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Bas Rutten is one of the most popular and recognizable figures in MMA today. A once great fighter who captured the King of Pancrase and UFC Heavyweight Titles, Rutten has made the successful transition to announcer and entrepreneur. With the holiday season fast approaching MMA Weekly’s Mick Hammond spoke with Rutten to look back over the past year of Pride FC as well as its future and Rutten’s personal life.


MMA Weekly: First up Bas, it’s been a big year for Pride FC. Possibly the biggest story with the company was this year’s 16-Man Grand Prix which got started off with a bang at Total Elimination 2004 with Kevin Randleman knocking out Mirko “Cro Cop.” Tell us your thoughts on that and how it set the table for the remainder of the GP.
Bas Rutten: The heavyweight GP was as exciting as last year’s middleweight GP. All the time when I think that Pride can’t top themselves anymore they pull it off. We’re lucky it went well. Of course it was a big upset, I don’t think Mirko expected it at all. He could have gone real far if that hadn’t have happened. I still think the best match-up could have been Cro Cop versus Fedor (Emelianenko). I think they match up real well together. But that’s the tournament, it’s the name of the game when things like that happen, you never know what to expect. I thought that Kevin had Fedor in the second round when he dropped him on his head. I know Fedor said he wasn’t hurt but c’mon, Kevin dropped him right on his head. If he would have started raining knees like he did against Murilo “Ninja” (Rua) he could have pulled off a second straight upset and that would have been totally crazy.


MMA Weekly: Another big part of the tournament was the stellar performance of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira after the last year it seemed a lot of people lost faith in him. Tell us your thoughts on his GP performance.
Bas Rutten: You know what, they (the Brazilian Top Team) have such a great team there, they work non-stop on improving skills that they might not be good at. They are pretty much good at every skill, but if they feel they need work on something like striking they immediately go to Cuba and work with the national team on that. They are real smart with what they do. They are a bunch of smart guys and they get better and better. Nogueira learned from his first match with Fedor. In that match Fedor was able to get out of submissions even before Nogueira could even attempt them. But now you saw before the fight got stopped, Nogueira had multiple submission attempts, he was going non-stop. I always think that when someone goes for something and keep going they will eventually get the submission.


MMA Weekly: In that final bout between Fedor and Nogueira there was a lot going on when the referee halted things to look at the cut that opened over Fedor’s eye. We have heard from Mario Sperry what was going on in the BTT corner with all the discussion, what do you feel about their wanting to have the fight called in Nogueira’s favor?
Bas Rutten: It was one of the worst things, I mean that was the fight everyone was waiting for. Finally we had the rematch; pretty much everyone thought it was going to be final bout, and to have it end like this was not good. Fedor gave the headbutt and cut himself so I can understand the protests from their side. I mean we are talking about a lot of money here that was at stake along with the GP title.


MMA Weekly: It’s a lot of money, but it’s not El Guapo money right?
Bas Rutten: No it’s not El Guapo money, I wish that I had that kind of money (laughs). You know this is the misunderstanding here in America, people are thinking that I’m sitting relaxing on my millions of dollars but they don’t they don’t realize that I’m traveling my ass off to get this money.


MMA Weekly: Back to the tournament, how do you feel about the overall performance of the tournament? Do you feel it was a strong step up from the one back in 2000?
Bas Rutten: Oh yeah, for sure. It was a way better GP than the first one. I thought it was great, if the ending wouldn’t have gone like this it would have been the perfect GP.


MMA Weekly: Getting away from the GP, this year we saw the Bushido series continue to evolve with four volumes this year. Can you tell us your thoughts on that series?
Bas Rutten: Well before Bushido 5 Mr. Sakakibara, the President of DSE, along with (Nobuhiko) Takada (Pride Executive Manager) warned the fighters for 20 minutes at the rules meeting saying, “if you guys don’t fight, you’ll never be back.” What they did showed the fighters that even if they lose, if they put on a great show they will be back. I think personally you saw a big difference between volumes 4 and 5 because Pride is really pressing the fighters now. You saw a lot of new talent, Crosley Gracie for one is going to be phenomenal, he’s got the submissions, he’s got the striking. Gomi is also very good, the lightweights are exciting fighters, they’ve always been in Japan and now Pride’s bringing them to the front.


MMA Weekly: You mention Takanori Gomi, he seems to be the fighter that the series has become centered around. Do you he can be centerpiece to which this series can revolve around? Can he make an impact big enough to keep it alive as well as come up to the main show now and then and perform well there?
Bas Rutten: I think he can. As long as he keeps his head together. Normally you saw what happened with (Kazushi) Sakuraba, that after you beat a lot of great fighters you can start to think you’re invincible and then some people have a lack in training. Once that happens to you, you start to go down. It’s happened to a few great fighters; they just don’t concentrate anymore. If he keeps his stuff together he could be the next great superstar.


MMA Weekly: Let’s talk about a couple of other fighters that had had notable years. Heath Herring for one seems to have come back in a very strong fashion after a year or two of not being the same dominant fighter he started out as in Pride. How do you feel about his resurgence in the heavyweight division?
Bas Rutten: It’s exactly like you said, he’s doing great, he’s really coming back. I think coming back after a knockout is one of the most devastating and difficult things to do. I have the most respect for fighters who get knocked out and come back to win their next fight because it is very difficult to do, because you know you’ll be punch-shy. After that barrage he got into with Mirko Cro Cop and that was to the body, he started to think he started to think “I’ve been in Holland now for a few years working on my striking two times a day and it’s not really paying off.” What he didn’t see is that he wasn’t playing his game. If he just plays his game and bees Heath Herring I think he can do great against anyone. If he just uses what he has and what he possesses then he can win any fight and he’s proved that over his last few fights. Once he starts doing that, that’s the real Heath Herring.


MMA Weekly: Another fighter that seemed to be on the comeback trail but then had a hard last few outings was Kevin Randleman. How do you feel about Kevin’s year?
Bas Rutten: Kevin is the kind of person that you can’t break down. He and I are very similar; he had the crazy car accident and a lot going in his personal life. I have so much respect for a guy who can keep fighting like that. He has a lot of pressure on him, he had the accident and the doctors tell him not to fight for 5-6 months after it, but there he is 4 weeks later fighting again. He’s got 45 stitches in his head doing it; this guy is indestructible and keeps coming. The only thing is when you have a lot on your mind you can’t train. That’s the case with his fight against Fedor, he didn’t train at all. His dad had just died, he had a lot on his mind, he took care of all that stuff, the funeral and his family. I think if a person like Kevin Randleman with his athletic abilities and reflexes finds a really good camp to train with he can pretty much be unbeatable. He’s go super reflexes and is unbelievably strong, he’s got the whole package, he needs a good coach to tell him exactly what to do.


MMA Weekly: You mentioned Fedor, he had a very good year after missing part of last year with injuries and contract issues. How do you feel about his year so far going into the New Year’s Eve show?
Bas Rutten: He’s in a different class, he’s how you say…when they made him they made him from something special. He has a real strange kind of balance, I mean in a good way. The way he moved in Nogueira’s guard, like when Nogueira goes for submissions he shifts his weight forward and to the sides and it’s like nothing I’ve seen before. He’s real fast with his own submissions and has those big haymakers. Standing they can be a problem for him because they are wide, but on the ground it doesn’t matter, he’s very accurate on the ground. Like I said, a fight between him and Cro Cop could be a real great fight. I think that if he keeps going he’ll keep being a star. He’s the kind of guy that won’t get sidetracked, he’ll always be focused and in great shape.


MMA Weekly: In the middleweight division the story is, as it has been over the last few years, Wanderlei Silva. He took time off early then came back strong against Ikuhisa Minowa at Bushido, then had an injury but came back to destroy Yuki Kondo before having the fight of the year against Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. Tell us your thoughts on Silva’s year.
Bas Rutten: He’s the kind of person you think, “when is he going to stop?” I mean he’s always in shape, prepared, and wins. The last three years we are talking about that he hasn’t lost, he’s just barraging everybody. The thing that I mentioned before like with Gomi, it’s very difficult to stay at the top, to keep training non-stop, but he keeps doing it. Everybody’s hunting him, so he knows everyone’s training real hard to get to him. I don’t know where he gets the mental focus to stay on that level. He says he’s going to do this for 5 more years, if he can do it for just 2 more years that’s an unbelievable thing to do.


MMA Weekly: Now the year is not yet over for Pride, things are coming together for the New Year’s Eve show. Headlining that show will be the third match between Nogueira and Fedor for all the titles and money. Tell us your thoughts about the upcoming Shock Wave 2004 show.
Bas Rutten: The main event is going to happen, there’s no more speculation, it’s finally signed so that’s good. It’s going to be a brawl again. Let’s hope there’s not going to be another cut or something crazy is going to happen. That’s going to be a good fight for sure. It’s not going to be over in five minutes I believe, it’s going to be a long hard battle. Roulon Garner is going to fight (Hidehiko) Yoshida; it’s going to be a good match. I’m going to see him and train him a bit in his stand up game. I hear Heath Herring is also going to fight, there’s going to a lot of stars on this show, I think Wanderlei Silva wants to fight as well. I think this show is really going to rock.


MMA Weekly: Do you see this becoming the big centerpiece show for Pride every year? The show that everyone will look forward to throughout the year with anticipation?
Bas Rutten: I think so. Hopefully they will bring Gomi in so they can have the heavyweights, middleweights, and the stars of Bushido come in and make one big show.


MMA Weekly: There are a lot of well-established fighters in Pride, but they continue to try to bring in some of the best young talent in the business. Do you see this surge for new talent growing with the coming year?
Bas Rutten: I expect even more talent to come in. Especially with the Pride try-outs, this is a big step for Pride; it’s the first time they are going to scout for more talent this way. Everybody knows that there’s more talent out there, but they aren’t going to get a shot unless you go out and find them, it’s the same with acting and everything else. So I actually see it growing real well. I keep repeating myself, but every time I don’t think it can get better anymore and we pull off something better. I feel we are so lucky that we have such great shows all the time, it’s very difficult to top shows but we manage to do it each time. With the try-outs more competition will come and it will get even better.


MMA Weekly: So you see Pride being the organization that is “the organization” that people want to come to and compete in?
Bas Rutten: I think so, in fact I know so. Every fighter including myself who starts fighting’s biggest dream is fighting in Japan. It’s the land of the samurai, you want to be there, you know people have respect for what you do there, it’s a totally different ballgame there than anywhere else in the world. So for fighters to experience that, it’s a big thing. A lot of fighters from other organizations want to go to the big show and want to know how does it feel to fight there. Small shows can have around 28,000 people, medium shows are like 45,000, and at the Tokyo Dome they fill out 70,000 people, so fighters will want to fight for a company that can give them that.


MMA Weekly: Alright let’s get away from Pride now and talk about your year. You’ve been very busy this year not only with commentating but also with acting and other personal endeavors tell us about your year.
Bas Rutten: I think it went real well. I do a lot of work, and as I said before I travel a lot to start new things, new businesses. It’s like in fighting when you start out they don’t start you headlining the big show, it’s like that in acting, just because you get a lead role it doesn’t mean they are going to get 150,000 dollars. They say “this is a low budget movie, you’re going to start here, you’re going to get paid to scale, take it or leave it.” For the first movie the acting picked up real fast, a lot of people saw it so I got another right after it. Now I just finished a comedy, a short comedy, I have the lead in that. I was kind of waiting for that one because it shows my range now, people can see I’m not just a fighter, I can do more than that. I think this short comedy will hopefully be this breakthrough for me, it’s a really funny film. On the side I have the Bas Rutten enterprises, we just started training people to become instructors in the Bas Rutten martial arts system. It’s where people come three times a year for a week and I work with you 7-hours a day which finishes in a seminar where I’m going to let you teach also so I can see how you teach other people. We see if they can pass their tests so they can be certified in teaching the Bas Rutten system. I’m going to give myself a shameless plug here by saying you can go to [link widoczny dla zalogowanych Użytkowników] for all the information on that.


MMA Weekly: Your personal life saw some change too. I know earlier this year you had a big formal wedding with your wife, tell us how marriage works for El Guapo.
Bas Rutten: It works very well. The wife has been with me for 12-13 years, we got married when we first came to the States because she’s Dutch too and so she wouldn’t have gotten a green card, so there was a small wedding for the two of us. I told her that we’d do a bigger wedding later on. In the wedding department we were already married so it didn’t change a whole lot but it was fun to have all of our friends over here and family from Holland. Some fighters came and some couldn’t make it, we had Bruce Buffer announcing for fun, we had a lot of fun.


MMA Weekly: So it’s been a pretty good year all around for El Guapo huh?
Bas Rutten: I think it’s like when I was starting in Pancrase, in the beginning you don’t realize what you can do. You start with a certain amount of money and you work your way up. I had a couple losses the first year in Pancrase and I realized I had to work harder and harder, so I do that in my life, if something happens not how I want it to, I work harder so it does work. I didn’t have any losses this year, at least not in the acting department, it’s going good and only getting better and better. The only thing is I would like to be making more money per part but I’m not working on big Hollywood budges. You have to start somewhere. It’s like a fighter, I’m working my way up getting better and better, getting offered more parts so let’s hope that next year will be the breakthrough year for El Guapo.


MMA Weekly: You remain one of the most popular and beloved individuals in our sport. How does it feel to get such a response from fans?
Bas Rutten: You know I’m so fortunate with that. It’s mind-blowing. It looks like I got more popular after I stopped fighting…


MMA Weekly: Maybe they are trying to tell you something with that?
Bas Rutten: Yeah, but everybody likes the commentary too (laughs). You have to see the people that come up to me everyday from everywhere, they come up to me and say “hey you’re the guy from Pride, you’re great, you’re funny, you can make us laugh.” I meet people from Holland and they tell me I’m the say but I’m more relaxed. That just tells you how I was 13 years ago, I was such a hyper guy. I never could understand fighters who don’t give their fans the time of day, because if it wasn’t for the fans you wouldn’t be there. So I always try to give everybody their autograph, everybody their picture, and their attention because they deserve it. They put me where I am.


MMA Weekly: Going back to MMA, how do you see things going for the whole sport, not just Pride and Japan, but here in the States, over in Europe, the entire world in 2005?
Bas Rutten: I said this last year also, people are starting to realize what leg locks are, what arm bars, are what submissions are, how takedowns and how to defend things so that changes things. It’s like boxing now, boxing is easy to understand, you punch someone to the head or to the body and they go down, pretty much everybody understands that, we are starting to get that understanding too. I have friends who watch shows who say “hey he’s going for a left arm bar” and I’m like surprised because it’s people who didn’t train in the sport but now they are starting to understand what’s going on and what’s coming up. They are realizing that it’s a real fun sport to watch, even on the ground it can get real interesting, in the beginning all people wanted to see were slams, ground n pound, and knockouts, but now they get excited about the ground game. We have fighters now who move fast and mix up the ground n pound with submissions so the level of fighters keeps growing and the audience gets more sophisticated and knowledgeable. Because they get more knowledgeable about fighting I see things getting really big. I always see Pride commercials in with boxing commercials on TV now and I know that people are seeing that and they see guys like Rampage and Wanderlei slamming people and knocking people out and they start to think “hey what is this, we’ve got to get that PPV and check this out.” So I know it’s going to grow real well next year.


MMA Weekly: As we close out is there anything you’d like to say to anyone out there before we go?
Bas Rutten: It’s pretty much what everybody says, just keep supporting the sport, that’s what every fighter says. Because that’s the only way we can grow. Thanks for all the support and for the people, because every time I go to a show not just in Japan but here in the States it takes me an hour to get in there and an hour to get out because everyone comes up to me and shows me support, so it’s a lot of fun. I thank everybody for that. Hopefully they will continue to support every fighter and don’t forget just in case they lose one or two times in a row to keep supporting them because that’s the time a fighter really needs his fans. If they drop them there that could be the end of the fighter, so keep supporting them through everything. For the rest of you, check out the Bas Gone Wild DVD, it’s a 2-hour DVD about my 3-day bachelor party I had in LA and it’s pretty wild, it’s got a lot of appearances by a lot of fighters and a lot a laughs. Please look out for my next Bas Rutten big DVDs of combat. It’s going to be 7 DVDs, the biggest instructional DVDs in the world. To give you an example only the leg lock DVD has 65 leg locks on it. I show you how to apply it, how to avoid it and if you get caught in it, how to escape it and that’s all mixed from my real fights showing me doing a technique in a real fight. It’s a big project that is hopefully going to come out in January, so check out [link widoczny dla zalogowanych Użytkowników] for all the details when it gets more finished.