No Cage, No Grappling in the WCL
By Denny Burkholder CBS Sportsline.com
Here’s a Chuck Norris fact for you: He was practicing martial arts before a lot of current YFC fighters were born.
World famous as a star of film and television, Norris started the World Combat League last year, fulfilling his own specific vision for a mixed martial arts organization. No wrestling, clinching or stalling. No ropes or cage confining the combatants. Just striking — and lots of it.
“Knockouts, not tapouts. That’s kind of our slogan,” Norris said.
Martial arts has evolved greatly since Norris first began fighting full-contact in 1973. Norris pondered putting together an MMA group for years, but because of career commitments and other obstacles, he never acted on his plans until 2006, when he created the WCL.
Entering its second season this month, the WCL isn’t your typical MMA group, nor did Norris ever intend for it to resemble UFC-style MMA.
“The most exciting fighters in the UFC and Pride, I felt, were your stand-up fighters,” Norris said. “Chuck Liddell and people like that. So I decided to keep it strictly a stand-up fighting concept, being able to use your hands, feet and knees.”
Norris took a huge gamble on the WCL, funding and filming an entire season of the team-based fight league before landing a TV deal. At the end of the first season, Versus (formerly Outdoor Life Network) picked up the show. It has been televised ever since.
MMA fans will notice most of the same kicking and punching techniques they’re used to seeing at UFC events, and some of the same knee strikes. That might be where the similarities end.
This is not “cage fighting,” nor do they use a ring like other MMA groups. WCL fights take place on a unique surface sometimes called “The Pit.” It has no ropes, no fence and no barriers. Just a circular, color-coded mat (blue is in bounds, yellow is caution, and red is out of bounds) with raised edges so the fighters can tell if they step into the danger zone.
When a fighter steps out of bounds, the referee will not bring the men back to the center — the out-of-bounds person must fight his way back into the circle. If he can’t do it quickly, he’ll lose a point.
“If they try to slow the pace down they will be penalized,” Norris said. “If they try to grab, or hold, or clinch, or do anything to avoid the action, the opposing team would get a point.”
The rules and structure of the bouts in WCL’s version of MMA are different. One of the key components of most MMA fights is the ground game. Ground fighting is not allowed in the WCL. If a fighter falls to the mat, he must get back up to continue fighting. Likewise, his opponent cannot follow him to the ground to inflict more damage there. It’s all standup, all the time in the WCL.
The WCL forbids intentionally grabbing or holding any part of the opponent’s body to keep them from attacking or countering, which means MMA cliches like “ground and pound,” “sprawl and brawl” or “lay and pray” will never be used to describe a WCL battle.
Clinching is not allowed either — sort of. A fighter can use a standing clinch to throw one knee shot, but then he has to release the hold. In other words, the only allowable use of a clinch in the WCL is also a perfect way to telegraph a planned strike.
The only legal way for a WCL fighter to put his opponent on the ground is by laying him out with a strike. They can’t use takedowns or throws. The fighters also wear full-sized boxing gloves, as opposed to the 4-to-6-ounce fingerless gloves worn in other MMA promotions. If they knock out their opponent with a fist, they get paid extra. If they do it with feet, they get even more money. One third of last season’s WCL fights ended with a knockout.
“The main reason is because it’s all offensive fighting. Your defenses are down,” Norris said.
In summary: Chuck Norris does not play games. Fight hard or go home.
Despite the unique rules, the WCL is similar to the International Fight League in that the fighters each belong to a team, and each fight counts toward the point total for helping the team win. If a fight goes to a decision, the three “pitside” judges do not use the standard 10-point must system. Instead, they give five points to the fighter they think won. A unanimous decision would award 15 points to the winner’s team, and zero to the losers. A knockout automatically gives 15 points to the winner’s team.
Here’s another curiosity: Whereas an MMA fight in the IFL or UFC has short breaks between rounds as in boxing, the WCL competitors have two one-round fights in a given night against the same opponent, separated by a long halftime break. Nobody fights their second fight until everyone has completed Round 1, and the halftime break is over. Halftime in the WCL is the same as in the NFL or NBA; the coaches get their teams together and give them advice on how to have a better second half. The only exception is when the first-half fight ends via KO or TKO — mercifully, they don’t trot out the beaten fighter for another round of humiliation.
The league consists of eight teams across the United States, but Norris said the ultimate goal is worldwide dominance.
“We want to expand to 16 teams next year,” he said. “Then eventually expand to Europe, and then Asia as well. So we have big goals here.”
The fact that the WCL follows a dramatically different format than other MMA groups is not a knock on that style of fighting. Norris simply wanted to do things his way. He is a fan of UFC and other groups as well.
“I’m a martial artist at heart,” he said. “I like all of them, and I hope they are all very successful. We just have our own thing.”
If the WCL grows into a profitable business, Norris hopes to use the league to fund another of his passions. KickStart, which grew out of the Kick Drugs Out of America Foundation, is a non-profit program designed to teach martial arts to at-risk children as a way of instilling self-esteem and respect in them during their middle school years.
“A lot of these young people have insecurities, whether it’s physical, mental, psychological, whatever,” Norris said. “Through the philosophy of the martial arts, we’re helping them overcome a lot of these insecurities.”
As a martial arts instructor, Norris saw the positive influence the sport had on kids but wanted to reach out to families that could not afford to pay for classes.
“I helped thousands of kids, but these were kids whose parents could afford to bring them to my school and pay the tuition. I thought, ‘What about the millions of kids in America whose parents have no money and can’t afford this?’”
After 13 years, Norris said KickStart is available in 37 schools and has 5,000 participating students. The program has graduated about 40,000 students, many of whom have gone to college and earned degrees after gaining confidence with the help of KickStart.
“Once these kids start believing in themselves, man, a lot of these at-risk kids are smart,” Norris said. “They just have no self-esteem. They don’t feel like they can accomplish. Once you start instilling in them that they can be anything that they want to be, a lot of times they carry that ball and they run for a touchdown.”
As a celebrity, Norris is in a great position to help kids, fund his own fight leagues and make things happen. That’s one of the perks of being a well-known figure in a society obsessed with fame. Another is that complete strangers on the Internet have the power to elevate your legendary status and re-ignite your career with something as basic as a list of humorous, well-meaning “Chuck Norris facts.”
A few years ago, a student named Ian Spector at Brown University began sending Norris funny one-liners that exalted Norris for being incredibly tough, manly, and fundamentally superhuman. Norris loved the jokes but had no idea they would become such an Internet sensation.
“I said ‘This’ll only last a couple of weeks, then it’ll phase out,’” he said. “For some reason, it caught on with the college crowd, and then it caught on with the high school crowd, and the middle school crowd, and then it started expanding all over the world. Then the military caught on to it, and they started the military Chuck Norris facts.”
After several years and too many different authors to count, Norris said there are now over 60,000 Chuck Norris “facts” on the Internet.
“I think my personal favorite is that they wanted to put Chuck Norris on Mount Rushmore, but the granite wasn’t tough enough for his beard,” Norris said with a laugh.
What started as a harmless hobby for one Norris fan ended up elevating Norris to another level of legend, and he couldn’t be happier about the way it all turned out.
“Everywhere we go, it’s these young people coming up and just shaking my hand, hugging me and all that. I tell you, it’s very gratifying to see these young people still look up to me.”
Norris hoped that the surprise resurgence of his fame would help the success of the WCL, with the end result of providing as much funding for KickStart as possible. The former star of Walker, Texas Ranger put his acting career on hold to focus more on his fight promotion but left the door open to future roles.
“I’ve had a couple movie offers and I’m really considering them, but they’re still in the talking stage,” he said. “As long as they don’t interfere with my time with the league.”
The 2007-08 WCL season begins in Denver on Oct. 19, when the Denver Fury take on the Texas Dragons and the Los Angeles Stars battle the Oklahoma Destroyers.
