In this no-holds barred, tell-all account, Headmaster and Martial Arts Hall of Famer, Dr. Joshua WestMiller tells of his days as the first American to be invited to compete in the elite and underground Kumite. Westmiller is the original competitor to first coin the term Mixed Martial Arts and fight under the MMA title, and is also the founding Headmaster of United States No Holds Barred. He first began fighting Kumite at Master Hidetaka Nishiyamaās suggestion in 1962, and retired in 1964 with an astounding record of 27 wins and zero losses. Ten years later, Frank Dux would establish his Martial Arts āFlying Horseā name by fighting in this same no-holds barred Kumite world. As Frank Dux related in an interview with Martial Arts Illustrated, the early days of MMA in the US were filled with real, full-contact, no-holds-barred fighters who didnāt hide behind styles, but were willing to fight anyone, anywhere. Because of the underground nature of such competitions, Dux said, few were filmed and many fighters competed under pseudonyms, like āa fighter known only by his handle āCherokeeā whose real identity is Joshua WestMiller, Hidetaka Nishiyamaās student.ā
What do you think? I didnāt buy it yet.
Until the actual footage of it came out a few years ago, I always thought the Kumite was entirely BS. Yeh, I know it was more like āunlicensed kickboxing/karate tourneyā than āMortal Kombat deathmatchesā in reality.
Are you referring to the Taiwan film which had a French guy fighting in the 1980s? Frank strongly implied he was the fighter until the manās son called him out.
How about providing a link to the footage you are referring to?
The comments to the video reveal that it was Phillipe Cadoret in Taiwan in 1986. There is a Fuji ad in the background. Its not an underground tourment, its entirely above ground.
I remember Bullshido was the first place to notice the Fujifilm ad, too, the same day Frank tried pulling this off. It was an older format, but it checked out.
Everyone else was focused on the combate, Bullies were too busy dismantling it frame by frame.
Iāve recently been doing some more reading around as a result of the replies I got here.
This is an interesting, entertaining read, I thought.
Yeah, itās 2022 but it looks from the Google results that people are still debating the existence of the Kumite. Lots of āI want it to be real because I first got into martial arts because I was inspired by Bloodsport and Frank Duxā comments.
If the Kokuryukai wasnāt just a bunch of middle-aged westerners fighting over dragon bones these days, perhaps they couldāve given him a deathmatch inviteā¦
18/19yr old Tyson KO 15 people in 12 months then another 11 people the following year to become a 20yr old Heavy Weight world champion.
I think Ducks was claiming similar but in one day/tournament with zero evidence he was even at any kind of tournament or even that he had the skills to do it.
There was a thread on here about a guy called āChristian Wargod Darrowā check it out when you can, he claimed similar to Ducks when he came out of prison that he was champion of some underground fighting league.
To be fair to him he did look the part but alas as soon as he was called upon to show his skills against an amateur fighter who was in fact a Bullshido poster i think LIGUY ? he got KTFO but not just because LIGUY was better it was because he showed quite clearly that he cant fight to any standard above that which you would expect in an untrained pub brawl.
Ducks is yet to prove he is even capable of that unless you include the time Zane Frasier kicked his arse?
There is a really simply way to prove you can fight, its called fighting.
Since I started this thread, Iāve been looking for Dux vids. Only stuff Iāve seen is him teaching moves in slow motion to compliant students while talking them through what heās doing or striking inanimate objects, tbh.
Itās weird how so many people still think that Van Damme is the blowhard here. Despite there being (some) video and photographic evidence of his fights in the 70s that can easily be found online and someone having found his full fight record a few years back.
Sure there are a small cult of idiots that swallow all the bullshit but that can be said of many things that are obviously complete dog turd to most people .
I think we had thread once to start a cult with complete bullshit and see how many members we could get .
What you find is that these conmen know their audience .
So if for example Tony Anthony the fake king Fu champion bodyguard evangelist never actually went to real body guards or kung fu schools to peddle his bullshit he went to churches were he knew the majority would not be able to tell if he was telling the truth or not as only a tiny percentage of People in most churches if any have experienced martial arts of body guard training and have leaning towards giving people the benefit of the doubt until they prove themselves unworthy .
You go to one of Duxās seminars and you will find perhaps a few people that know what they are doing but donāt give a shit heās a fraud they think itās fun and the rest will be complete larping idiots that would follow anything that would make them feel special .
