According to BJJ.org, Mitsuyo Maeda (aka Count Koma) was undefeated in Judo and his only loses came in Catch Wrestling. Others sources such as GracieMag.com, do not mention his loses in catch. My question is, if he did suffer loses in catch, is their any REAL record of this and who did he lose to?
Didn’t he lose to a cadet at West Point?
Coincidentally I was reading a review of Maeda’s biography on bjj.org yesterday.
ISBN is 4-09-379213-5 published by Shogakukan
There are some comments about his losses on bjj.org. Here you go.
If there are records of the world catch-as-catch-can championship held in london the year Maeda, their names should be somewhere. Apparently his biographer was pretty through in his research, travelling the world and trying to get every detail. Maybe he found their names and put them in the biography.
That wasn’t Maeda.
From the same page on Bjj.org
In 1904 he was given a chance to go to the U.S. with one of his instructors, Tsunejiro Tomita. The first and only place they demonstrated judo together was at the U.S. Army academy in West Point. Contrary to what has been published, they never went to the White House nor did they ever meet the American president at the time, Teddy Roosevelt. It was the Kodokan great Yoshitsugu Yamashita who taught Roosevelt judo at the White House and later engaged in a match with a wrestler nearly twice his size at Roosevelt’s request, but this match took place at the U.S. Naval academy in Annapolis. Yamashita won with an arm bar and was given a teaching position at the academy for what was then considered a great deal of money.
The demonstration at West Point did not go over well. Tomita and Maeda started off with kata, but the Americans did not understand what they were seeing.
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Maeda was challenged by a student wrestling champion and a match ensued. A misunderstanding occurred when the student pinned Maeda (wrestling style pin) and thought he had won. Maeda, not familiar with wrestling, continued to fight until he got his opponent in a joint lock and made him tap out. The students then wanted to see Tomita fight. Since he was the instructor, they figured he must be the better of the two. The truth, however, was that Tomita was in his 40’s and past his prime. He had brought Maeda along to help with demonstrations, but had not intended to engage in challenge matches. He had no choice, and hesitated when his much larger american opponent rushed and tackled him. Tomita was caught under the weight of the bigger man and forced to give up.
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Maeda losing? This entire thread is blasphemous! Woe be unto thee infidels at the end when Helio shall sit in judgement of you non-believers.
edit: as this is a somewhat serious forum, I’ve heard of the misunderstanding between Maeda and the wrestler. I think Maeda had him in the guard, but does that count as a pinned position in greco-roman?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t this one of the events that lead to him breaking away from the Kodokan and calling his art Jiu-Jitsu instead of Judo? I know he took classical Jiu-Jitsu as a teen before he took Judo.
Also is his venture into Catch Wrestling the reason the top wristlock (as called by CACC people) is called the Americana? Did he get tapped by it?
Wouldn’t of thought so, but I could be wrong. As I far as I have been able to find out, his losses to catch wrestlers were at the world championship in London, England.
Maeda violated Judo rules at the time by competing against the Catch wrestlers. Judoka were not to spar or challenge other styles, I’ll try to find the source where I read that. So his involvement in the catch-as-catch-can championship would have been a violation of Judo rules.
As far as the “americana” goes, I was read in another forum that Maeda spent some time in the U.S. (New York and a few other places) and often wrestled catch guys in unsanctioned matches. So I figured maybe thats where he got the name. I also wonder if catch had any influence on what Maeda eventually taught the Gracies. I’m no expert, so knowledgable people feel free to correct me. Or flame.
I think the no challenge rule is probably a load of bollocks considering the reputation Judo built for itself challenging and (mostly) defeating other styles of JuJutsu. Kano was very progressive, that’s the point.
2000 matches with 2 losses?
I’m okay with that.
Intially I was told an believed that Maeda had violated the rules of the Kodokan and thus started calling his art JJ instead of Judo. However after reading his bio and speaking to other old timers who were students of Maedas contemporaries this doesn’t seem to be the case. The terms Judo and Jiu Jitsu (the acceptable romanization at the time) were interchangeable. (Judo after all is just another form of Jujutsu) And that is more than likely the reason the Gracies use the term JiuJitsu instead of Judo.
Jake Shannon is really big on the history of Catch so he might know who Maeda lost to. I will shoot him an email and see.
Asia, just out of curiosity, I know you’ve studied a shit load of martial arts, have you ever taken CACC?
Professor Kano arranged for Yukio Tani and Sadakazu Uyenishi to travel to London to teach jiujitsu at E.W. Barton-Wright’s Bartitsu Club, and both Tani and Uyenishi took on all comers as professional wrestlers. However, AFAIK neither Tani nor Uyenishi were formally part of the Kodokan until Kano awarded Tani 2nd dan around 1918. By that time, Tani had been submitting Euro-style wrestlers for the best part of twenty years - he must have been a real strong 2nd dan …
CACC rules at the time were based on pins rather than submissions, although pain holds were allowed to leverage the other guy into the pin. All of the Japanese fighters in Europe at the time had excellent success records when fighting under their own rules (jackets and submissions) and could very seldom be persuaded to fight under other rules. In 1901 the Swiss wrestler Armand Cherpillod, another Bartitsu Club instructor, defeated either Tani or Uyenishi in a freestyle match. In 1905, American lightweight champ George Bothner defeated jiujitsuka Katsukuma Higashi in three straight falls, but there was the usual controversy/confusion about rules.
For historical accounts of Euro-style wrestling vs. jiujitsu during the early 20th century, see -
http://ejmas.com/jcs/jcsart_edgren1_0300.htm
http://ejmas.com/jcs/jcsart_leonard_0802.htm
http://www.dragon-tsunami.org/Dtimes/Pages/articlee.htm
DDLR, I have never heard of Kano arranging for Tani and Uyenishi to go to England. I have no doubt you have a reference to this somewhere, just find it curious that he would send two men not associated with the Kodokan. Uyenishi was Tenshin-ryu, never associated with the Kodokan to my knowledge. Tani is abit more of a mystery, he was either Tenshin-ryu or Fusen-ryu(or both), and as you say not part of the Kodokan until 1920
Yep. I also like to collect old wrestling books. I stemmed from my very short lived Prowrestling dream.
Professor Kano arranged for Yukio Tani and Sadakazu Uyenishi to travel to London to teach jiujitsu at E.W. Barton-Wright’s Bartitsu Club, and both Tani and Uyenishi took on all comers as professional wrestlers. However, AFAIK neither Tani nor Uyenishi were formally part of the Kodokan until Kano awarded Tani 2nd dan around 1918. By that time, Tani had been submitting Euro-style wrestlers for the best part of twenty years - he must have been a real strong 2nd dan …
I don’t think Tani had any contact with Kano before he awarded him a nidan. Uyenishi might have becuase they were both of the Tenshin Shinyo Ryu school but I don’t think Kano had anything to do with them going to England.
Asia, how did you like CACC? Most complaints that I hear about it is that the moves are low % (mostly what BJJ people have told me). I used to be a GIANT pro wrestling fan myself, and I’m really starting to get into CACC history. I’ve always wanted to learn CACC, but the anti-Catch sentiment has discourged me. Is it still a good style or is it more of a supplemental art now?
Is Tenshin-Ryu what Maeda took before his time in the Kodokan? Most internet sources refer to his JJJ as traditional or classical, but don’t get into detail.
The Barton-Wright/Kano/Uyenishi/Tani connection is mentioned in Gunji Koizumi’s 1950 interview with Barton-Wright;
I then met Prof. J Kano, who gave me some lessons. On my return to England I founded an institution at which one could learn, under specialised instructors, all forms of sports andcombative arts. For Ju-jutsu teachers, I asked my friends in Japan and professor Kano to select and to send. In 1899, Tani and Uyenishi arrived. I then worked out a system of self defence by combining the best of all of the arts that I had learned and called it Bartitsu.
Admittedly, it could have been another of Barton-Wright’s Japanese contacts who arranged for Tani and Uyenishi to travel to England, and I believe that in this interview, fifty years after the events had taken place, Barton-Wright mis-remembered some of the dates. AFAIK Yukio Tani arrived in London in Septmber of 1900 (with, or shortly after, his elder brother and Mr. Yamamoto, who only stayed briefly in England.) Uyenishi followed in early 1901.
My assumption that Kano played an active part in the selection is based on his political clout and contacts/influence in ryu-ha throughout Japan; but you’re right, it’s curious that he would not have simply sent Kodokan representatives.
On the other hand, both Tani and Uyenishi subsequently wrote books on Jiujitsu that strongly followed the Kodokan’s reformist agenda. Both “The Textbook of Jujitsu” and “the Game of Jujitsu” re-frame the traditional battlefield/combative skills as a relatively safe form of wrestling and physical education that could be taught through schools and universities. I’d say that the balance of evidence suggests that during the first decade of the 1900s Tani and Uyenishi were at least keeping track of developments in Tokyo, even if they were not officially part of the Kodokan.