"... My first USWF show was August 2, 1996. It was an amateur shoot wrestling event just meaning no money. After USWF 1, the fighters competing wanted pay. I didn’t blame them. I was receiving the gate. I had great athletes on USWF 1 such as Ron Tripp who is the only person to ever beat Rickson Gracie who was 300-1 according to history data. Heath Herring and Paul Jones, both future UFC fighters. Paul Jones who ended up 21-1, his only loss was to Chuck Liddell. Herring was ranked #2 in Pride at one point in time. It was only fair to take shoot wrestling to a professional level. I received written permission from the president of the Texas Boxing Commission Dick Cole on September 4th, 1996 to hold shoot wrestling events under a professional wrestling license. Dan Severn was a friend of mine and had just won the Ultimate Ultimate Fighting Championship. Dan Severn and Royce Gracie were the biggest names in the fight business at the time. I brought in Dan Severn for USWF 2 on November 2, 1996. The USWF became the biggest shoot wrestling/shoot fighting company in America. I never expected the success but was grateful to UFC. Without the UFC there would have never been a Dan Severn to help bring the USWF company name to the attention of the fight fans. The terms shoot wrestling and shoot fighting had been inter-changeable all over the world since the beginning of the sport. I named the company the Unified Shoot Wrestling Federation Inc, and advertised as USWF Shoot Fighting. Texas professional mixed martial arts was started with the USWF in 1996 but shoot wrestling didn't get sanctioned as MMA under the boxing commission until a few years later. I honestly started the promotion purely to make a little extra money. There was not any ego involved I was just a struggling teacher/coach that wanted to make some extra income through the fight industry. I wrestled since I was nine years old including college for Oklahoma State University. I was a black belt judo player and had won three world medals in Sambo. A Bronze in the 1987 World Cup, a Silver in the 1991 World Championships and also a Silver in the 1994 World Championships. I wanted to be involved with fighting at the professional level. Amarillo had a lot of other men living in the Texas Panhandle that were college All-Americans and many former great high school wrestlers. I believed if I could talk some of the local heroes into fighting, I just may get lucky and draw a crowd. The USWF is truly a company of the people. Amarillo fans feel they still own shoot fighting and wish the USWF come back. Amarillo had minor league hockey and baseball but nothing had audience attendance like the USWF. Amarillo fans treated the fighters like professionals and were always very excited to see USWF fighters at special appearances and of course the arena. I built the USWF to be a company with class and didn’t allow any kind of disrespectful language or cursing on the microphone at events or during radio interviews. I never wanted myself or my fighters that reflected as if fighters that didn’t like each other. The USWF represented shoot fighting as a sport and not a fight company which employed belligerent out casts. The USWF had a lot of young kids that looked up to us and I felt every fighter had an obligation to be a role model for the company. I had no problems getting fighters. The USWF had athletes wanting to fight to Amarillo from all over the U.S and Japan. It was purely a respect the USWF earned by the way Felix Rios and I handled business, treated people, and how hard the fighters fought every time they stepped into the ring. It was a respect helped by reporters that came from around the world to see USWF events. These reporters could easily see the influence the my fighters had on the public. The person most responsible for letting the world know what the USWF was about was boxing and MMA reporter Eddie Goldman. Eddie told the world everything he knew about the USWF and the great town of Amarillo. I will always be grateful to Eddie for reporting to the world what he saw in the USWF and Amarillo, Texas. It made a giant difference in my career and many other USWF competitors. I never could get a TV deal for the USWF. We only advertised on the radio, newspapers, and put up posters. We did many interviews and special appearances but those were the only outlets we had to bring those big crowds in to our events. I remember trying to get several TV syndicates to come watch us after sending them a USWF VHS. All of their answers were the same, “your company is too violent for television”. I found it hard to believe no sports channel could see the potential that I saw in the USWF being on television. I currently enjoy all the new fight promotions and what they have done for grapplers. Amateur boxers have always had a place to go when they were ready to turn pro and make a fare salary doing what they love. Fortunately now amateur wrestlers, sambo, judo, jujitsu and other grappling sports have a place to go and make money with their skills as professionals. I know the USWF helped groom all these fighters but they are where they are because of their own determination, work ethic, and more than anything, perseverance. Some people ask me do I have a favorite USWF fight and all I can say is there are several fights I consider my favorite. I will say being a fighter, promoter, agent, and coach too many of these fighters taught me respect for all different kinds of people."
— Steve Nelson
"Steve Nelson had done a tremendous job with the company, but he was getting burned out. And with the Texas Boxing Commission getting involved, he decided it was going to be more trouble than he wanted to deal with. He decided he was going to sell the company. I felt the USWF was a great thing for Amarillo. It gave the community something to get involved in and it gave the local athletes something to do beyond high school and college. I would have hated to see someone buy the company and ruin the great reputation it had. I also didn't want to see someone from out of state buy it. I decided to buy it and see what I could do with it."
— Evan Tanner
"The group runs something that is similar in rules to Pancrase. The crowd was said to have been shockingly educated (actually it was described to me that they were the smartest wrestling fans in the U.S.) and the pops for the submission holds were as loud as for anything."
— Dave Meltzer
