What are the most IMPORTANT MMA orgs of all time, outside of the main ones?????

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Lionheart7167

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Excluding the UFC, Bellator, Pride, WEC and Strikeforce, what are the organizations that have had a resounding impact and why?

Here's a few of my pics
Shooto- for all intents and purposes the first real MMA organization (that I know of)
Pancrase- Along with the UFC it was the first organization to sport major talent- Funaki, Shamrocks, Bas
King of the Cage- the longest running farm and feeder league. Produced countless stars
Elite XC- Even though it was mismanaged and short-lived, it showed the possibilities of MMA being successful on the major TV stations (and probably helped seal UFC deal with Fox)
Affliction- Despite only 2 events, it was probably the biggest group of talent ever on 2 cards
M-1 Global- the longest running international organization that's touched down everywhere and built a lot of big stars
 
Jungle Fight the biggest org in South America, had some pretty big names included.

DEEP should be right up there too
 
RINGS - home to several future stars from around the world
 
I will only list orgs that I consider did something different and of course it's a very short list as I cannot list all the orgs since I do not possess either the time nor the knowledge to list every org that did something different

Ganryujima - Rejecting the constraints of modern MMA...deconstructionalism meets Blood sport inspired violence. Currently #2 in Japan

RIZIN - All inclusive MMA org where Woman, Men and 53 year old Aunties are all equal..possibly the future of MMA. You can catch it this New Year's eve

RIO HERO's - The vision of one man. An attempted return to the purism of hand to hand combat. The owner was also the match maker and the referee. Homeless orphans and bad boys were picked off the streets of Brazil and given a purpose in life - to fight in a cage under seedy lightining. Fights were streamed free over the internet when every other org had no idea what the net even was. One of the few legit man vs woman fights were in this org.

ZST - cool music meets tag team action and Lithuanians. Grapple heavy rules at times. A major org that ultimately failed but differentiated itself from the pack of UFC clones.

Felony fights - putting the scum of the streets against each other and also featuring some decent talent. America's #1 street fighting org..also had a sister promotion called Queen of the Hood..after watching this org you no longer ever want to get into a street fight

Hall of Shame:

DREAM - Bad copy of PRIDE with a weird homosexual vibe..was responsbile for K-1 Hero's demise ..Had like 10 minute introduction movies for each fighter which got old real quick and was the worst of all Japanese Super ORGs
 
manboy<3 said:
DREAM - Bad copy of PRIDE with a weird homosexual vibe..was responsbile for K-1 Hero's demise ..Had like 10 minute introduction movies for each fighter which got old real quick and was the worst of all Japanese Super ORGs
Click to expand...
I think Dream was verry entertaining at the time and i wish it would have lasted longer. Wvr Sengoku was the better of the two tho and somehow i think you will agree on that one.
 
From Japan in no particular order :

Shooto
Pancrase
Rings

From anywhere else? No idea. I guess whatever regional promotion was the biggest at whatever specific time but not sure how much they actually added to the sport - aside from getting people in their respective countries interested in competing.

Elite XC and Affliction are only important in that they were prime examples of how NOT to run an mma company.
 
2H2H deliverd some good fights and had decent talent at the time.
 
Cage Warriors produced/produces some of the biggest european names (in/for the UFC).

But has big concurrence now with BAMMA,KSW and ACB when it goes about the european talent pool.
 
U also had some important Brazilian Org. like IVC & WVC, dead hardcore, where u could see the beginning of some key teams or key fighters (Kerr for instance started there).

But those org. didnt have perhaps Pancrase´s technical influence on the game, as the fights were gruelling ones..
Even the BJJ dudes would look for basic GNP.

The generation who went through Early Pancrase HAD to become highly skilled in Grappling to get competitive, thats why u could see pure strikers like Bas or Tiger White or Mezger becomin´ better on the ground back in the days.

Early Pancrase showed the transition from the 1980s/1990s to the 2000s, and how it helped new teams and fighters not only to improve their game, but to join and create new teams.

For instance, Tiger White was a pure striker b4 Pancrase (TKD), and even though he lost more often than not in Pancrase, he still learnt a lot.
 
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IFC...should be mentioned too

Debuting in 1996
IFC- Kombat in Kiev
(...Vovchanchyn, Varelans...Andy Amderson as the referee)




And their Global Domination tourney was super stacked!!!
...Chael Sonnen, Forrest Griffin, Shogun, Babalu, Jeremy Horn...


...and the mat seemed to be freshly spray painted..
 
Rumble on the Rock/ICON/Suberbrawl

IFL

Strikeforce

Cage Rage

MFC

Tachi Palace Fights
 
Setsuna said:
From Japan in no particular order :

Shooto
Pancrase
Rings

From anywhere else? No idea. I guess whatever regional promotion was the biggest at whatever specific time but not sure how much they actually added to the sport - aside from getting people in their respective countries interested in competing.

Elite XC and Affliction are only important in that they were prime examples of how NOT to run an mma company.
Click to expand...

Nothing was wrong with Affliction. They were simply on PPV and had no TV back then. And when their headliner pulled out due to a PED bust they had nothing to fall back on.

They could have went ahead and poured money into it, Affliction had the funds no doubt. They just made the calculated and wise decision, that it was going to be an uphill battle and wasn't worth the loss.

In retrospect, they should have continued on. As we saw a few years later, UFC decided to drop all non-Reebok/Monster sponsorship anyways. So companies like Affliction were left in the dark. They may have eventually got themselves a TV deal. But they made the right decision financially speaking at the time.
 
UWFI. Created Takada's image which created the demand for a fight with Rickson. Even though it was pro wrestling the stand up was a shoot. Sakuraba and Tamura were a part of that company too. You know the rest.
 
King of the Cage too, they've held 510 cards since 99. Joe Daddy Stevenson fought in the first event, I think it was actually called Bas Rutten's King of the Cage back then too.

They have a weird thing about naming their weight classes, but they do have a cruiserweight and a SHW.
 
It's still a bit early but I think ONE deserves to be mentioned. They've developed MMA from basically nothing to a pretty popular sport in an area where a huge chunk of global population lives.
 
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