Shootors Well Remembered

---

At last weekend’s Shooto Tradition 2011, the MMA community said ‘bon voyage’ to former Shooto 154-pound Pacific Rim champion Yusuke Endo as he announced his retirement from active competition. It’s a shame, considering he was a fairly young and exciting fighter who had barely ventured outside the Shooto circuit. However, recurring injuries and meager purses will inevitably crush even the greatest competitive spirits, and Endo was no exception.

Though a career in Shooto will, in theory, help a young fighter sharpen his craft en route to a larger stage, it’s not a particularly lucrative circuit trade to ply. Endo, like so many other Shootors, had to split time between a day job and fighting. Though having one of the more unique jobs as a pasta chef in his early days, Endo found it hard to focus on training and recovering while worrying about how to pay his bills. It’s a similar story to former Shooto 143-pound world champion “Lion” Takeshi Inoue, who dropped his title to Akitoshi Tamura after being unable to train and properly cut weight because he had to wash boats right up until the day of his defense.

Endo’s meager purses and lack of time were further compounded by injuries, though none more critical than three retinal detachments from 2005 onward. Being that fighting and part-time work yielded barely enough money for him to feed and shelter himself, the subsequent costs of surgery broke the bank. Given this kind of adversity, Endo’s commitment to the martial arts naturally began to waver.

“I had a hard time surviving day-to-day just on the money I made from fighting,” Endo wrote in a personal address for the Shooto Tradition 2011 event program. “I worked day and night, right after leaving the hospital, and I still didn’t have enough money. I got to a point where I almost hated martial arts.”

The poverty and high risk of losing his sight also had an effect on Endo’s fight style. Gone in recent years was the balls-out bravery that marked his first encounter with Ganjo Tentsuku in 2005, and a surprising submission upset of Clay Guida in 2006. Replacing him was an Endo that pushed for more takedowns and counter-boxed his way to rough decisions, like in his most recent fight with Daisuke Sugie -- an accomplished jiu-jitsu practitioner and Shootor who coincidentally also left the martial arts world in April. What the changes implied, however, only came to Endo after discussing his performances with his head trainer, Masaru Gokita, and his karate coach, Takehiro Kato.

“Mr. Gokita and Mr. Kato pointed out why I fought so conservatively. I told them I was afraid of another retinal detachment. After we talked about it a few times, they persuaded me to retire,” he writes. “I regret not being able to win a Shooto world title for Mr. Gokita. But I’ll teach my students at the new gym I started last April, and will continue in grappling and [no head contact] karate.”

Following Endo into retirement is a former Shooto 154-pound Pacific Rim and world champion in Takashi Nakakura, who competed for the last time at Shooto Tradition 2011. Though his opponent, Kuniyoshi Hironaka, gave an emotional speech about having considered retirement, Nakakura seemingly gave himself the same ultimatum, yet came up on the short end.

A talented, technical striker, Nakakura was originally sidelined in May 2009, when he suffered a detached left retina in a decision loss to Takanori Gomi. Nakakura lost faith in himself as then 154-pound world champion -- so much so that he respectfully left his belt on the canvas after the fight -- but was also unsure of whether he would ever return from the eye injury. Nakakura would later theorize on his personal blog that the roundness of Shooto’s “pillow gloves” perfectly fit into the hollow of an eye cavity, resulting in higher incidents of eye injury in Shootors.

In the weeks following the Gomi loss, Nakakura blogged about his operation and recovery, as well as his developing thoughts on retirement. He described his eye surgery in chilling detail; despite having been administered anesthetic, Nakakura explained the process of having his eyeball flipped around by the doctor and cut open with a scalpel as being innovated by a “genius of torture.”

Just over two years later, a title-less Nakakura returned for a bout with Hironaka. Given his performance however, it seems that the return came far too late.

“Filling a gap of two years was far harder than I originally imagined,” Nakakura wrote on his blog after his latest loss. “Not only could I not satisfy the audience, I couldn't satisfy myself.”

Though his final career goals -- competing against Western mixed martial artists and rematching Gomi -- are now out of the question, Nakakura looks forward to life as a trainer at his gym, Shooto Gym Blows.

We’ve yet to truly see what could be considered a generation of “modern” mixed martial artists bowing out for good, particularly given the youth of the sport and the constant lure of massive paydays at the premier level that is the UFC. However, insofar as Shooto is concerned, the departure of fighters like Endo, Nakakura, and Sugie is it.

Because of how spartan Shooto was and will forever be, it’s clearly a pursuit for those whose love of the sport is the most sincere. It’s what makes the displays of Sugie’s sterling grappling, Nakakura’s sharp striking, and Endo’s brash excitement so endearing to those of us who were blessed to see them in the Shooto ring.