigners who came to challenge the Japanese on their home turf... we could only win by a knockout or submission – no decisions,” says Paulson. He retired from Shooto in 2000 having successfully held and defended the belt against all comers, winning most matches by submission, and staged a brief but successful comeback in 2007, arm-barring Jeff Ford at HDNet Fights 1.

Erik made the switch to coaching after having the opportunity to help Ken Shamrock prepare for a fight during his prime. “It was a good time for me to transition, to change gears.” Erik is now one of the most sought-after coaches in the industry. Josh Barnett, Brock Lesnar, Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral and others have all trained under his watchful eye. With no dogma to hold him back, Erik teaches anything that works in combat. Josh Barnett, probably the biggest ‘name’ fighter permanently attached to Erik, recently entered and won the World Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu No Gi Championship. “I told Josh that if he wasn’t fighting in the ring, he should take his aggression to the mat. He had tremendous success both with and without the gi.”

Erik has big plans for his ‘Arch Angel Fight Team’ in 2010. “This will be a great year for many of my lower-level pros to step it up and make names for themselves in bigger shows, and for my amateurs to turn pro. The last three years was a lot of hard conditioning and training – getting the team to learn ethics, etiquette and perseverance, along with the will to put it all to the test.”

With a career so worthy of discussion, Erik is disarmingly humble about himself. “Don’t talk,” he says. “Be the one talked about. That’s the biggest goal.”

Mission accomplished.