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24 min read
We tend to look back at MMA’s early days as a volatile, unpredictable and borderline unhinged collection of bizarro pugilism loosely defining the “era.”
Japan’s all-women fight promotion Smackgirl, founded in 2001, couldn't have matched that description any better during its eight-year existence. As its principals will tell you now, few of them had any clue what they were doing — whether it was the fighters or the people running the company. Those who did made the most of their experiences, but they still hold obscured spots in the MMA history books.