Issue 176

March 2019

In MMA's darkest hour, Hawaii came to its rescue. Now this fighting hotbed is back in the big time thanks to Bellator and a new generation of superstars.

Few will recall that Hawaii was once a haven, a safe house for mixed martial arts when the sport was ‘on the run’. So much so that the wild islands in the Pacific actually helped keep the sport alive when it was viewed with suspicion in the rest of the United States.

In December last year, a major MMA fight league finally returned for the first time in a decade when Bellator MMA staged back-to-back events over two days, but the move, long overdue, brought a stark reminder of the history of both fighting and martial arts on the islands; how there is an authentic, innate support for the need for combat in the genes of the peoples of these islands, midway between the East and America.

Way back when, in the days when the UFC was forced underground and labeled human cock fighting by the late Senator John McCain, the Hawaiian islands became a protector of the sport which led to a fierce tribe of fighters competing there, a Who’s Who, if you like, from the ’90s right up to 2008.

There were the Superbrawl shows in the 90s – Vitor Belfort had his professional debut against Jon Hess, but the likes of Matt Hughes, Frank Shamrock, Tim Sylvia and Pat Miletich also fought there.

As the sport continued to grow, EliteXC and ‘Rumble On The Rock’ brought the islanders flocking to see Anderson Silva, BJ Penn, Gina Carano, Carlos Conduit, Gilbert Melendez, Jake Shields and Nick Diaz along with many others.

Long before the UFC hit its stride, there were brawls between teams in the cage – who else but Diaz and KJ Noons – but all of this for good reason. The islanders love fighting. It’s in their DNA. From way back in history... more of which in a moment.

Rich Chou, who worked on promotions over ten years ago in Hawaii, was a member of BJ Penn’s camp and a fighter himself and now resides as a matchmaker under Scott Coker with Bellator, explains: “Fighting is a very big part of Hawaiian culture. The fighters who have fought here before is like a Who’s Who of the sport. Some big names, massive names since the late 90s, shortly after UFC 1. Right then, the promoter TJ Thompson was doing Super Brawl shows, and all the major names came.”

Chou, who is Hawaiian himself, and a lifelong martial artist, adds: “This was a great place for MMA. It was thriving, and it wasn’t even legal in most of the other states at the time. That’s why it was so busy here. That, along with the fact it was Hawaii. It’s a place you don’t have to force people to come to. People love to come here and fight. Early on they got a taste for it and saw all these elite fighters.

Before the MMA boom, this was the place. Rumble on the Rock, Super Brawl evolved into Icon. Between those two promotions, you had some of the best promoters in the world coming here.”

The big surprise, of course, has been that since 2008 when the last EliteXC events took place, none of the major fight leagues has crossed the Pacific to tap into the passion. But all that changed with Bellator’s shows last December.

The modern beneficiary of this is Ilima-lei Macfarlane, the Hawaiian fighter and Bellator’s women’s flyweight champion. The standout character was crowned a warrior princess on her return. Yet to have his coronation here is the UFC’s outstanding featherweight star, Max Holloway, who was in attendance, and has called on his fight league to bring an event to Hawaii.

But the perfect catalyst after the hiatus of a decade is Macfarlane.

What a figure the 28-year-old cut working out in fight week on a lawn by the ocean, and what an emotional walkout to fight.

“I could just feel everybody on the night,” she enthuses, after her defense against the Canadian Valerie Letourneau. “It was so emotional. The aloha. My Kahili bearers, the ones who walked me out, they kept telling me over and over again, We all love you, your ancestors are watching over you, we all love you – and I could feel that.” Macfarlane was crying on her way to the cage.

“It was spiritual. Hawaiians are spiritual people and I could feel my ancestors, my family in the arena. I put the flowers on early because they calm me, so I could smell the flowers of my homeland.”

Those two Bellator events held in Honolulu, back to back in December, over two nights will live long in the memory. For those who were there, and I had the privilege of being at both, the fans at the Neal S. Blaisdell Center in Honolulu whipped up a frenzy.

If it was special for the fans, and the media, then that was mirrored by the event’s promoters.

Scott Coker, president of Bellator was delighted by the reception afforded the events – Friday night had been for the 40,000 US troops stationed on the islands at Pearl Harbor – and because his fighters absolutely delivered.

On the Friday night Michael Chandler was brilliant in regaining his lightweight belt from Brent Primus. At the head of the two days of fights, however, was Ilima-Lei Macfarlane.

“This is something so memorable as a fight promoter,” Coker recalls. “This was a magical environment. For one, we had Ilima-Lei and having a local hero is a huge part of it. You all saw the power of Hawaii behind her. There’s a couple of times in my life I’ve felt that. It was a magical night. They love her here, she will be a big star here.”

The Macfarlane walk-in, and indeed the walk-out and denouement of the fight was a sight to behold... a swell, a crescendo, a giant wave of noise and emotion.

Coker adds his thoughts. “We tell the fighters that walk-ins are a time to express yourself. Do what is important to you and build your brand. You can tell her culture was important to her, and it was entertaining. I loved the crowd knew all the chants. It was amazing.

“I think the last time I heard a crowd that loud, honestly, was when we had 15,000 in San Jose Arena when Frank Shamrock fought Cung Lee,” he continues. “That was a big fight for Strikeforce for the time. Half the building came for Frank, half the building came for Cung and it was rocking. It was rocking in here and that was the feeling I got. People cared about the fighters who were fighting. You can tell Ilima is loved. It’s about who she is and what you see is what you get with her. It was a special night.”

A special night long overdue, one suspects, for the fight fans, the fight culture, even, of Hawaii. History repeats, and TJ Thompson, as Chou explains, was a major promoter back in the day in Hawaii when modern mixed martial arts was getting underway. Originally from Boston, via San Diego, Hawaii became Thompson’s operating base.

“I had the big show at the time,” Thompson recalls in a quiet moment during the build-up, speaking at the Hilton complex which looks out over the ocean. “Whenever people come up and say we did great things back then, I always say we were all just so lucky to be around in that era,”

“We were pioneers,” he continues. “I’ve been to the biggest UFC shows, I’ve been to the New Year’s PRIDE shows, I’ve been inside bigger arenas with more production and louder arenas. But I have never been in an arena that feels like the Blaisdell Arena when there’s 7,000 people in it.”

That was borne out at Bellator 212 and 213 – the atmosphere was electric – but particularly so on the Saturday night when Macfarlane made her walk to the cage. It was down to culture. The love and respect – and knowledge – for fighting culture.

“It harks back to the culture that’s been here for 500 years,” says Thompson. “All through the late 90s and early 2000s, we were doing a show every two months with a sold-out Blaisdell Arena.”

As it was, most importantly, when the sport was forced underground in the late 90s.

“Hawaii was integral to the fact that MMA is still alive today,” insists Thompson. “When the big blackout happened in the late 90s, when Senator John McCain labeled us (human) cock fighters, we had to go underground. At the time, we were doing triple the attendance of every UFC here in Hawaii.”

So much so that Thompson reveals that he was “paying double the prize money to fighters than the UFC”.

“That went on for about four years,” he recalls. “There was a period where it was more prestigious to fight in Hawaii. It wasn’t banned here. We were covered by all foreign networks as a sport by 1988 or 1990, long before the UFC [started]. It was accepted in the culture and accepted as a sport. All the uncles and grannies, they would all know the names of the fighters. This wasn’t a small niche market in Hawaii. We had a million people living here and would get almost 10,000 people at every event.”

That translates to almost one percent of the island population.

“The importance of Hawaii in the history of keeping MMA alive is huge,” Thompson adds. “Japan gets a lot of credit too, but there was a time when people thought no-holds-barred fighting, combat fighting was going to go away. Yet this place stayed with it. Every island understands fighting. For good reason. The reason we’re here is sometimes we feel we get cheated and stepped on.”

Thompson also reveals that there had been talks with the UFC, but business sliced it open, and then closed the wound.

“The UFC promised to come here and then asked for $6-8million,” he explains. “They were offered $2m to come by the tourism board. That was a year ago. The UFC said no.

Bellator didn’t ask for anything. We proved the UFC should have taken it. There wasn’t a ticket left on the night of the fight.”

Thompson believes with the success of the card, and Macfarlane, we could see a stadium fight happen next with 10,000 or even 20,000. Coker, after the Bellator events, expressed an interest in an annual foray to the islands.

Thompson, moreover, is steeped in the history of organized ‘mixed’ martial arts fighting in Hawaii, going way back. “There were no holds barred fights going on here in the 40s and 50s, as there were in Japan. But there was so much fight culture and martial arts in Japan, but there was some things that looked a lot like martial arts happening here.

"Kickboxing obviously, Dennis Alexio, was filling up the stadiums in the 80s. Then we started promoting here in 1995. In the first four to five years, we had Shamrock have his first fight here, Miletich, Josh Barnett, Tim Sylvia, Matt Hughes – all these guys fought here. Our first events were either 15 or 30-minute fight limits depending on what fight you were in, with headbutts.

"Basically everything was allowed apart from fish hooking and groin strikes. I don’t know if getting rid of those and having more rules made it better or worse, but it certainly made it more mainstream.”

The Gracies were even teaching in Hawaii in the late 80s, even before the UFC kicked in.

“The very first non-Brazilian champion was Egan Inoue at blue belt. Kai Garcia was the next non-Brazilian champion as a purple belt. All Hawaiians. Egan Inoue was a world-class mixed martial arts fighter. He fought for me and went 16-2 and was ranked top five in the world for a time. The first five non-Brazilians to win a world championship including BJ Penn were from Hawaii.

"Five people from Hawaii were world champions before anyone else in the world, other than Brazil. This means a lot to me. There isn’t two weeks that go by when someone doesn’t come up to me and ask when am I going to bring back the glory days. Well, It’s a different business model now. I can’t make money doing it. I don’t have a TV contract, I’m very happy doing what I’m doing.

"The reason I came on with Bellator is one, Scott Coker is a dear friend, Rich and I have been competitors and then worked together. The reason I’m here is I wanted to see the Blaisdell Arena full one more time. I get so excited when I meet people who haven’t been to a live event there. If it’s not the best time you’ve ever had, it will be similar to your first time in Great Britain or Ireland. But this was going on in the 90s and early 2000s – every three months.”

Fighting in Hawaii, in fact, goes way back to the tribal games, known as The Makahiki Games. They were the ancient Hawaiian version of the Olympics. These contests helped warriors to stay active, prepare for wartime and also served as training and practice opportunities for commoners in the event they were called on to fight in the future. There was boxing, wrestling, spear throwing and other physical practices. But the islands of Hawaii always had a warring culture.

“You could compete against other tribes without killing each other. The next day you were out trying to kill your rivals. It’s as ingrained in the culture as ever,” explain Thompson. “I’ve been here for 27 years, I’m originally from Boston. I’ve been lucky with the business I’ve been in to gain the respect of the people. This is 100 percent my home, but it will never be my island.

"If you want to come to Hawaii, you can’t treat it like your island. I think for good reason. In the 1400s and 1500s, there were one million Hawaiians living off the land. Then Captain Cook came over and within two generations, 200,000 were left. They lost 80 percent of the population in two generations. Mostly because of flus and colds, and STDs were a gigantic problem. I can’t claim it as my island, it’s not respectful. It’s my home and if you want me to defend my home I will, but it’s not my island.”

Chou has seen a stream of our favorites travel to train and fight in Honolulu and the outlying islands. Indeed, Jake Shields, Gil and Keri Melendez, Nate Diaz and many others mingled with fighters and media at the venue and the beach resorts in fight week.

Shields and Melendez both tell me they have “very happy memories” of fighting in Hawaii.

“Everyone has been here and trained here at one stage,” enthuses Chou. “Fresh air. It’s easy to break a sweat. There’s no place more remote than Hawaii. We’re in this very metropolitan city and in a half hour I can go to a beach, take my clothes off and nobody would see me.”

Over the years, so many fighters have been to Hawaii to train there, to experience it: Chris Leben, Johnny Hendricks, Josh Koscheck, Tyron Woodley, Pat Healy.

“Those guys may not have fought here, but they came and experienced Hawaii and they shared their skills and knowledge. It’s a hell of a place to learn,” says Chou.

Bellator coning to the islands was “a giant influx for the local economy”, adds Thompson. “I’m so proud of Bellator not asking for a single dollar to come in. One thousand hotel rooms means millions of dollars. How about the B-roll that will be on DAZN (the streaming broadcasters) showing Hawaii for three hours? You’ll see Hawaii before every single fight. I was proud they didn’t ask for a dollar. Viacom (owners of Bellator) and Scott are smart enough now to know it’s worth it. We owe Bellator to help out on the next one.”

Thompson reckons the UFC will see Bellator’s move, setting the benchmark, and will feel the itch to be part of it.

“They’ll see Bellator’s success and want to get involved,” he reasons. “We’ve also been called by PFL who’ve got Ray Cooper, whose father fought for me in the early days. I was amazed how little I had to do locally for the Bellator event. The crew Scott Coker has, the local fighters were blown away with how they were treated. Things as small as all the local fighters who weighed in all got hotel rooms for the night. To them that’s a mini vacation. I couldn’t be more excited and happy people recognize the history.”

As it was the fight fans of Hawaii were starving for a great show. Macfarlane proved the perfect foil.

“It’s the perfect time for Hawaii to embrace a powerful, strong woman,” local man Chou continues. “They love her. She’s articulate. She represents herself well. She represents the island well. Her family is very well-liked here in this community.”

“It all goes back to how it’s different here. It’s about what the fighter means to Hawaii and Hawaii means to the fighter. Her every move, and we’ve seen it with Max (Holloway) and BJ (Penn), everything they do and say, it has to line up with the cultural values that are here. They are really in touch with local culture and how to represent it well. There’s a fighting spirit – Holloway, Penn, MacFarlane – you see those qualities in them. They’re extremely aggressive and you clearly know where they’re from.”

The traditional sports in schools in Hawaii are still baseball and pro football.

“But you ask a kid, baseball player, footballer or a fighter? My guess is most of them would say they want to be a fighter,” reasons Chou. “Now they want to be a Holloway, a Penn or now, a Macfarlane. Hawaiians don’t back down. Maybe they’re not the most skilled, but the fighting spirit is always there.”

And finally, the torch for those fighting spirits has been re-lit after a long break. Too long. But the flame burns again.