Two Fisted T-Man
An Interview with MMA Legend, Bas Rutten
by Mark Ginther
Bas
Rutten might just be the ultimate T-man. This 6'1", 220-pounder is a
former Ultimate Fighting Champion and three time King of Pancrase.
According to a Belgian physician, his Testosterone levels are higher
than two normal men put together, which may explain how he used to so
easily relieve bouncers of their AK-47s in the Ukraine. Rutten
is a pioneer in Mixed Martial Arts. Some say he did for MMA what Arnold
did for bodybuilding — bringing a charismatic and approachable face to
a sometimes controversial sport, a sport often perceived as a seamy
subculture and associated with barroom brawlers like UFC bad boy, Tank
Abbott. Rutten (also known as "El Guapo") is most visible these days as
PRIDE's color man and has appeared on TV shows such as
Martial Law. I
hooked up with Bas while he and other experts were giving their
"Complete Combat Seminar" at the Self Defense Institute in Fremont,
California. A couple of weeks later we sat down in his hotel room in
Tokyo to talk about his career and his current projects. Here's how it
all went down.
Testosterone Nation:
Many of T-Nation's readers may not be familiar with your background, so
could you tell us how you first got involved in Mixed Martial Arts? Bas Rutten: I
used to be a Thai Boxer. I won 14 fights by knockout, 13 in the first
round and one in the second. Then I fought a guy that I should've never
fought, because I didn't know him.
It
was New Year's Eve, I was working as a bouncer, and I was kind of drunk
when the promoters asked me to fight this guy in February. This guy was
just released from prison! His name was Frank Lobman, and he had a
record of 59 wins and 52 knockouts, a real bad ass. But I hadn't
trained for two years because I was bouncing and partying a lot.
So
the promoters called again in the beginning of February and said the
fight was February twelfth. And they said, "Okay Bas, so are you going
to be ready? Everything is in shape." They'd made posters and
everything. "What are you talking about? What about Frank Lobman? When
did I tell you I was going to fight him?" I said. I hadn't remembered
agreeing to the fight! Oh crap! T-Nation: So did you end up fighting him? BR: Yeah,
they had put up the posters so I couldn't go back. I started training
but I couldn't even do the rope skipping. So anyway, I should have
never fought that fight, but they put me on the poster so I said,
"Let's do it." I lost.
Then I fought
another guy who bit me on the ear and wouldn't let go. I kneed him in
the groin and then this whole riot started, and that was kind of the
finishing of my career. I thought, fuck it. I didn't want to fight for
the stupid people anymore. They said, "You see, he can't fight." I won
14 fights by knockout, but I "couldn't fight." T-Nation: This was all in Holland? BR: All
in Holland. I still loved the martial arts, so we started doing martial
arts shows. We started doing them in discos, in bars, and to music.
We'd beat the shit out of each other with sticks, nunchakus, weapons...
we had a whole show.
Then I realized
if we added comedy to it, people would really start loving it. People
started inviting us to shows, big karate tournaments, and during the
break they'd put us in the ring and we'd do our shit. Everyone started
laughing, we'd make fun of the
Tae Kwon Do guys, jumping around going, "YEEE-AAAAH! YEEE-AAAAH!" and all that shit. I used to be a
Tae Kwon Do guy myself, so I could do it. But we exaggerated and that became real big. Someone from TV saw us, and
bang! we were on TV in Holland. Then we started touring in Europe and were on European TV. It became big.
On
one of those show, Chris Dolman came to me and said, "Man, your
athletic ability is pretty cool; you should do free-fighting [pre MMA
term]. He was with the organization RINGS at the time. I didn't know
anything about RINGS so he invited me to his gym to train.
I
went to his gym and at that time I was ranked number two in the world
on the MTBN, the real Muay Thai list, so that's pretty good. I thought,
"I'm going to kill these guys." They had these little guys, like 170
pounds, and they'd take my ass down and choke me. I thought I could
hold a choke, so I did everything, but I had to tap. I got arm-barred
and everything. T-Nation: That must've been disheartening. BR: I
drove home and had to stop my car next to the road. I was fucked; I was
done. I called my wife and told her I couldn't make it home because I
couldn't even drive.
When I finally
got home she started laughing and said, "So that's it then, no more
free-fighting for you?" I said, "I'm going to go back and within three
months I'm going to submit all these motherfuckers, you watch me." And
I did, I went back and started training.
Then
I broke my thumb in a street fight as a bouncer, so I couldn't train
for a while. Then one day the telephone rings. I pick it up and it was
that guy Chris Dolman. He says, "Bas, you should come now to the gym.
There are two guys here, Funaki and Suzuki, and they're looking for new
fighters. They're with Pancrase, a new organization, and they want
fighters." I said okay.
My Thai Boxing
shape was pretty good and I started sparring in the ring with one of
the lead guys from RINGS. At that time RINGS was a work [fixed
matches], but I didn't know. He started to put the pressure on me, so I
said, "Fuck this." He tries to hit me hard and I hit him hard back. I
kicked him the head, he goes to the hospital, stitches in his eye. And
that was it. Funaki and Suzuki said, "We want him." Five weeks later I
was in Japan. T-Nation: How did your first fight go?
BR:
It was the craziest experience of my life because I was a Thai Boxer. I
was used to rounds, five rounds of three minutes. I was used to maybe a
five-pound weight difference. But then I came there and my opponent was
like 45 pounds heavier! I asked him how many rounds and he said, "One."
I said, "Great, how many minutes?" and he said, "30." I said, "Great!
I'm in great shape!" And then I looked at my manager and I tried to get
my poker face on. I said, "What the fuck did you do to me, man?" T-Nation: And who was that opponent?
BR:
Yanagisawa. And then, the weirdest thing in the world happened. I came
out and I just manhandled the guy. At that time my Thai Boxing was
phenomenal. It was like 43 seconds and the guy goes to the hospital and
spent two days there. So I got really scared...
T-Nation: But that was open-handed, old Pancrase rules, right? BR: Yes,
open-handed, but he was taller than me so what happened was I gave him
a right high-kick and he defended it, so I went straight through the
middle "BOONK!" under his jaw, "BAAAAH!" and he goes down and I think
it's over. He stands up and I think okay, now I gotta' get his hands
down, so how do I do it? I give him a liver kick, "BOOOOM!" his hands
drop, and I come right straight again. While he was going down I kneed
him in the head.
He was on the
ground, eyes open. I think he stood up maybe three times and stumbled
down three times. They called an ambulance and then I got scared,
because I thought I did something to the guy. And he was a really nice
guy, too.
But the audience went wild for
me. I couldn't believe it. In Holland, if you're a foreign guy and you
beat a Dutch guy, hopefully you're going to make it out alive. You know
what I mean. But these people, they're putting babies in my hand,
taking pictures with babies. I couldn't believe it. The next day I was
walking in the street and people were bowing to me. I was in the
papers. I just couldn't believe it.
I
wanted to stay here in Japan, because I wanted to know what was going
on with Yanagisawa, but he came out. Strange enough, he was the
shortest fight I've ever had, and in the rematch he was the longest
fight I've ever had — 28 minutes. But in the rematch I broke my hand in
the first punching exchange. He came in too soon, so I didn't flex my
muscle at all, so I broke my hand on his head. I only had one arm left.
So you see me submitting him with one arm every time. I submitted him
like five times and the last time was a choke. T-Nation: When did you start adding submissions to your repertoire? BR: In
the beginning I only knew the guillotine choke, but I knew it very
well. I had everyone with it. The best guys, I choked them and they
couldn't get out. But of course they found out soon enough. Then I lost
to Funaki in my third fight and then I lost to Ken Shamrock. They had a
rematch against Ken and that was a real fast fight. He got me in the
knee bar. So then I said, okay, now I've got to learn the game. That
was in '95. Then I started learning the game and that was the last
fight I lost. T-Nation: How did you go from Pancrase to the UFC? BR: I
always wanted to be an actor. When I was a kid I liked to entertain
people. I wanted to go to America. They told me that the people here in
America would know me from Pancrase. But not a lot of people were
watching Pancrase in America; they were watching UFC.
I
came to America and I tried to get an acting job, but I couldn't get it
because nobody knew me, only the hardcore fans. So a friend of mine
told me, "Bas listen, you beat Maurice Smith, Frank Shamrock,
Takahashi, Guy Metzger, all these guys. They all became UFC champs. Why
don't you go to the UFC? If you win the UFC people will know you and
it'll help your movie career. So I
did. I went to the UFC and it worked out fine, thank God. The movies
started happening and now I'm in the running again. T-Nation: Tell us about the movie you're in now. BR: It's called Th
e Vault.
I just did a movie called
The Eliminator, it's out now, but it's low budget; it's not going to go to theaters... T-Nation: Straight to video?
BR:
Straight to video, or Showtime or HBO. But on the big screen it's
probably coming to Japan, Germany, Italy, those countries. But from
that moment, when they saw me acting, they offered me three more
movies. We're also working on a TV series and a lot of things right
now. In other words, it looks good. T-Nation: I saw the episode of
Martial Law you did. How did you get, was that from the UFC?
BR: That was from the UFC, yeah. I was teaching Kevin James, star
of King of Queens,
and he made some phone calls. He was going to be on the show so he set
it up where we were partners in crime. I was a bank robber and he was
my backup.
Accueil 
