Crowning the first King of Pancrase
Featuring a star-studded field of future UFC Hall of Famers and Japanese combat sports icons, the first King of Pancrase tournament was one of the most important events in the history of MMA
There’s no getting around it.
The inaugural King of Pancrase tournament that took place over a two-day period on a weekend in December 1994 is one of the most star-studded and important tournaments to ever take place in the sport of mixed martial arts.
Three UFC Hall of Famers, four future UFC champions, and a number of Japanese combat sports icons and MMA pioneers graced Ryogoku Sumo Hall on December 16-17, 1994 to crown the first-ever King of Pancrase.
Five fighters from the field would also go on to be crowned King of Pancrase during their time with the promotion. It was a tournament filled with mixed martial arts royalty, and it was an event that was over two years in the making.
In this retrospective, I take a look back at the origins of the tournament and Pancrase itself, the noteworthy field of participants, and how the bracket played out.
The origin
The wheels were set in motion in terms of the creation of Pancrase in 1992.
At the time, Masakatsu Funaki, Minoru Suzuki, and Ken Shamrock were professional wrestlers in the Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi promotion, a shoot-style show based in Tokyo.
Fujiwara Gumi had been experimenting for over a year including matches with no predetermined outcomes and some real combat, and decided to go full throttle when they placed Shamrock in an actual mixed rules fight against World Kickboxing Association US Cruiserweight champion Don Nielsen on October 4, 1992 at the Tokyo Dome.
The bout was the first instance in Japan in which a professional wrestler had fought a kickboxer on live television in a real no-holds barred competition, and it was a surprising success.
The crowd went wild for Shamrock’s win via keylock and the reaction raised the idea amongst Funaki, Suzuki, and Shamrock himself that there could be a market for what might be a budding sport.
The trio had previously been told by their professional wrestling mentors that no one would ever pay to watch an actual unscripted fight and that such fights would be impossible to sell.
As much as they pushed for Fujiwara Gumi to expand upon their offering to include additional no-holds barred matches, leadership ignored the pleas and in December 1992 made the decision to contract out talent to other Japanese wrestling promotions while they revamped their programming.
This decision lead Funaki, Suzuki, and Shamrock to leave Fujiwara Gumi over the next few months, gathering with them other unhappy wrestlers to form their own promotion that would focus on pure shoot-style wrestling with no predetermined outcomes, no gimmicks, real submissions, and actual strikes.
From T.P. Grant’s MMA Origins series:
The [Shamrock-Nielsen] fight was a smashing success, drew huge reaction from the crowd and created buzz around the wrestling community.
This caused the young pro wrestlers Funaki, Suzuki and Shamrock to question the conventional wisdom of pro wrestling that non-scripted fights would not sell to large audiences.
Shoots, or non-scripted matches, had taken place but normally for small groups of gamblers, not for large scale consummation. Suzuki and Funaki started their own promotion where they could test this idea of marketing real fights in pro wrestling.
They would call their new promotion, Pancrase, based off a recommendation from professional wrestling legend Karl Gotch, who suggested that they name it after the ancient Olympic combat sport, Pankration.
“I hope the very best in the future for those boys because they represent the style that I made before,” Gotch was quoted as saying at the time. “[Well], not that I made, I made as a rebirth. Before the style was known as Pancrase, which is a mixture of wrestling, with fist-fighting and feet-fighting as a self-defense.
“So we hope that from now on this will click and will then replace the circus that they did before, because you can cheat some of the people, some of the time, but not all of the people, all of the time. So it’s time that it goes back to what it was before, the real sport of wrestling."
Suzuki stated that the name of the venture didn’t matter to him as long as it was Gotch behind the branding of it.
“Gotch loved to research old documents and literature including martial arts history,” Suzuki said in an interview with MMA historian William Colosimo. “He found the word Pancrase in his research. Gotch explained that Pancrase is the origin of Pankration.
“If my understanding is correct, it is a technique that was used in unarmed combat in medieval times. You could say it was a form of self-defense or martial arts of that time and was called Pancrase. Anyway, Gotch explained all the historical background, but it really didn’t matter much to me. Most important was for Gotch to name it.”
For Shamrock, helping to create Pancrase was more about breaking barriers.
“I just know that a lot of people were unhappy about the direction we were going including myself,” Shamrock told The Underground in a 2015 interview about his time prior to Pancrase. “I believe that we had an opportunity to change the direction of the entertainment industry, and we had something real special, that we could challenge the world, that we could challenge anybody what we wanted to, like the UFC did. We were on the front side of that going, hey, why are we still doing this stuff when we can create something that we believe would be the best legitimate fighting organization in the world and we can prove it?
“We can bring in Muay Thai fighters, we can bring in pro wrestlers, sumo wrestlers, whoever we wanted to bring in and we can compete against anybody in the world and our style will stand above it all. That’s the vision that I really believe Funaki and Suzuki had when they went with the Pancrase organization was to prove that this style that they had over in Japan was legitimately the best in the world.”
According to the organization’s original mission statement, the ultimate goal and spirit of Pancrase was the completion of a term called total-fight, which was defined as a collection of the best of all styles of martial arts from around the world.
The Pancrase logo was designed for the color red to indicate blood and the color black to signify the complete collection of all martial arts, as the mixing of all colors together ends up creating black. The Pancrase cross is said to stand for all the best techniques from all of the martial arts.
The rules, which were inspired by pro wrestling, saw closed-fisted punches only allowed to the body, not to the head. Palm strikes were used instead. Kicks and knees were allowed, as were submission holds. Elbows were not allowed in any circumstance and neither were knees, stomps, or kicks while on the ground.
A ten count was used similar to boxing and kickboxing. If a fighter was unable to answer the count, it was a declared a TKO win for their opponent. If a fighter did make it back to their feet and was deemed fit to continue per the referee, then they were deducted a point and the fight resumed.
Fighters had to break whenever their opponent reached the ropes if they were caught in a submission, however anytime a fighter used a rope break, they were deducted a point until they were eventually handed a loss or once they reached the threshold of five.
Fights consisted of a single, 15-minute round for non-title fights. Championship matches were increased to a single, 30-minute round.
If time expired and neither fighter had been submitted, knocked out, or lost all their points, a decision would be rendered based on who lost fewer points. If neither fighter lost any points or if both fighters lost the same amount of points, then the fight would be declared a draw.
“I have no regrets about being here,” Funaki said during a press conference to announce the Pancrase venture. “I had to separate from many people. Instead, I have gained partners who can be sympathetic to my ideals. They are really important to me.
“With the fighting style that we have been using, I decided to form a new team in order to keep that principle. We’ll never give up. I think making this team long-lasting is the most important thing. A new fight is beginning. Please pay attention to us.”
Branching out on their own was a big deal in the Japanese landscape for Funaki and Suzuki, who essentially were leaving behind burgeoning careers in professional wrestling for a risky business venture:
From The MMA Encyclopedia by Jonathan Snowden and Kendall Shields:
Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki had tons of potential in traditional pro wrestling. Funaki had a real shot at succeeding Antonio Inoki as the biggest star on the Japanese circuit, and Suzuki had an amateur pedigree that could take him far. But the students of Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Karl Gotch weren’t looking to take pratfalls for giant American steroid machines like the The Road Warriors. They wanted to take wrestling back to a simpler time, when the matches were real and the showmanship was in the context of actual competition.
The idea wasn’t exactly new. Inoki had wrestled a variety of martial artists in matches billed as the real deal back in the 1970’s. In the 1980’s the UWF and its offspring presented the public with “shootstyle” wrestling, predetermined matches using real techniques and real holds and designed to be realistic enough to pass for an actual fight.
It was Funaki and Suzuki who wanted to take it a step further. They wanted a match, contested under modified pro wrestling rules (break when you get into the ropes, no punches to the face), that was a legitimate shoot. The concept was unheard of, failure the predicted result.
Jack Slack describes the essence of that early Pancrase run from a technical standpoint:
Pancrase's old events make for a fascinating snap shot of history and of a style of MMA, and especially grappling, which is completely removed from today's.
When watching Pancrase you are aware that there is a lot of space and freedom of movement for both men, and that guard passing and guard maintenance is incredibly basic.
This is because most of the competitors only had experience in a catch style of wrestling, which was obviously built around rules which place primary importance upon the pin.
Pancrase’s debut event took place on September 21, 1993 at the Tokyo Bay NK Hall. Shamrock defeated Funaki in the promotion’s first-ever main event, submitting his stablemate with an arm-triangle choke in just over six minutes.
Their inaugural show according to professional wrestling historian Dave Meltzer:
The show drew an enthusiastic sellout crowd of 7,000 fans, who didn't know what they would be seeing, but when it was over, both the fans and media heavily praised this new form of pro wrestling.
Pancrase openly scouted the world for talent, thoroughly scouring the combat sports landscape for the best in their respective sports.
According to future champion Guy Mezger, they made it a point to recruit top fighters from all disciplines.
“Pancrase was very concerned with having the best fighters,” Mezger said an interview with MMA Sucka in 2012. “They raised the talent level. They invited many of the early UFC competitors as well as top level karate fighters, judo players and kickboxers.”
Japanese kickboxing organization K-1 had also formed in 1993 and held their original Grand Prix tournament in April, which saw Maurice Smith compete in an 8-man field that eventually saw Branko Cikatic KO kickboxing legend Ernesto Hoost to become the first K-1 world grand prix champion.
It was Smith’s participation in the K-1 grand prix that gravitated Pancrase officials towards recruiting him. Funaki was also asked by K-1 founder Kazuyoshi Ishii to take part in their grand prix, but Funaki declined due to his growing responsibilities with Pancrase.
There would be a dozen Pancrase shows in all over the next year, including a three-show “Pancrash” series and a five-event “Road to the Championship” series, leading into the organization’s inaugural tournament to crown their first-ever champion.
Frank Shamrock described what it was like to be an early member of the Pancrase movement from a fighter’s perspective in his autobiography, Uncaged: My Life as a Champion MMA Fighter:
"In the Pancrase organization, I was among real martial artists. It was an art and a sport. There were a lot of official rules, but also a lot of things you just didn’t do. You could legally hit a guy when he was on the ground, but you didn’t. It was not cool.
Maybe because the sport was so small, I knew everyone I was ever going to fight. If I fought a guy tonight, I was going to fight him again in six weeks. So we all followed these unspoken rules. We beat the shit out of each other, but we didn’t want to injure each other. There was more honor and respect in it than that.
We fought all over Japan. The touring circuit took us everywhere from Kobe to Sapporo. We mostly fought in ten-thousand-seat arenas. Some venues were as small as two thousand seats. Some were as large as fifteen thousand. We played Korakuen Hall in Tokyo because that’s where all the boxing and wrestling events in Tokyo are held. We played NK Hall, near Tokyo Disneyland.
After an earthquake in Kobe, the whole city had toppled over except for this brand-new shopping mall. So we came down the escalators and held our fights right in the mall. We were treated like royalty, like rock stars. We were modern samurai.
I was a big celebrity, over there. At home I spent all my time training hard in a sport no one knew and no one really wanted to see. But I’d go make to Japan, and we were big and everyone knew us. They respected us. Everyone knew that pro wrestling was fake. We were something new, these new kind of hybrid fighters, and we were famous."
The field
Sixteen fighters, plus an additional four alternates, descended upon the Ryogoku Sumo Hall on the weekend of December 16-17, 1994 for a two-night, single-elimination tournament to decide who would become the first-ever champion of the Pancrase organization.
On top of Funaki, Suzuki, Shamrock and Smith, the inaugural field featured many competitors that had debuted in Pancrase during its first year of operation, including Todd Bjornethun, Alex Cook, UFC 1 & 2 veteran Jason DeLucia, AMC Pankration founder Matt Hume, and two-time Shooto middleweight title challenger Manabu Yamada.
Additional participants included Christopher DeWeaver, Thomas Puckett, and Takaku Fuke. The four alternate fighters were Shamrock training partner Scott Bessac, Australian MMA pioneer Larry Papadopoulos, Katsuomi Inagaki, and Gregory Smit.
The field was rounded out by Shamrock’s training partners, his younger adoptive brother Frank and Vernon White, and Dutch kickboxers Bas Rutten and Leon van Dijk.
Rutten had been courted to the promotion by Pancrase leadership a year earlier because of his pre-fight ritual of jumping into the ring.
“I have this Japanese magazine where you see me jump over the rope,” Rutten said in an interview with William Colosimo. “I still have that magazine. I would go to the ring and I would stand in front of it and [do it].
“They’ve seen that vertical leap. I had a really high [jump]. I would jump over the rope and go into [the ring] without touching the ropes. So [Pancrase] saw that and they were impressed by that, I remember.”
Funaki was one of the most successful fighters during Pancrase’s first dozen events, only suffering a couple of losses while defeating nearly every other fighter on the roster.
One of his victims was Rutten.
“The first time I heard about Funaki was September 1993 because I was fighting on the same Pancrase card”, Rutten said in an interview with Mark Pickering. “Funaki lost to Ken Shamrock but everyone was talking to me about Funaki and were telling me how good he was. I hadn’t seen footage of him before, but I watched his fight because my fight was second and he was in the main event which was cool.
“In our first fight, Funaki simply got me. I didn’t know what a toe hold was, I always laugh when people go toe hold, how do you hold a toe? I saw somebody break his shin bone with a toe hold. It was John Lober who got caught by Ryushi Yanagisawa with a toe hold. It’s a crazy move. I didn’t know what the move was but afterward I knew it hurt, I tapped out.”
DeLucia echoed the same about Funaki’s talents and aura.
"You know they say not to be affected by hype and don't listen to the crowd, but it's hard not to when you see someone who commands energy to a crowd as Funaki does,” DeLucia told Total MMA in 2005. “In my case, that energy got to me, whereas I think he was [probably] a bit too comfortable."
Funaki submitted Shamrock at Pancrase’s Road to the Championship 4 event only two months prior and the Lion’s Den founder entered the King of Pancrase tournament determined to avenge his losses to Funaki and Suzuki.
Known as “Wayne” over in Japan, Shamrock was coming off of a submission of Fuke at Pancrase’s Road to the Championship 5 event in his most recent appearance.
Suzuki entered the tournament field with a stellar 9-2 record following a submission loss to Funaki in October.
Smith, who continued to kickbox while beginning with Pancrase but would ultimately put that portion of his career on hiatus prior to the start of the tournament, had split his two appearances up until that point, knocking out Suzuki in his promotional debut in November 1993 before dropping a unanimous decision to him in a rematch seven months later.
DeWeaver, a training partner of Papadopoulos in Australia, noted that Pancrase was the established show compared to its Japanese competition in Shooto at the time.
“Pancrase was considered the big one,” DeWeaver said about the organization. “The big, real one because it existed before Pride. And then Shooto was more amateur. So that was very much how it was seen.
“Shooto was amateur, collegiate, high school- where it really tried to develop itself through the grassroots level at a broader base, whereas Pancrase was just trying to be the big entertainment show, but they were both real in their approach to submission.”
Bjornethun had also split his Pancrase fights to date, winning decisions over White and Smit while falling via submission to Suzuki and Yanagisawa.
Cook made his Pancrase debut two months prior to the tournament, losing by submission to Yamada in just over two minutes.
Prior to debuting in Pancrase in July 1994, DeLucia was a veteran of the first two UFC events. He submitted Trent Jenkins with a rear-naked choke just 52 seconds into an alternate bout at UFC 1 and then forced Scott Baker to tap to strikes in the opening round of the UFC 2 tournament before being submitted by eventual winner Royce Gracie in the quarterfinals.
DeLucia was also known for fighting Royce a few years prior to UFC 2 as part of a Gracie Challenge match that took place at a California jiu-jitsu school owned by Rorion Gracie in 1991.
Frank Shamrock, the younger brother of Ken, was making his professional debut in the biggest no-holds barred tournament at that point in the sport’s history. An historic debut at an historic event.
He had been drawn towards the sport after watching Ken’s training and seeing his success. Shamrock described his move to Japan to compete in Pancrase in his book:
"I moved to Japan in late 1994. It was the middle of winter, cold and damp. I was taken to a big tin building in a suburban neighborhood in Yokohama, in Kanagawa Prefecture, about an hour by train from downtown Tokyo. The houses were all packed tightly together, and the air smelled like raw sewage.
The tin building was my new dojo. There were mats here and there on the floor, and there was a fighting ring in the middle. Around the sides of the building were dormitories with nothing in the them except for a mat on the floor and some blankets. There was a partitioned area with a rice cooker, a refrigerator, and a huge cooking pot. That was the kitchen.
This was my home and my gym. This is where I worked and trained along with the other Pancrase fighters.”
Hume, years before he would become one of the premier coaches and front office executives in mixed martial arts, entered Pancrase as a former World Kickboxing Association North American Super Welterweight champion.
The Washington native came into the King of Pancrase tournament with a 2-6 record but had submitted Scott Sollivan with a quick armbar in his most recent fight to enter the fray with some momentum.
"Their showmanship was really good there,” Hume said of his time in Pancrase in an interview with MMA media pioneer Chris Onzuka from April 2000. “It taught me a lot about how to be a professional in front of a crowd because all those guys are pro-wrestlers, so they knew how to look and how to draw the crowds. Back then, we were drawing some huge crowds.
“The rules are not necessarily…well, they have a lot of unspoken rules, which makes it basically an ankle game there. When you have wrestling shoes on, it's real easy to get your career ended there real quick. You have to learn very fast how to play their game in order to survive. Being over there in Pancrase and watching guys get their knee blown out, and get fed to the lions basically, made my game go up in a hurry, in relation to learning how to deal with ankle and leg locks, so it was good just in that, along with learning how to be professional and even how to run an event.”
Yamada was actually far and away the most experienced fighter in the field, having spent the three years prior racking up a 7-4-2 record in Shooto and twice challenging for the Shooto middleweight title. He had made his debut in Pancrase in May 1994, winning four out of his first five fights.
White, who along with Frank Shamrock were two of the youngest fighters on the Pancrase roster, was befriended and recruited to Pancrase by Ken.
“Tiger” fought on nearly every card leading up to the King of Pancrase tournament but was only able to put together a 3-8 record. He did however enter the field a winner of two of his last three.
A training partner of Rutten, van Dijk brought a Thai boxing background with him into his professional debut at the tournament. According to Rutten, van Dijk was actually one of the only training partners that he ever had while competing as an active fighter.
“I really needed to focus on ground fighting, but I had nobody to roll with,” Rutten said of the early stages of his career in an interview with German Fight News. “Sometimes I went to Amsterdam to train with Chris Dolman but that was two hours away from my home and there were days there were only a few guys there.
“So I started asking every person I knew if they wanted to roll with me and I found one guy, Leon van Dijk. Great striker, super strong and a great athlete. We started training in ground fighting, two and sometimes even three times a day. We would watch fights and instructional videos, and would just work on submissions that we saw. But what we did was making things better, or, at least [was] making it a better fit for us.”
The event
The opening round and quarterfinals of the first King of Pancrase tournament took place on the first night of action, Friday, December 16, 1994. The alternate bouts, semifinals, and finals took place on the second night, which was the following day, Saturday, December 17, 1994.
Sell out crowds of 11,000 packed the Ryogoku Sumo Hall on both nights to witness martial arts history whether they were realizing it or not.
The rules for the tournament differed slightly compared to the usual set in that the fights would consist of a single, 10-minute round instead of the usual 15 minutes. In addition, instead of five rope escapes, fighters would only be allowed three.
The tournament finals would consist of one, 20-minute round with three rope escapes permitted.
King of Pancrase Opening Round
Masakatsu Funaki vs Todd Bjornethun
The tournament kicked off with a meeting between Funaki and Bjornethun, who had yet to clash in Pancrase.
It was Bjornethun who was the aggressor in the fight, scoring a couple of takedowns and continually forcing Funaki on his back foot while he took the center of the ring and moved forward.
The tide turned however after Funaki swept Bjornethun following another takedown. Funaki subsequently mounted Bjornethun and after a brief struggle, secured an armbar that forced a tap to move onto the next round.
King of Pancrase Opening Round
Vernon White vs Leon Van Dijk
The opening round clash between White and van Dijk was the only Pancrase matchup as well as the only career meeting between the two.
The fight started out with both of them blasting away with a variety of kicks. White took advantage of a missed spinning high kick that left van Dijk’s leg on the top rope, flipping him to the canvas.
After being smothered for a few moments, van Dijk reversed position and worked for an arm-triangle choke but White was able to escape and secure top position. He eventually dropped back for a heel hook that forced a tap from van Dijk at the 3:45 mark.
King of Pancrase Opening Round
Maurice Smith vs Takaku Fuke
Fuke chose a wise game plan in the beginning moments of his opening round bout against Smith, briefly exchanging with the champion kickboxer before shooting in for a takedown. He was met with surprising resistance however. Smith not only stuffed the shot but pulled guard to attempt a guillotine that Fuke was able to escape.
After the referee restarted the bout on the feet, Fuke was able to score the takedown he was looking for but was subsequently flipped into the air by Smith. Fuke eventually got the fight back to the ground and nearly secured an armbar but Smith was able to get to the ropes and asked for a break.
When they got back to their feet, Smith charged forward and blasted Fuke with a knee to the body. Fuke went down in a heap and was unable to get back up before the count, handing the victory to Smith.
King of Pancrase Opening Round
Ken Shamrock vs Alex Cook
The elder Shamrock drew Cook in the opening round and after a few brief moments of feeling each other out on the feet, Cook dove in for a takedown while Shamrock had his back against the ropes. Shamrock was able to stuff the attempt and ended up on top of Cook, where he would stay for the remainder of the fight.
Cook also was favoring his right eye throughout the fight, injuring it during his initial takedown attempt as he collided with Shamrock.
It was evident as soon as they hit the canvas that Shamrock held a distinct strength advantage. Cook was unable to do much besides hold on while Shamrock gradually broke down his guard. After posturing up, Shamrock sat back and secured a heel hook that caused Cook to quickly tap 1:31 into the fight.
King of Pancrase Opening Round
Frank Shamrock vs Bas Rutten
After a handful of quick finishes to start the tournament, the younger Shamrock and Rutten settled in for a fight that went to the judges, one of only two bouts that went the distance in the opening round.
Both had their moments in a fight that took place primarily on the ground. Shamrock scored the first takedown of the match but lost position after a failed armbar attempt. Rutten was quick to take Shamrock’s back and nearly locked in a rear-naked choke but the referee called for a restart due to being too far under the ropes.
Midway through the bout, Shamrock fought off another rear-naked choke attempt by Rutten by scrambling free and ended up in full mount, as the crowd roared in appreciation. Rutten eventually ended up sweeping Shamrock and threatened with another choke but Shamrock was once again able to escape.
During the final leg of the fight, the two exchanged leg lock attempts that neither were able to secure before Shamrock scrambled and briefly mounted Rutten prior to attempting another armbar. Rutten shook off the attempt and sat in Shamrock’s guard until the final bell.
In a close bout, the judges awarded Shamrock a majority decision, sending him to the second round.
King of Pancrase Opening Round
Manabu Yamada vs Christopher DeWeaver
DeWeaver attempted to use his reach advantage to keep Yamada at bay in their opening round bout, but Yamada rushed in and scored a takedown less than a minute into the proceedings, placing DeWeaver on his back.
The tall and rangy Australian kept a very tight guard that prevented Yamada from putting together any offense and forced the referee to restart the action on the feet. Yamada took DeWeaver to the canvas once again but after a failed heel hook attempt, DeWeaver was able to secure full mount.
While DeWeaver worked for an armbar from top position, Yamada was able to sweep him and dropped back for another heel hook attempt, this time getting the tap at the 2:44 mark.
King of Pancrase Opening Round
Jason DeLucia vs Thomas Puckett
Puckett, who was looking for his first win in Pancrase after falling via submission to Suzuki in his debut over the summer, was overmatched against DeLucia to say the least. The journeyman started off the fight with no discernible strategy other than to bounce in and out of range.
DeLucia woke Puckett up with a hard kick in the first strike he threw and then followed up with a flurry of palm strikes while Puckett chased him down into a corner. Puckett fell to his knees but was able to beat the referee’s count.
When he returned to his feet however, DeLucia blasted Puckett with a head kick that sent him crashing down. Puckett tried to stand up but stumbled down to the mat in discomfort, sending DeLucia onto the next round of the tournament.
King of Pancrase Opening Round
Minoru Suzuki vs Matt Hume
Hume and Suzuki collided in what turned out to be a back and forth affair in another opening round bout. Hume was the aggressor from the start, stalking Suzuki with palm strikes and jumping forward with knees.
Suzuki scored a takedown to slow the momentum but Hume swept Suzuki and took his back a little over four minutes into the fight.
Suzuki struggled to free himself from Hume’s grasp, as he defended choke attempts while trying to reverse position. He was eventually able to sweep Hume and looked for a standing heel hook before switching to a guillotine that was tight until Hume scooted under the ropes, calling for a break.
When the fight restarted, Suzuki pulled guard and Hume worked from top position until the referee halted the bout to check on blood that was pouring out from Hume’s nose. After another restart, Hume backed Suzuki up with flurries on the feet until the final bell sounded.
In a highly controversial decision to this day, Suzuki was remarkably declared the winner by decision after the judges were forced to dock points from Hume for his rope escapes per tournament rules, despite Hume clearly controlling the fight.
King of Pancrase Second Round
Minoru Suzuki vs Jason DeLucia
DeLucia and Suzuki went back and forth exchanging leg kicks in their fight during the tournament’s second round, each landing their fair share. After firing off a pair of head kicks that were partially blocked, DeLucia locked in a guillotine choke as Suzuki pushed forward for a takedown.
Suzuki escaped from the choke and attempted a can opener on DeLucia before gaining full mount. DeLucia was able to reverse position and ended up in Suzuki’s guard, where he was hesitant to over-extend his arm in fear of getting caught in an armbar.
DeLucia dropped back for a heel hook to get out of the danger he was facing by sitting in Suzuki’s guard but he was countered by Suzuki who attempted a heel hook of his own and locked it in, forcing the tap from DeLucia.
King of Pancrase Second Round
Manabu Yamada vs Frank Shamrock
Yamada set the tone early in this hard-hitting second round bout when he stepped in with a swift overhand palm strike that landed flush on Shamrock, who responded in kind before Yamada scored a takedown.
He was quickly reversed by Shamrock who found himself in trouble when a Yamada heel hook attempt forced him to reach for the ropes. Upon the restart, Yamada dragged Shamrock back down to the canvas via headlock but was eventually reversed once again.
The two would spend the remainder of the fight locked in a fierce ground battle, each attempting multiple armbars and leg locks, and each willing to give up position in order to potentially secure a submission.
After nearly nine minutes, Yamada finally secured a heel hook that was tight enough that it caused Shamrock to scream out in agony and submit, sending the Shooto veteran to the tournament semifinals.
King of Pancrase Second Round
Ken Shamrock vs Maurice Smith
Shamrock made no secret of his intention to take his second round fight with Smith to the ground, grabbing ahold of his opponent at the first opportunity and dragging him to the canvas. Shamrock quickly looked to take Smith’s back and work in a choke, but the kickboxer was able to reach the ropes.
The two exchanged palm strikes on the feet after a restart until Shamrock shot in for another takedown and got it. Shamrock overcame another referee start due to inactivity and scored another takedown, nearly catching Smith with a heel hook before he was able to reach the ropes once again.
After the second instance of a rope break in a short period of time, the referee warned Smith that he only was allowed one more rope break before he would be handed an automatic loss.
Once the fight was restarted, Smith landed a hard body kick but a follow-up kick was intercepted by Shamrock, who took Smith down and landed right in position for an arm-triangle. Shamrock carefully started to sink in the choke and Smith, realizing his predicament, was forced to tap.
Smith raised Shamrock’s hand in celebration of his win afterwards as the crowd applauded both for their efforts.
King of Pancrase Second Round
Masakatsu Funaki vs Vernon White
An early exchange of strikes during Funaki and White’s second round bout saw Funaki wow the crowd after he just missed on a spinning palm strike attempt. He ended up in White’s arms as a result and was subsequently slammed to the mat. Funaki however immediately rolled and reversed position, ending up on top of White, where he worked for a keylock that White fought off.
Funaki threw up a couple of triangle attempts in White’s guard but he never committed to locking either in. They eventually ended up in the far corner of the ring only for White to drag both of them back to the center, much to the delight of the fans in attendance. Funaki had a tight armbar at the midpoint of the fight but White was able to deftly escape.
The two spent a good chunk of the rest of the round with White in Funaki’s guard until Funaki swept White and tried for another armbar. White slipped out and after a few scrambles, Funaki ended up in full mount where he outmuscled White and secured a kimura that caused a quick tap and a painful yell, moving himself onto the semifinals.
King of Pancrase Alternate Bout
Scott Bessac vs Larry Papadopoulos
Bessac and Papadopoulos met in one of two alternate bouts on the second day of competition. Despite being the visibly smaller fighter, Papadopoulos tripped Bessac to the canvas early on but he lost control quickly as Bessac muscled Papadopoulos to his back. Bessac stayed in top control until the five minute mark when the referee asked for a restart on the feet due to inactivity.
While the referee was in the process of restarting the match, Papadopoulos fired off an early leg kick that forced another restart. Papadopoulos then scored another takedown while Bessac only offered palm strikes from his back as a defense. Papadopoulos worked a headlock and then transitioned to an armbar that Bessac scrambled out of in order to get back to his feet.
Papadopoulos scored another trip takedown but the referee immediately called for a restart as Bessac was under the ropes. Upon restart, Papadopoulos again tried to take the fight to the ground but this time was met with resistance by Bessac, who stuffed his attempt and took top position.
After nearly catching Bessac with two armbars that he was able to strongarm his way out of, Papadopoulos was put on his back. Bessac’s corner then called for body work and he bashed Papadopoulos’ ribs with hard closed punches, one of them that caused Papadopoulos to yell out in pain.
Bessac smelled blood and continued to punch the body of Papadopoulos, who was voicing his agony with every shot that landed. His corner pleaded with him to hang in there but after additional shots left Papadopoulos in further pain, the referee stepped in and started a count. Papadopoulos writhed on the canvas and attempted to get to his feet to no avail, making Bessac the winner by KO.
King of Pancrase Alternate Bout
Katsuomi Inagaki vs Gregory Smit
Smit worked to fire up the crowd before the other tournament alternate bout, eliciting some cheers as he waved his arms while Inagaki stood in silence prior to the match starting. Smit rushed in for a sloppy takedown attempt that Inagaki easily stuffed to kick things off.
From there, Inagaki took Smit’s back and then rolled for an armbar but Smit was able to sneak his arm out and ended up in side control before mounting Inagaki.
Inagaki bucked Smit and gave up his back, which allowed Smit to lock in a rear-naked choke that was partially on the chin. Inagaki fought and made his way free. He then took top position and attempted an armbar that Smit defended, now finding himself on top.
Smit maintained top control for a few minutes until Inagaki was able to sweep him after a failed choke attempt. Inagaki then transitioned to side control and took a step over Smit’s head as if he were about to attempt a kimura but then dove in the other direction for Smit’s leg.
Inagaki then swiftly secured a heel hook tap from a dejected Smit at the 5:18 mark.
King of Pancrase Semifinals
Ken Shamrock vs Masakatsu Funaki
In the first two of semifinals, Shamrock would meet his mentor Funaki in what also ended up being the conclusion of their trilogy.
The fight was a rematch of the first main event in Pancrase history at the Yes, We Are Hybrid Wrestlers 1 show where Shamrock submitted Funaki, only for Funaki to return the favor a year later in their second fight with a submission win of his own on Pancrase’s Road to the Championship 4 card in September.
Funaki peppered Shamrock with kicks in the opening seconds of this tournament bout, which caused Shamrock to dive in for a takedown. Shamrock rolled in an attempt to lock in a guillotine choke but Funaki countered and ended up taking side control. Funaki controlled Shamrock for a few moments before Shamrock snuck out from under Funaki and took his back. Shamrock transitioned to an armbar that Funaki shook off and ended up in full mount after a scramble, where he stayed until the referee brought the fight back up to the feet because of a lack of action.
Shamrock stuffed a Funaki takedown attempt and secured top position once again, where he started to work towards a head and arm choke. He eventually shifted to side control and had Funaki in a side headlock position for about a minute until the referee stepped in since things had stalled.
Back on the feet, Funaki whiffed on a bunch of kicks before ending up on his back again courtesy of Shamrock, who shifted to a heel hook and had the hold locked in when Funaki used a rope break to escape.
The two then exchanged strikes on the feet until Funaki pulled guard in an attempt to sweep Shamrock, but the move backfired as it allowed Shamrock to sink in an arm-triangle choke. Funaki tried to fight off the choke as best he could, but once Shamrock shifted his weight to one side, Funaki had no choice to tap, sending Shamrock to the finals.
King of Pancrase Semifinals
Minoru Suzuki vs Manabu Yamada
Yamada extended his hand to Suzuki as the referee inspected the fighters prior to the match and the two shook hands and wished each other luck in a moment of sportsmanship. Once the action got going however, the pace was a fast one.
Suzuki scored an early takedown and pivoted to different positions on top while Yamada was forced to play defense. Suzuki then took Yamada’s back and worked to sink in a rear-naked choke which Yamada fought off and then used that to roll and end up on top of Suzuki.
Yamada muscled Suzuki to the middle of the ring and worked to interrupt his breathing patterns while Suzuki held onto a tight guard. Yamada then mounted Suzuki and postured up, which caused Suzuki to roll to his back and become exposed. Yamada quickly worked to sink in a choke, which forced Suzuki to feverishly slide his feet to the ropes for a break.
Sensing that he had his opponent beaten, Yamada waved Suzuki on as the referee restarted the match. Yamada cracked Suzuki with a head kick but Suzuki used it to take Yamada to the mat. Suzuki then dropped back for a heel hook and the two each worked for their own hooks in 50/50 position until the referee stepped in to bring the bout back to the feet.
Yamada smacked Suzuki with a hard left palm strike and went for another head kick that saw him get taken down once again when it was partially caught. Suzuki took Yamada’s back and threatened with a rear-naked choke but Yamada was eventually able to escape. Suzuki continued to work for chokes while Yamada defended.
After another leg kick exchange between the two ended in a referee break, Suzuki stayed down on one knee, clearly exhausted. After some coaxing from the referee, Suzuki returned to his feet where he scored a late takedown but without much gas left in the tank, he was easily swept by Yamada, who moved to secure an armbar and after a bit of resistance, was able to straighten Suzuki’s arm out and force the tap at the 14:46 mark.
Yamada moved on to the tournament finals where he would meet Shamrock for the first and only time under the Pancrase banner.
King of Pancrase Finals
Ken Shamrock vs Manabu Yamada
A determined and focused Shamrock glared through the eyes of Yamada while the referee inspected the pair prior to their tournament championship bout. Yamada appeared unfazed and started the fight off in a relaxed fashion, bouncing with his hands at his side, waiting for Shamrock to come to him.
Shamrock remained patient and the two eventually tied up where Shamrock tossed Yamada to the mat. Shamrock maintained top position for the first handful of minutes of the fight. The referee eventually restarted the action on the feet where Shamrock quickly took the back of a bull-rushing Yamada and dropped him to the canvas.
Shamrock was content to keep Yamada at bay while sitting in his guard and did so for the majority of the first half of the fight. At the 17:26 mark, the referee called for another standup due to a break in the action and took the time to re-tie Shamrock’s boot, which gave both fighters a momentary respite.
Upon the restart, Shamrock nailed Yamada with a kick to the body. Yamada responded with a head kick the nearly caught Shamrock flush, but he was able to avoid the blow and secure another takedown. Shamrock tried to set up an armbar on multiple occasions while in top control but Yamada never let him get started.
At the 23:14 mark, the two were stood back up and another Shamrock takedown attempt saw Yamada briefly catch him in a heel hook. Shamrock was able to reverse position however and ended up on top, where he locked in a front choke. Yamada let the referee know that he was fine, waving him off and giving the peace sign to the crowd, much to their delight.
Shamrock continued to control Yamada from top position throughout the second half of the fight as well. Yamada turned the tide late at the 28:33 mark when he nearly caught Shamrock with a triangle choke before Shamrock shook off the attempt.
In a wild exchange in the fight’s closing moments, following a restart on the feet, Yamada sprinted towards Shamrock and tried to take him out with a dropkick. Shamrock was able to avoid the move for the most part and took Yamada down once again, sitting in his guard until the bell sounded as time expired.
The two fighters embraced afterwards with Shamrock smiling, satisfied with his performance. Fighters and trainers from both corners entered the ring to congratulate their charges for going the distance.
The judges read out Shamrock’s name as they announced each of their scorecards. In disbelief as he was announced as the winner, Shamrock asked Yamada and the referee if he had actually won the tournament before jumping up and down in joy.
A champion crowned
Following his tournament victory, Shamrock was awarded the inaugural King of Pancrase championship belt. He thanked the fans, the fighters and the Pancrase organization for allowing him to have the opportunity and was grateful to come out of the tournament as the winner.
“It’s really hard to come out here and face a person across the ring from you who wants to win just as bad as you do”, Shamrock said during the post-event awards ceremony. “Sometimes you have to reach down deep inside and pull something extra out. Sometimes you fall short. Sometimes things go your way. I was lucky.
“Luck is when preparation meets opportunity and I prepared very hard for this. I’m very lucky that things worked out this way for me. I just want to thank all of the fighters for helping to make this happen. This was a great tournament.”
Shamrock would go on to submit van Dijk at Pancrase’s Eyes of the Beast 1 event the following month in their first show of 1995. He would make one defense of his King of Pancrase title, a submission of Rutten via kneebar at Pancrase’s Eyes of the Beast 2 show that March.
The champion would lose the King of Pancrase title to Suzuki at Pancrase’s Eyes of the Beast 4 event that May, as Shamrock ironically submitted to a kneebar, making Suzuki the second King of Pancrase.
In all, five of the tournament’s participants would go on to become King of Pancrase during their respective careers.
In addition to Shamrock and Suzuki, those title holders would include:
Bas Rutten, who became the third King of Pancrase after submitting Suzuki at Pancrase’s 1995 anniversary show
Frank Shamrock, who became the interim King of Pancrase after Rutten vacated the title by submitting Suzuki in a grueling 22-minute match at Pancrase’s Truth 1 event in January 1996.
Masakatsu Funaki, who finally became the fourth king of Pancrase in his 32nd fight in the promotion, earning the crown in a TKO win over DeLucia, who was left unable to continue after eating a plethora of leg kicks from Funaki.
The King of Pancrase title, in the version that all of the above fighters held, was an openweight title and has since been retired by Pancrase as they have adopted weight classes to evolve alongside modern day mixed martial arts. The final open weight King of Pancrase was former UFC heavyweight champion Josh Barnett.
Pancrase, still in operation today, having outlasted other major Japanese MMA promotions such as Pride, World Victory Road, Vale Tudo Japan, and Dream, has since modified its ruleset, banning heel hooks, which were a staple finish of early Pancrase matches, due to the frequency of injuries that they caused.
Today, the promotion has held over 350 events and currently features 13 weight classes, including 4 women’s divisions.
While the vast majority of shows have taken place in its native Japan, Pancrase has traveled to South Korea, Australia, and the United Kingdom in the past as well. In 2021, Pancrase expanded its footprint to the United States, holding its first set of live events as it builds a US-based operations outfit.
An 8-part documentary series titled Pancrase Hybrid History is set to debut in 2022.