Issue 207
July 2024
August 27, 2000
Seibu Dome, Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, Japan
PRIDE 10: Return of the Warriors
By Brad Wharton
This month, twenty-four years ago, PRIDE 10 was something of a landmark event for Japan’s mixed martial arts institution.
The event was a critical high point for a promotion that often struggled with an identity crisis as it searched for the sweet spot between a cartoonish pro-wrestling spin-off and an elite combat sports entity.
At the time, PRIDE was still basking in the afterglow of the May 1st, 2000, Grand Prix, the legendary one-night tournament former UFC Heavyweight Champion Mark Coleman won.
The aptly titled PRIDE 9: New Blood (held just a month later) saw an influx of fresh talent, setting the stage for their tenth (numbered) card, dubbed ‘Return of the Warriors.’
The show had a bit of everything that made PRIDE great. This included a distinctly Japanese flavor bolstered by high-level imports from Europe, Brazil, and the US. Known quantities like Guy Mezger and Vitor Belfort were featured alongside up-and-comers Gilbert Yvel and future UFC champ Ricco Rodriguez.
To top it all off, Kazushi Sakuraba - at the height of his ‘Gracie Hunter’ fame - snapped Renzo's arm before immediately accepting an in-ring challenge from Ryan.
On a night filled with iconic imagery, tucked away on the undercard was a beating so horrific it became the stuff of MMA folklore.
What’s more, this hidden gem was between the greatest MMA fighter an entire younger generation may never have heard of and one of its toughest.
ENSON INOUE: BIG IN JAPAN
In the days before social media, when MMA fandom was kept alive through print magazines, traded tapes, and internet message boards, there was always a bit of mythology surrounding Enson Inoue.
In Japan, regardless of how long you’ve lived there, how much of the language you speak, or how much of the culture you manage to absorb, if you’re not Japanese, you’re ‘gaijin,’ an outsider.
Enson was one of the very few able to bridge that gap. Born and raised in Hawaii, he was a fourth-generation Japanese American, which, combined with the fact that he’d lived in the country since the mid-90s and was fluent in both language and customs, was enough for him to swerve the gaijin designation.
Japanese fans even bestowed him with ‘Yamatodamashii,’ loosely translated as ‘Japanese Spirit or Soul.’
A BJJ blackbelt under John Lewis (the man credited with teaching Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta BJJ/MMA before they purchased the UFC), Enson competed in the sport's formative years almost exclusively in Japan.
He was noted for handing Randy Couture his first defeat (Couture had just vacated the UFC heavyweight title at the time) and as the man who discovered the late Japanese MMA legend ‘KID’ Yamamoto while running his ‘Purebred’ branch of gyms.
Outside of the ring, a darker legend dogged Inoue. The Yakuza’s (Japanese Mafia) involvement in PRIDE (and Japanese combat sport/entertainment in general) was always an open secret.
Enson always denied being a Yakuza while being open about his dealings with them.
IGOR VOVCHANCHYN: THE ORIGINAL GOAT
In the days where the term ‘legend’ can delineate anything from an outstanding sporting achievement to your mate who sank ten beers and put a traffic cone on his head, GOAT is not a term to be thrown around loosely.
‘Greatest Of All Time’ is also highly relative as an accolade. Roughly 24 years ago, fans had barely a decade’s worth of data to go on.
Still, it should have come as little surprise that diminutive Ukrainian heavyweight ‘Ice Cold’ Igor Vovchanchyn was once at the forefront of the conversation.
Igor competed in no less than twelve one-night tournaments, winning nine. The majority were bare-knuckle affairs, fought under Vale Tudo/NHB rules that permitted everything from knees and elbows to headbutts and head-stomps.
In 1996 alone, Vovchanchyn won thirteen fights (eleven via KO, with two submissions). In a twenty-nine-day period between March 1st and March 30th of that year, he was victorious in three eight-man, one-night, open-weight bare knuckle tournaments, including the infamous ‘Night of the Diamond.’
Feats like this earned him a second nom de plume: ‘The Ukraine Freight Train.’
A MATTER OF PRIDE
Thirty-five thousand fans packed into the Seibu Dome baseball stadium in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, to witness PRIDE 10: Return of the Warriors.
It was a stuffy Sunday afternoon on the outskirts of Tokyo. The only respite from the heat came from the stadium’s organic air conditioning. Built initially without a roof, the ‘dome’ of the Seibu Dome had been added much later, leaving large gaps that let in a natural breeze.
Despite a mere 15lb weight difference, Inoue vs Vovchanchyn was nothing if not a contrast in body types. Both heavyweights stood just 5’7, but while Enson carried his weight more evenly, Igor was all thighs and biceps, the Ukrainian Popeye.
The pair came out of the gates fast at the bell. Anyone lucky enough to receive the free PRIDE highlights DVD with their copy of the 2003 PS2 game will be instantly familiar with the scene: two short, stout heavyweights (one of whom was wearing Gi pants) fizzing fastballs at each other with reckless abandon.
It was a blistering exchange. Igor was caught hard, and the soft tissue under his left eye ballooned and split open to release a torrent of claret.
The Ukrainian gave as good as he got, though, planting a stiff left on his man’s jaw before unleashing his patented ‘Russian Hook’ (a looping overhand with the knuckles turned in, later adopted by Fedor Emelianenko) and shucking Inoue to the mat.
RED RUN CANVAS
This, said color commentator Eddie Bravo, is where Enson’s Gi pants would come into play—none of the cumbersome disadvantages of the jacket, but all the additional friction for triangles and armbars. Eddie wasn’t wrong. From the moment Vovchanchyn entered his guard, Enson threw up his legs. Igor passed into half-guard, and the crowd gasped as his cut leaked over Enson’s face, perfectly contrasting against the pristine white canvas.
Inoue regained guard and immediately threatened with a series of triangles and armbars as the pair exchanged blows from the top and bottom positions.
In theory, he was doing the right thing. In practice, it wasn’t working. Vovchanchyn’s short, thick stature enabled him to generate a horrendous amount of force from a short distance; every punch that rained down bounced Enson’s head off the mat.
The Hawaiian’s shots from the bottom pitter-pattered off an incredulous Vovchanchyn’s head, while the punishment that came back sounded like someone dribbling a basketball on concrete.
Inoue finally received some respite when he got caught up in the ropes, but his outlook seemed bleak as the officials dragged him by his arms back to the center of the ring.
As the one-minute bell sounded, Vovchanchyn passed to mount and began unleashing an unholy torrent of punches and hammer fists on his helpless opponent.
One particularly horrid blow forced Inoue to cover up and turn away – a sure sign that he’d given up– but the official allowed the beating to continue.
Vovchanchyn, a man with hands like lunchboxes (assuming you have house bricks and lumps of lead for lunch), pummeled away mercilessly until the final bell.
The 35,000-strong crowd exhaled in relief.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
Vovchanchyn sat down in his corner, fanned by towels and gulping big sips of chilled water from his bottle as a cut man went to work on his wounded cheek.
Across the ring, things weren’t so calm. Inoue had remained on the canvas at the end of the round, eventually scooped up and dragged to the corner by his brother Egan.
Enson collapsed off the stool and slumped into the corner. Doctors, medics, and officials buzzed around him, shining lights into his tired eyes and packing ice onto the massive hematomas around his now misshapen skull.
Eventually, the decision was made: ‘No Mas’ by proxy.
Inoue was furious, roaring at the swarm of medics as he struggled in vain to return to his feet.
As Vovchanchyn was declared the winner in the center of the ring, off-camera, Inoue collapsed multiple times.
In true Yamatodamashii fashion, after ten minutes, he took the microphone, apologizing for his lack of heart and promising to return a stronger fighter.
The beating left Inoue with a collection of shattered facial bones and swelling in the brain.
He remains involved in combat sports while working as a jeweler in Hawaii.
Vovchanchyn retired with a record of 56-10-1 (1NC): One of MMA’s forgotten legends.
He currently runs a charitable foundation assisting the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
These two warriors’ paths may have diverged away from combat sports, but they’ll forever be etched into the memories of any fan who watched this incredible spectacle.
