In this case, the UFC is the event and ZUFFA is the event promoter. Oddly enough, the athletic commission from each state serves as the governing body, which supervise the official rules of the UFC.

It seems, to be able to legally hold a legitimate professional fight event in the United States, the event itself and the promoter must fall under the rules of organizations almost entirely monopolized by boxing experts. This creates a situation in which, judging tables at MMA competitions are sometimes filled with boxing experts who lack any knowledge regarding endurance factors in the ground game, and the damaging effects of low-kicks.

When you look at other fight sports such as Judo and Wrestling, they each have their own commission which organizes the entire sport from top to bottom; including rules, referees, and amateur competition.

Now, let's take a look at Shooto. It has its own commission which does nothing but maintain the official rules of Shooto as well as training and cultivating referees for the sport. People from Shooto once told me that, "Shooto itself is not an organization, the official rules themselves are Shooto!"

However, the event held at Tokyo Bay NK Hall this last December left a question mark on the state of these dedicated Shooto people - promoters, staff, and fighters.

The fight card of the December Shooto event at this multi-purpose concert hall usually has fighters who made an impact during that past year. Simply put, the year's biggest and hardest show, filled with the year's best in Shooto.
Ever since 1994, when Shooto invited Rickson Gracie and held Japan's first professional Vale Tudo event, this Tokyo Bay NK Hall sort of became like "Shooto's sacred place." It was like when Cheap Trick hit Budokan. Many think that this is where Shooto finally reached a "world-class standard" in NHB competition. Until "Vale Tudo Japan Open 94," the official rules of Shooto didn't allow punches on the ground. It was still like a compromised version of Karl Gotch's old submission wrestling. But everything changed in 1994.

Lord of the Tiger Mask
This ground breaking "Vale Tudo Japan Open 94" at Tokyo Bay NK Hall was made possible by a man named Satoru Sayama, the founder of Shooto and the one and only promoter of "Japan Pro-Shooting," an organization which no longer exists.
During the 80's, Sayama was a hugely popular Pro-Wrestler known as "Tiger Mask," he was as big as Michael Jackson, and was heavily influenced by the submission wrestling of Karl Gotch. He retired early from Pro-Wrestling and founded a shoot fighting organization called Japan Pro-Shooting. Sayama - also known as a supreme theoretician of the fight sport - who organized a professional "real fight" competition back in 1980 (more than a decade before the beginning of the UFC) is definitely one of the "originators" in the history of professional MMA. 

 The middle of the 80's is an era known as the "sprouting," MMA spread all over the world like hip hop. Toon Stelling and Curis Dolman held a free fight event that allowed strikes to the head while on the ground, but it was soon banned by the Dutch government because of its violent nature. Karl Gotch's disciples and Sayama's stall mates - Akira Maeda, Nobuhiko Takada, and Yoshiaki Fujiwara - founded a Pro-Wrestling organization called UWF and gained enormous popularity in Japan by performing physically intense Pro-Wrestling with some real MMA technique.
The general public will consider MMA's to be too violent if organizations are geared only to advancing on the concept of a real fight competition. On the other hand, if MMA is looking to gain support from the general public, it requires an entertainment aspect.
This usually results in the demonstration of skills instead of real fight competition, just like the UWF.

Part 2 >>