Alternate Character Interpretation: Upon his return match in MMA against Sanae Kikuta in 2013, Masayuki Naruse said to have been been told by Maeda to reject the offer to fight because he had been inactive for a long time and was unprepared; however, Naruse signed to fight anyway and claimed that it was "his redemption for lying to the fans for nearly ten years." Was he referencing the fact that RINGS pretended to be MMA for a long time despite being actually pro wrestling? Or perhaps Naruse, the worst legit fighter of the old promotion, was specifically apologizing for having pretended himself to be a legit badass for these years?
Awesome Music: The U-system had some unique and really good intro music. PRIDE and all the other Japanese MMA promotions took this as a part of the formula for success.
The original UWF Theme is so iconic, distinct, and catchy, that it is practically the whole U-system's anthem. They even made an updated version called UWF 2000 that played at some Kingdom Ehrgeiz shows and was also used by Kazuo Yamazaki. A 16-bit version was made for the video game Saikyou: Takada Nobuhiko. U-FILE and U-STYLE used this version.
RINGS has its own greatness in its opening music with THEME OF RINGS and its first iteration as a "rap song". Its second intro theme, Ichiro Nitta - Just A Hero is great as well, with a 16-bit version from the video game Sougou Kakutougi Rings: Astral Bout 3 (yes, there is a trilogy of games based off RINGS). The Russian broadcast of RINGS even had their own unique theme.
Shooto never really bothered with a theme song, but the song they used for their Vale Tudo Junction events, Victim of Society by DJ Yutaka ft. DBX is a banger.
Bas Rutten was originally brought to Pancrase only because they needed a Dutch kickboxer character in the line of RINGS's Dick Vrij to spice up their cards. What none of the Pancrase executives expected was that Rutten went to become both the most popular and the most dangerous guy in the promotion.
Arguably Ken Shamrock as he debuted near the end of UWF Newborn and got more exposure in PWFG as one of the few gaijins who could keep up with the natives at their own game. His shoot fight with Don Nakaya Nielsen also did him wonders and his fan base only grew during his time in Pancrase and the UFC.
Frank Shamrock was also quite popular in Pancrase, mostly because of his decision victory over Bas Rutten in his debut. The fact he was a Mr. Fanservice also helped.
Ikuhisa Minowa was a Pancrase Jobber for the first 2 years of his time there. He later got personal training from Suzuki and Funaki, but it was when he appeared in PRIDE and acted like a Kinnikuman character where his popularity exploded, even though he never held a championship.
Dick Vrij himself often got the biggest pops among all the RINGS gaijin, at least until Volk Han caught momentum.
Maurice Smith was originally just a random kickboxer that got invited for a mixed rules fight for UWF Newborn. He popular enough to keep being asked back for PWFG, Pancrase, and RINGS.
Volk Han for his incredible grappling skills and the fact he could get a good match out of everyone in RINGS. His notable performance at the 2000 King of Kings tournament, which stands out nowadays for the premise of a very old MMA newbie trampling around younger fighters, got much less attention by the specialized press at its day because they were already expecting him to do fine due to his popularity.
Andrei Kopylov became very popular after his incredible run in the RINGS 1999 King of Kings tournament.
Grom Zaza was also incredibly popular in RINGS for his phenomenal freestyle wrestling skills. A good example of his popularity is his vale tudo fight with Ricardo Morais, where in what should have been a boring fight between them with Zaza on top of Morais but not really doing anything to each other, the crowd was chanting for Zaza for the whole fight and cheered even louder when he won the decision.
Willie Peeters in early RINGS as he was one of the few Dutch fighters at the time who could strike and grapple decently instead of do only one or the other. His constant use of suplexes also made him a regular crowd pleaser at RINGS events.
Sotir Gotchev of RINGS Bulgaria since he was probably the best fighter of his stable by default and was popular enough to be included in the RINGS based video game, Sougou Kakutougi Rings: Astral Bout 3 as the only representative of RINGS Bulgaria in the game.
Alistair Overeem was in RINGS mostly for being Valentijn’s little brother. He is now better known and considered a much better fighter.
Fedor Emelianenko wasn’t considered the most promising of the RINGS Russia/Russian Top Team rookies at the start of his career. Now though? He was RINGS last champion in any form, is considered the best heavyweight fighter between 2002 to 2010 and is now a legend.
Billy Scott also from UWFI gets a lot of love, especially from Western fans due to being one of the few gaijin that know how to work a shoot style match. The UWFI staff must have known this since he was the only gaijin they brought along to Kingdom.
Aside from his cult status in Japan, Rumina Sato is the reason many American fans know Shooto at all. His crazy grappling feats and swanky style would probably make him a star even in the current mixed martial arts landscape.
Yuki Nakai, especially after his Vale Tudo Japan run and his exposure to English speaking audiences from the Choke documentary.
Caol Uno was a big star in Shooto outside of the Shooto Shitenno despite being from the rival Wajitsu Keishukai dojo.
Even before his star-making match against Marco Ruas, Alexander Otsuka used to place in high places every time a Japanese puroresu magazine did a crowd poll, despite his home promotion, Battlarts, being just a small indy feud. He was even called a cult hero.
Kazushi Sakuraba was a mid-card talent in UWFI and Kingdom, then came his fights in UFC Japan and Pride which established him as the best "real" fighter of his old promotions and he is now known as a Japanese hero and the most popular shoot style wrestler of his generation.
Sakuraba’s Lancer Dajiro Matsui was a rather generic shoot wrestler during his time in UWFI and Kingdom, even his first 2 fights in Pride were long drawn out draws. Then he decided to go nuts in his fight with Carlos Newton and beyond and quickly became one of the most exciting fighters in early Pride.
Despite his short time with UWFI, undercarder Masakazu Maeda was popular with the crowds, who chanted his name over rival Hiromitsu Kanehara for what it’s worth.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Unlike the rest of the world, where people like Gerard Gordeau or Gilbert Yvel were looked down for their blatant fouls and poor sportsmanship, Japanese audiences actively wanted to see them in their rings - Yvel himself was already fighting there just some months after his infamous referee KO, and Gordeau has never ceased being welcomed back after his run in the Vale Tudo Japan (in pro wrestling anyway). The explanation, aside from Evil Is Cool, is that fans from Japan have a very special place in their hearts for fighters who look and act like villains of a martial arts manga.
UWFI was surprisingly popular in Israel thanks to its Bushido: Way of The Warrior shows and even did a show in Tel Aviv at the Yad Eliyahu Sports Palace. The show is considered a Missing Episode to the rest of the world as it only aired in Israel with some Eastern Europe sites listing it as UWFI #41.5: "Road Warrior". They also tried to another show there, but their show was cancelled due a massive suicide bombing in Tel-Aviv where there were many casualties.
UWFI was also popular in Russia, there is even a Russian dub for their Bushido show.
Harsher in Hindsight: Unlike media-savvy guys like Maeda or Atsushi Onita, UWF-i bookers Yuko Miyato and Yoji Anjo were infamous for being particularly difficult to do business towards television and print commercials. They wouldn't cooperate with magazines unless Takada was on the cover. Ironically, years after, Takada occupied several magazine covers, but it was for a completely different reason - for his defeat before Rickson Gracie.
Gary Albright was once in a commercial for UWF-I where "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan and boxing trainer and promoter Lou Duva were arguing which was better between boxing or pro wrestling. At the end, Gary picked both of them up and stated that shoot wrestling was the best because it was real. Years later, it turned out that UWF-i shoot wrestling wasn't real...
After losing to Rodrigo Nogueira, Volk Han told him in an interview: "You are quite a Brazilian young tiger. Soon, you will be great. But remember this... Someday, a descendant of the Wolf [himself] will bring you down." Years after, Nogueira was a top contender for PRIDE until he came across Fedor Emelianenko, who was Han's former apprentice. The rest is history.
Arguably, Akira Maeda’s Catchphrase "Sekai saikyo no otoko wa RINGS ga kimeru rashii!" ("RINGS will declare the strongest man in the world!") applies to Fedor as well.
Ho Yay: Gilbert Yvel rubbing Joop Kasteel's groin after the latter received a hard low blow from Paul Varelans. (As Gary Goodridge tells in his autobiography, fighters from RINGS Holland were notorious for being outlandishly comfortable with each other's body, but it doesn't make it less awkward.)
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The reason why Kingdom Pro Wrestling (and probably U-STYLE) never took off. After the shoot-style had taken the route to real fights, worked matches were obsolete.
It Will Never Catch On: Arguably shoot style wrestling as a whole was this as the Original UWF was active for only two years before shutting down, only for Newborn to pop up a few years later and set record-breaking (at the time) attendances at their biggest shows and once the split happened and U-System was created along with some imitators it solidified itself as a part of the pro wrestling culture.
This was the thought of many veterans like Yoshiaki Fujiwara about making every match on their cards a shoot, only to be proven wrong with Pancrase’s success in implementing their "kekka no sutairu" policy.
Shooto wasn’t expected to last long and Satoru Sayama’s name was probably the only thing that kept it afloat until the MMA boom hit Japan. Nowadays there are Shooto branches all over the globe and considered the first MMA promotion in history.
UWFI was the first to feature a Tag TeamKickboxing match on one of its cards and never did it again. While the concept isn’t exactly popular, Australia has in recent years began having Muay Thai events that feature tag team Muay Thai bouts and even tournaments and championships.
Memetic Badass: Retired New Japan Jobber and UWF and RINGS referee Motoyuki Kitazawa gained a reputation for being incredibly difficult to submit in dojo sparring matches. It has led to a popular rumor that he was the real strongest fighter in RINGS.
Memetic Loser: RINGS Bulgaria, while having a roster of Olympic-caliber athletes had the perhaps the worse win-loss record among the other RINGS stables, almost none of their fighters became notable outside of RINGS, and they never even had a RINGS event in Bulgaria despite being one of the oldest stables.
Missing Episode: Aside from the UWFI in Israel show mentioned above, PWFG ran a card on 22 December 1991 though the only known match was a mixed styles fight between Kazuo Takahashi and a Muay Thai fighter called Farkya Napattaya.
Narm: The RINGS original theme had "rap" vocals in Broken English that kind of took away the seriousness the promotion was going for. Thankfully they removed the vocals after the first few events.
In a more "scene" meaning, every time Karl Gotch appeared on the ring to cut promos and perform live trainings.
Similarly, every time Jon Bluming was spotted in RINGS Holland events.
Olympic freestyle wrestling gold medalist, world champion and BJJ black belt Mark Schultz was a judge in the RINGS USA Rising Stars Tournament.
Rooting for the Empire: Even although Japanese crowds tend to cheer only for their native fighters due to their notorious nationalism, some established gaijins (who typically played the role of sport rivals at the best and evil thugs at the worst) actually went to be loved by the audience. RINGS is the best example, as it had the larger gaijin population on his roster: when the main guys from the Russian and Dutch brands made their debut in the King of Kings tournaments, the crowds were massively into them.
Outside of some of his matches with Volk Han, you will be hard pressed to find someone who finds Tariel Bitsadze watchable. A few other gaijin from RINGS also qualify, but at least they didn’t appear on RINGS cards as frequently as Tariel.
Bart Vale is in the same boat for PWFG.
JT Southern from UWFI also gets this treatment. It has been a Riddle for the Ages on how he even got recruited by them in first place since he didn’t even seem to have a background in combat sports.
So Bad, It's Good: Chris Dolman's Wrestling Psychology in most of his RINGS matches. It gives the impression that Dolman, a multiple martial arts champion, is really trying to wrestle all his way through the promotion using the fewest martial arts moves possible.
Willie Peeters always hit with full strength in his matches, which in addition to his constant use of suplexes, won him a sizable fanbase for his ring work as it seemed he was really trying to fight for real.
is so iconic, distinct, and catchy, that it is practically the whole U-system's anthem. They even made an updated version called UWF 2000