Promoter beaten in ‘MMAsymmetrical’ handicap match
While Jon Nutt promotes real fights – or “real” fights, or real “fights”, depending on your quote-mark emphasis preference – he makes no secret of his admiration of Vince McMahon.
His lean towards the “entertainment” side of “sports entertainment” has always been there, and is more pronounced than ever with his Fight Circus series which, while featuring legitimate competition, doesn’t so much nod towards the historical carnival culture of combat sports as hurl a flying headbutt at it.
Pro wrestling, of course, has always done that, but attempts to imbue the more serious spectacles of MMA, boxing and traditional martial arts with slapstick theatrics have rarely proved successful. Whether Nutt’s Thailand-based Fight Circus succeeds remains to be seen – though in reaching its fourth iteration, it has already proven more successful than most novelty acts.
That’s perhaps more due to Nutt’s own enthusiasm and relentless pursuit of a marketable angle than the quality of the combat on offer, but Fight Circus – though occasionally featuring some genuine athletic high points – has never been about, nor claimed to be about, the best fighting the best. It is about fun, experimentalism, unpredictability and flinging things around just to see what sticks.
That is why Nutt put himself in the main event of Fight Circus IV, despite there being several younger, better and more accomplished athletes on the undercard. Critics might suggest this was an excess of Nutt’s ego, and that may even be true, but he wasn’t doing anything his hero Vince McMahon hasn’t done – including putting himself in harm’s way.
Freakshow format puzzles even its inventor as Bank & No Money beat their boss
Of course McMahon, while wrestling as a middle-aged man in the main events of his own shows in the late ’90s, was athletically inferior to almost everyone else in his locker room, but his matches were often the most talked-about on any given night, both before and after, mainly due to his penchant for taking physical risks – especially as he didn’t have to.
Indeed, Nutt didn’t have to fight this past Saturday night, either. Especially, he didn’t have to fight two younger men at the same time. Especially, since despite having his own legitimate martial credentials, he’s now in his mid-40s and several years removed from competition.
But fight he did, in Phuket in an “MMAsymmetrical match” against the team of Bank & No Money, with the promoter in him knowing a victory for them would be better for business, but the fighter in him preferring a victory for himself. And so, like many who had preceded him into the Fight Circus, Nutt didn’t really know what to expect, nor what he should do, even though the whole thing was a product of his own frenzied imagination.
The only thing he could do, again, was fling things around – literally this time. Nutt threw big punches, hurled his smaller opponents around the ring, and most notably landed a big soccer kick, but ultimately found even his heavyweight frame couldn’t stand up to the tandem attack of Bank & No Money. In two wild rounds of two-on-one combat, he was first choked out, and then knocked out..
Life imitates art in the (badly delayed) ring
He won’t have minded. Nutt’s success these days depends not on points decisions but on talking points, and his brief brawl atop Fight Circus IV was the perfect short-form subject for the social media shares and embedded-tweet journalism format favoured by the modern fan.
Certainly, a bigger headache than the one engendered by the fight-finishing punch-kick combo would have been the two-hour delay to the show caused by the truck carrying the ring to the venue crashing en route. One might be tempted to think it was all part of the deliberately haphazard script, but with this essentially Fight Circus’s breakout night – the first three events being staged amid coronavirus lockdowns – in front of a larger live audience and a significantly larger international viewership on Fite.tv, it was an unfortunate and all-too real mishap. American viewers, particularly, made their annoyances known, with those on the east coast having to wait until well past midnight before the first bell rung, being pacified in the meantime with painstaking footage of the ring being set up in real time, and replays of past Fight Circus contests.
Once that bell did ring, viewers were treated – or subjected – to a decidedly mixed bag that ran the full gamut from reams of ridiculous to snatches of sublime, via plenty of pagaentry and one serious moment that was quite sobering, and from which lessons will hopefully be learned.
Boardroom brawlers trade cufflinks for fisticuffs
The highs and lows, and everything between, in chronological order:
The opener, billed as “domestic pancrase”, was essentially a standard MMA fight that for some reason had furniture and other miscellaneous items in the ring. The athletes, Daniel Kerr and Kyoken, took the fight seriously and ignored the props, rendering the gimmick redundant.
The (literal) white collar boxing match, in which expat office workers David Armitage and Denver Jackson boxed in full business attire and showed no shortage of pugilistic skill, was a good watch. (Kayfabe killer alert: both men are actually amateur boxers, and neither is really a billionaire).
Siamese twins kickboxing, in which two teams of two men conjoined inside one shirt fought a 12-limbed contest, was generally a clumsy, awkward affair, but it was made memorable by a moment of striking brilliance from bona fide muay Thai legend Phetzilla.
When the fun stops… stop
Upstairs/Downstairs was another handicap match, in which Tetee Denman – a genuine martial arts badass undefeated across multiple sports – was asked to fight one opponent with legs only and then another using just arms. The first fight, against Tangmo, was a mismatch on paper and an absolute dud in practice, while the second, versus Sompol Santay, delivered quality action but exhibited a disregard for the beaten fighter’s wellbeing. Sompol was badly knocked out and taken from the ring on a stretcher, but not before bombastic announcements and celebrations were carried out while he lay prone. No more than a fleeting mention was made by the commentators about the condition of Sompol, who was otherwise ignored by all but the medical staff. Yes, the show must go on, but surely only after a stricken fighter is taken care of.
The Indian leg wrestling match between two ring girls touting their OnlyFans accounts delivered exactly what you’d have expected, including the first unscripted boob-flash in a wrestling ring since Mae Young in 2000 (non-gerontophiles are advised not to click that link).
The only non-gimmick match was a leth wei (Burmese kickboxing) contest between Gligor Stojanov and Kristof Kirsch which ended in a highlight-reel KO courtesy of the sweetest left hook you could care to see.
Gender politics and a bit of Bob Sapp
Wheel of Violence: This embodied the Fight Circus model of unpredictability. Simply, a wheel is spun and stops on one of six possible fight stipulations. With a different permutation each time, neither the competitors nor the audience knew what to expect, and a very watchable affair between Johnny Tello and James Heelan ensued.
Bob Sapp appeared in an interlude to play around with some dwarves and do his best Bob Sapp impersonation. He even called out Buakaw Banchamek for a fight, which would be as incongruous as it is ill-advised – meaning it will probably happen!
The chief support was a straightforward muay Thai match, albeit pitting a transgender woman against a biological man. Nong Rose v Andrew Capurro featured high-level competitors in their field, but how you feel about the imagery of the finish depends on your gender politics. No comment.
Which leads us back to the main event and the sight of the night’s grey-bearded promoter and MC throwing down, and then going down, in shirt, tie, vest, yellow trousers and MMA gloves after singing himself to the ring to the tune of Hulk Hogan’s entrance music. The only way things could have finished on a more appropriate note would have been for someone to hit him with a Stone Cold Stunner and then shower the ring with beer.
But then, they probably saved that for the after-party.
- If you haven’t yet seen Fight Circus IV, the full broadcast can be viewed for free at Fite.tv
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