Kimbos, Bimbos and the Future!
By Joe Corley • Jun 16th, 2008 • Category: Doing The Right Things
Taking Another Shot at Good Competition: What it Means to All of Us, Who We Are and How We Are Perceived!
By MAH (”Mad as Hell”) Joe Corley
I have just gagged my way through the CBS primetime debut of “mixed martial arts, featuring “the one, the only Kimbooooooooooo Sliiiiiiiiiiiice!”
During two hours and 45 minutes of “non-stop (gag) action” (four fights: two ending in the first round, one in the second and one in the third-where’d the time go, we were having so much fun!), only the two women on the card looked like martial artists, as we know martial arts. In addition, they alone represented the martial arts during their interviews. They were respectful and competent, exhibiting class. These were no bimbos. You’d want your kids to grow up to be like them.
Not so with the others.
Sitting in a sports bar that night at the New England Open Tournament Hotel outside Boston, with fellow NASKA promoters, parents, competitors and students, I was forced to reflect.
It has been 30 years and 1 month, since I made my PKA TV commentator debut on CBS, doing commentary on Bill “Superfoot” Wallace, Benny Urquidez and Howard Jackson. On this bizarre night in 2008, among good karate friends, I was reminded of my horror, as to what our American culture is tolerating. The techniques of that live CBS event 30 years ago compared to what I saw in this primetime ring from the same network this night were like tough, 10th-Degree World Champion Black Belts to tough Gold Belts of today, with cauliflowers sewn to the sides of their heads!
The TV commentators were spewing praise like they were transfixed! “Oh, good this, good that, good the other thing!” (What were they watching?) I was screaming for Jack Nicholson to take him with me-we must escape the Cuckoo’s Nest! Now! CBS is a fine network. HELP!
Perversely, Russell Crowe as the Gladiator was on HBO at the same time. Was it fate that night to illustrate to us that the Coliseum sported more martial honor than the Octagon….’er Pro Elite’s “circulargon”?
The effects on us, in our martial arts studios and our culture-our martial arts culture and our western culture-are far reaching. Can anyone connect the dots from the legalization of today’s “rules” in the Octagon that would have made felons of boxers in the same rings in the same cities under the auspices of the same boxing commissions in the 90’s - had they held down their opponents’ arms and hammered them in the face - to the YouTube beatings the teen boys and girls are inflicting on one another? On ABC’s 20/20, the night before the CBS “Slice ‘em Up Show”, John Stossell reported on the concerns about the kids now in MMA!
It’s personally making me nuts!
It’s like Howard Beale said in the classic film, Network, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m just not gonna’ take it anymore!” (Go ahead, Google it: Network I’m mad as hell!)
Our 41st Battle of Atlanta will be approximately six weeks in the future when you read this, and here I am, appealing to every network executive who will listen and every discerning martial arts instructor I can reach and every fight fan on the planet who cares for quality; and I’m screaming at the top of my hoarse, mad-as-hell lungs: STOP THE INSANITY, PLEASE!
As I scoop water from the sinking Titanic of reason with my teacup of rational thinking, I am reaching out to all who will listen to me to join in this movement to bring sanity back to our martial arts culture.
I STRONGLY RESENT them even calling it martial arts. The M in MMA is really an upside down W for WRESTLING: MIXED WRESTLING ARTS! I’m Mad as Hell!
Let us not REACTIVELY look on any longer, as the UFC and others seek to define us to our real audience. Alas, to the entire world!
Rather, join me in a PROACTIVE movement to broadcast to the world who we are as martial artists. M is for real martial artists.
This is the NEW BEGINNING.
For more than 20 years, others have defined us and, luckily, most it was good. Not so in these TV spectacles.
On the big screen, Jerry Weintraub and the Karate Kid had the bad American instructor in the studio, but Mr. Miyagi saved Daniel. He showed him the right way. The good news was it opened the kids’ eyes to what good martial arts could do for them: Self esteem, confidence, etc. Then, the Ninja Turtles (go figure) were, thankfully, good-natured martial artists from the ooze. Then, the Power Rangers defeated evildoers, but we can’t wait on the Panda to save us now; we must take action.
Read the interviews under “Why Compete?” and view the I CAN videos on the battleofatlanta.com site, and let me know what you think about these points-of-view!
Let your students hear the right things to do from you! From your first-timers to your veterans, give them an opportunity to express themselves as martial arts competitors. Expose them to what is occurring at good tournaments.
Have them see you honored for your contributions to them!
I hope to see you soon, as part of our (all of our) New Beginning!
Joe Corley: NAPMA member Joe Corley is a 9th-Degree Black Belt, has trained for
44 years, was consistently ranked in the Top 10 in the U.S. as a point
fighter, has managed 40 Battles of Atlanta, has produced more than
1,000 hours of PKA kickboxing for television, has trained National Point
Champions and World Kickboxing Champions and has operated karate
studios for four decades. Joe Corley is a regular contributor to NAPMA’s
Maximum Impact Program. He can be reached at NAPMA.com.
All posts by Joe Corley
You Tell em’ Mr. Corley.!!!!
Notice I said Mr. Corley, not Joe. Where has the Respect Gone??
I was discusseded with it too. The women as usual saved the the Nite. What has happened to the Martial Arts. Don’t call it Martial Arts if this is what is being protrayed now. This is why we are hurting in the Traditional M.A. The Joe Public thinks this is what M.A. is now. They don’t want their kids doing that!!! What to Do???
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Mr. Corley,
I don’t know if you’ll remember me, but I worked for Fred Wren in St. Louis back in the 70’s and early 80’s, and had the privilege of competing in your Battle of Atlanta tournament in ‘74 and ‘75. I left St. Louis in 1983 and moved to Denver, Colorado, where I eventually opened a school (Rocky Mountain Karate Association), and I celebrated my 22nd year in business last April. I found your article regarding MMA here on the MAPro website while I was looking for information regarding another subject, and I’d like to comment.
I’ll begin by saying that I agree completely that what can be seen most of the time in the cage fighting events looks nothing like what we school owners would prefer the public to imagine when they think of “martial arts” - particularly the kind of martial arts that would be appropriate for children. There is a letter in the current edition of Martial Arts Professional magazine submitted by Stacey Knight Mejia of Acadiana Karate which does a pretty good job of explaining the contrast between what we try to encourage our prospective customers to appreciate and what they’re being exposed to on Spike and Pay-Per-View. In her letter, Stacey describes the less than humble direction that NHB events have taken in their production, the lack of “philosophy” found in MMA competition, and the fact that the contestants don’t have to be a martial artists at all; just a “street brawler, wrestler, half boxer or grappler”. I’m going to expand just a little on each of those points:
First, the spectacular presentations are simply a reflection of what makes the promoters the most money. It’s never been a secret that the majority of people would rather spend their cash on sensational entertainment instead of something subdued. That’s why NFL games gross more than operas. The MMA sponsors aren’t looking for the minimal market; they want to attract the widest variety of spectators they can manage - and nothing gets the primal juices flowing stronger than the prospect of watching a human train wreck. Consequently, they not only draw a lot of martial artists to their audience, but they also get the football crowd, the hockey crowd, the wrestling crowd, the rugby crowd - and the barroom crowd. …So, could the promoters still present the fights with a sense of dignity and manners befitting the traditional concepts of martial arts conduct? Sure. But would they still accomplish the same bottom line? Not even close. And the bottom line doesn’t only affect the promoter’s income; it dictates what the fighters can earn as well - so they (the fighters) have a vested interest in making sure that they put on a sufficiently attractive show. And that show has to go beyond their fighting ability. After all, there wouldn’t be much interest for the non-martial arts spectators if they didn’t get a “good guy” vs. “bad guy” (or “bad guy vs. worse guy”) scenario in motion; remember, the majority of the audience really just wants to see someone get beat up. And it’s more fun if they care who wins. So there’s posturing, and predictions, and general trash-talking, and whatever else the fighters can do to make the viewing audience root for them one way or the other. And that, then, brings me to the second issue: Philosophy.
In her letter, Stacey says that there are “many professional schools offering MMA with the philosophy of traditional martial arts curriculum as its foundation”. And, I’d say that’s true; my school happens to be one of them. My foundation was in a Korean style, but I’ve had the good fortune to learn from a number of very talented people in a variety of disciplines over the forty-odd years that I’ve been training, and I offer all that I’ve found to be of value from each of those systems to my students. That does include, incidentally, boxing; kickboxing (I fought on the PKA circuit between 1976 and 1981); Muay-Thai; wrestling, Judo, and Jiu-Jitsu. I’d say that qualifies my training as “mixed martial arts”. And, in all honesty, with the exception of a few of the boxing gyms I’ve sweat and bled in, nearly everyone I’ve worked with has required the athletes in their facilities to observe a reasonable amount of respect for where they were and for each other. On the other hand, I’m also a licensed judge with the Colorado State Boxing Commission, and I work quite a few of the MMA fight cards here - so I have the opportunity to be much more familiar with the fighters outside of the cage than most of the spectators are - and I can tell you that, for all intents and purposes, traditional martial arts etiquette is extremely rare in competitive MMA. Of course, there are exceptions to that unfortunate rule, and strangely enough it’s been my experience that those exceptions are typically the best fighters. The most recent example that I can relate is UFC Heavyweight Champion Randy Couture. I was a ring inspector at a UFC “Fight Night” production here in Denver a few months ago, and I had the opportunity to spend close to three hours in one of the ready rooms with Mr. Couture and a couple of his fighters who were on the card. During all of that time, I never heard him ridicule or insult anyone, use foul language, or in any other way present himself as less than a class act. Before I left that room for the evening, I made a point of telling him that I appreciated it, too.
Now, what might seem to be a strange thing is that Mr. Couture is, in fact, an extremely popular fighter with the great majority of the MMA fans - maybe the most popular - so you might wonder why the promoters don’t want the rest of their talent to rise to the same level of manners. The answer is really pretty simple, though: If there were more good guys like him, then none of them would be as special - and, therefore, they’d be less interesting to a general public that cares more about train wrecks than it does about high personal standards among people trying to beat each other senseless. Randy Couture stands out specifically because he IS one of a kind. So what can we tell the children who might be watching all of this? That the best fighter in the world - right now - is a true martial artist. And that’s as good as the situation with MMA will ever get for anyone with traditional values. Of course, the story may need an adjustment depending on who fills Mr. Couture’s shoes in the future.
If it happens to be someone like Forrest Griffin (newly crowned UFC Light-Heavyweight Champion), for instance, we’ll have our hands full. Anyone who caught the end of the last UFC from Las Vegas where he won the title heard the excited new champ drop a bunch of S and F-bombs during his victory speech with Joe Rogan - and that definitely isn’t the impression that we’d like all of our prospective student’s parents to have of our chosen path. At least, I don’t think many parents are going to want to invest their hard-earned money in us if it is.
I have one more thing to say about the UFC philosophy regarding martial arts. There’s a gas station a couple of blocks down the street from my school, and in the convenience store area there sits a small kiosk that holds a variety of official UFC paraphernalia such as tote bags, automobile license plate holders, and baseball caps. At least, I assume it’s official UFC equipment, because it has Chuck Liddel’s face plastered all over it - and he’s definitely been the most recognizable representative of the UFC for a long time now. Anyway, on the totes and the plate holders, there’s a phrase (quotation?) in bold letters that says, “I tapped you out… and then I tapped your girlfriend.” Now, THERE’S something that would be fun to explain to your little girl who just signed up for Kempo, huh?
I can’t wait for the major baseball owners to follow the campaign: A shirt with A-Rod on it letting you know that “I hit a home run against your team …and then I hit a home run with your girlfriend.” Now, that would be high class.
Last, but not least; the issue regarding “brawlers, wrestlers, boxers, and grapplers”. Well, I’m going to refer to something that I’ve been telling my students for as long as I can remember about what they learn from me - and I’m sure that Peyton Quinn, author of the “Reality Check” articles in the MAPro magazine will back me up: Adrenaline can make you Superman - or Super-stupid. And what does that have to do with brawlers, etc., being competent MMA fighters? It means that a brawler - or a wrestler or a boxer - already knows what it feels like to be under the serious kind of pressure that’s encountered when you’re taking a chance on experiencing some heavy contact against someone who’s really trying to hurt you. There was a Black Belt I knew a long time ago who could execute beautiful forms and board breaks, and even spar amazingly well while he was in the relatively safe environment of a school or even a light-contact tournament. But he flailed like he’d never had a day of training once someone got in his face for real in a parking lot. The simple fact is that there are just a lot of plain tough guys that like to fight who aren’t necessarily excellent martial artists - or martial artists at all - but they can hit, and they don’t mind getting hit back. And as long as they can win, they’re in. Now, do I wish there were more traditional martial artists who could compete in MMA events and SUCCEED with their traditional techniques? Sure. That would be great for business. But it hasn’t happened yet. Of course, there’s a world of difference between attempting to use a technique against a trained opponent who should be ready for it in a competitive arena, and using a technique that comes with the element of surprise against someone who doesn’t know what to expect in a self-defense situation. I bounced in nightclubs in St. Louis for seven years to supplement my income while I taught for Mr. Wren, and I had a fairly sufficient number of opportunities to figure out what did and didn’t work. And, fortunately, I always managed to control any confrontations with simple basics - combined with a principle that I learned from an old friend by the name of Jim Harrison: when it’s necessary, you go from “rabbit” to “rabid”. Actually, that advice probably made more of a difference than anything.
…On the other hand, just for the record, I also remember crawling away from a couple of in-the-ring training sessions with Ernie Hart, Jr. and Robert Biggs. You can tell when someone really knows what they’re doing.
I’ll close with this: In a perfect world, the martial arts would always be practiced with honor and discipline, and held in high esteem by everyone. - And so would politics, law, and religion. I’d say that it’s just up to those of us who still believe that there should be standards to keep them the best we can for the people we’re responsible to. Lead by example. If we’re good instructors, we’ll give our students a real ability to defend themselves - but we’ll also teach them to understand the value of their training beyond physical achievements. That’s what will last after everything else goes away. That’s the real home run.
Mr. Corley/ Mr. Colasante,
I wrote the above letter during the very early hours of the morning yesterday while I was trying to deal with a toothache that kept me from sleeping all night, and I don’t always do my best work under those conditions - so I thought it might be a good idea to re-read it now and see if it actually came out the way it should have. I’ve decided that it’s still good to go, but there’s one area that I should probably clarify. That’s the part about “brawlers, wrestlers, boxers and grapplers” competing in MMA events, and my statement regarding traditional martial artists. Two things:
First, I may have left the impression that I believe all traditional martial artists are unfamiliar with the concept of heavy contact. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The fact is that there are a great number of schools teaching traditional systems that emphasize sufficient contact in their technique to insure that their students can deal with serious physical pressure. For example, people who study Kyokushinkai or Enshin Karate (home of the Sabaki), just to name a couple, are no strangers to heavy hitting. I trained in a Shotokan school once where I’m sure the owner got kickbacks from a dentist and an orthopedic surgeon somewhere - and anyone who’s familiar with the practice of “Tex-Kwon-Do” (with many thanks to Mike Anderson and Fred Wren) knows what the science of impact is all about. No, there are definitely a lot of traditional martial arts organizations that honestly teach their students the real deal. On the other hand, unfortunately, there are also a whole lot of schools that DON’T legitimately prepare their students for real-world application of what they’re learning - either because the instructors themselves are illegitimate, or because they’re afraid that they’ll lose business if the students actually learn what kicks and punches (or takedowns and rear naked chokes) are designed to accomplish. In our business, that’s both irresponsible and dishonest. In any case, though, please forgive me for any misunderstanding.
Second, in regard to my statement that I wish there were more martial artists competing in MMA with traditional techniques and winning: Well, when I wrote that, I was thinking along the lines of classic oriental reverse punches, sidekicks, hook kicks, etc.; all of it stand-up. You know, things you’d see in Japanese Ippon Kumite matches. It’s been my observation that the majority of MMA bouts are decided by boxing/haymaker punches and some variation of ground-and-pound - but a lot of MMA fighters also use knee strikes or leg kicks that would be traditional to Muay-Thai, or ground-fighting techniques like arm-bars and triangle chokes that are traditional to either oriental or Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu (when Royce Gracie was first defeating everyone he faced, he was definitely applying traditional Gracie technique). In addition, those roundhouse kicks that Mirko Filipovic (CroCop) devastated his opponents with were exactly the kind that I was taught in my traditional TaeKwonDo classes - and I remember Melvin Guillard once dropping an opponent for the count with what appeared to be a VERY traditional Shotokan reverse punch. Therefore, I’d have to say that there IS a considerable amount of traditional technique in MMA after all - depending on which traditions you’re considering. And once again, I apologize for the oversight.
Thanks for your time.
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Mr. Joe Corley.
Way to go, even in the 70;s when you and Mr. Piddington were starting to develope PKA Kick-Boxing..Both of you agreed it was kick boxing and Full-contact Karate not Martial arts. As you know the fighter from the begining was a Black Belt first till we ran out of BB’s to train. You are so right about the MMA..These are the best train wrestling and strikers on the planet but not true martial artist. You have always been ahead of the game and you are correct in that we are training gladiators not Martial artist who know what respect is ? But, Karate has the history and spirit to remain pure if we teach the next group of Kids as it was meant to be with respect . Your insights into this was awesome. Keep up the good work.
Danny McCall
Denver, NC