Every fighter in the UFC, whether champion, legend or debutant, has to start somewhere. That somewhere usually isn’t the big show. Occasionally, multiple future stars end up gathered on a single regional card. At the time, this card may not seem significant, but years down the road, we can look back in hindsight and marvel at how stacked that event turned out to be. That’s exactly what we’ll do in this series, called History Lessons.
So, let’s jump in the time machine and travel back. The date was Oct. 9, 2005, and the location was the Ahoy Rotterdam Arena in Rotterdam, Netherlands. It was time for Bushido Europe: Rotterdam Rumble.
The event had the word “Bushido” in its title, the promotional posters featured Fedor Emelianenko and the Pride logo, and the lineup included such notable names as Mark Coleman, Kevin Randleman and Aleksander Emelianenko. That must have meant that Pride was headed to Europe, right? Wrong.
Dip deep enough and you’ll find this report from Loretta Hunt over at Full Contact Fighter that clarifies the situation. Pride reportedly never gave permission for the promotion, which was owned by Fedor’s manager, to use its logos and even requested that the logo be removed from promotional materials. Fedor, who was at one point slated to meet Bob Schrijber at the event, was contractually allowed to fight because Bushido Europe was basically his own promotion and the other Pride fighters on the docket were given permission by Pride to fight at the event. Through sly misrepresentation, Fedor’s management had the public—and some in the MMA media—believing at the time that the event was indeed a full-fledged Pride show.
Fedor never did fight, but plenty of former and future UFC talent did. The lineup also featured a long list of Muay Thai fights. Among the stars of the Muay Thai portion of the show, Tyrone Spong earned a decision win over Vincent Vielvoye and Gokhan Saki suffered a second-round TKO loss to Nicholas Pettas. The mixed martial arts portion of the show, meanwhile, was littered with odd match-ups and relied heavily on the names of the Pride stars to garner interest in the show.
Among the biggest of these stars was former UFC Hall of Famer and Pride 2000 Open Weight Grand Prix champion Coleman. Coleman was 13-7 at the time and had lost three of his last four fights. The promotion initially paired Coleman with Gilbert Yvel, a hard-hitting fellow Pride veteran, but Yvel was forced out of the bout with an injury. In his place, Bushido Europe secured the services of Milco Voorn. Voorn had blasted out to a 13-2 start in his career since debuting in 2000, but he had failed to win in his last four fights before meeting Coleman and stood at 13-5-1 coming into their fight.
Voorn liked to finish fights with strikes, but he wasn’t a skilled ground fighter. That played right into the strengths of Coleman, who scored a big takedown and moved into position to lock on an arm-triangle choke. Just 56 seconds after it started, the fight was over and Coleman was back in the win column.
Coleman returned to Pride for two more fights. He took a win via TKO against Mauricio “Shogun” Rua when Shogun sustained a broken arm early in their fight, then lost to Fedor by submission. After Pride’s demise, Coleman finally returned to the Octagon in 2009 and competed three times in the course of the next 13 months. Shogun avenged his loss to Coleman by scoring a third-round TKO in an ugly fight at UFC 93, but Coleman bounced back to score a win over Stephan Bonnar at UFC 100. In 2010, Coleman fought one last time, losing by way of submission to fellow UFC legend Randy Couture.
Hammer House was well represented at Bushido Europe. In addition to Coleman, there was Kevin Randleman, the camp’s other high-profile fighter. Randleman was originally slated to face longtime Pride star Igor Vovchanchyn, but the fight never came to fruition. In fact, Vovchanchyn never fought again. The Russian had suffered back-to-back losses to Alistair Overeem and Kazuhiro Nakamura in the Pride ring earlier in 2005. Instead of fighting Randleman that October, the 32-year-old, who held a 55-10 career mark, retired from the sport. In his place, German/Turkish kickboxer Fatih Kocamis stepped up to fight Randleman.
Kocamis had a rough start to his MMA career. He had gone 2-7-1 over his first 10 fights, but he turned things around in mid-2002 and was on a six-fight winning streak when he met Randleman in the Bushido Europe ring. Randleman, a former UFC champion, put an end to the Golden Glory fighter’s run, but it took the Hammer House fighter a full two rounds (under Pride-style rules, where the first round was 10 minutes in duration) and a judges’ verdict to capture the victory.
The fight was the last of a 17-fight career for Kocamis. Randleman, meanwhile, was still six fights away from hanging up the gloves. He returned to Pride, where he lost to Shogun, and then transitioned to Sengoku when Pride crumbled. Under the Sengoku banner, Randleman picked up the final win of his career with a unanimous decision victory over Ryo Kawamura. His next four fights saw him head to Strikeforce for a loss to Mike Whitehead, Sengoku for a loss to Stanislav Nedkov, Strikeforce for a loss to Roger Gracie and Pro FC for a loss to Baga Agaev. Randleman retired following the loss to Agaev.
Although Fedor didn’t compete, the lineup did include a fighter with the last name Emelianenko. Fedor’s brother, Aleksander, took a headlining spot on the card opposite Rene Rooze. Rooze already held a 32-7-1 record as a kickboxer. The Team Aerts fighter was a K-1 veteran and had even dabbled in mixed martial arts. When he fought Aleksander, Rooze was 5-3 as a MMA fighter and had faced the likes of Enson Inoue, Heath Herring and Josh Barnett. He even held a TKO win over Ivan Salaverry, though the victory came when Salaverry dislocated a finger.
Rooze was a striker who lacked a ground game, but that didn’t prevent Aleksander from standing with him. As is often the case with either Emelianenko brother, Aleksander came out swinging haymakers. It paid off just 28 seconds into the fight when he landed a flurry on the Dutch kickboxer that left the big man crumpled on the mat.
The fight was the last MMA excursion for Rooze.
Aleksander was already a Pride veteran by that time, but his win over Rooze put him at just 7-1 for his career. He was just getting started. Though he never has made it to the UFC, Emelianenko has posted a lengthy resume since his fight with Rooze. He returned to Pride for three more fights, including wins over Pawel Nastula and Sergei Kharitonov and a loss to Barnett. He’s made various stops since Pride’s demise, losing his first fight away from the organization to Fabricio Werdum. The 32-year-old’s record now stands at 23-7. He lost in his most recent outing against Dmitriy Sosnovskiy, but he is 16-6 overall since his victory at Bushido Europe.
The event also feature a pair of future UFC fighters, the most notable of which is Gegard Mousasi. The Dutch fighter of Armenian descent is headlining UFC Fight Night 36 opposite Lyoto Machida tonight, but he was just 7-1-1 when he stepped into the Bushido Europe ring opposite fellow prospect Stefan Klever. Klever entered the contest undefeated as a pro through six fights. He left with his first loss, and he never fought again.
Mousasi followed his victory over Klever with four more stoppages via strikes to punch his ticket into Pride, where he posted two wins, including a decision over Hector Lombard, and one loss, which came to Akihiro Gono. The victory over Lombard came after Mousasi loss to Gono and marked the beginning of an extended streak that saw Mousasi win 15 straight fights. In that span, he captured the Cage Warriors and Dream middleweight championships and the Strikeforce light heavyweight strap, and his victims included Mark Hunt, Melvin Manhoef, Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, Renato “Babalu” Sobral and Gary Goodridge. Mousasi then tasted defeat in 2010 when he lost to Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal. He has rebounded with six wins and a controversial draw against Keith Jardine. In 2013, more than seven years after his victory over Klever, Mousasi made his UFC debut with a win over Ilir Latifi. His fight this weekend against Machida will mark only his second Octagon appearance.
The other future UFC fighter on the Bushido Europe card was kickboxer Antoni Hardonk. The Dutch fighter was just 3-2 when he fought at the event, but he was coming off a submission win over UFC veteran Wes Sims. Hardonk was originally slated to meet Valentijn Overeem, Alistair’s brother. Instead, his opponent ended up being Ibragim Magomedov.
Magomedov was a 13-3 prospect and Pride veteran whose only losses had come against Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic, Travis Wiuff and Gilbert Yvel. Hardonk handed him a TKO loss in the second round. The victory was enough to earn Hardonk entry into the UFC’s Octagon in his very next outing, despite just a 4-2 overall mark. Hardonk won his UFC debut with an impressive first-round knockout of Sherman Pendergarst, but then lost back-to-back fights to Justin McCully and Frank Mir. The kickboxer rebounded with a three-fight winning streak, but came up short when he was again pitted against tougher competition in Cheick Kongo and Pat Barry. Hardonk retired in 2010 with a 4-4 record inside the Octagon and an 8-6 mark overall.
There were only six mixed martial arts contest on the night, but five of those fights featured past or future UFC and Pride fighters. It may not have been an authentic Pride event, but Bushido Europe: Rotterdam Rumble certainly holds an important place in the history of the sport.
