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The Fall of Extreme Fighting Battlecade - John Perretti | MMA History Podcast

Wrestling

Year2026

Duration1h 33m

Watch Now

7.3

Ep 313 The Fall of EF Battlecade - John Perretti John Perretti, Battlecade: Extreme Fighting creator/matchmaker & former UFC matchmaker. Deep dive into the promotion's last event via Extreme Fighting 4 (Des Moines, March 28, 1997): It featured Olympic gold medalists Kenny Monday & Kevin Jackson on one card, along with epic clashes like Paul Jones vs.Eric Paulson and a mid-show power outage, we talk about Gracie hesitancy on certain matchups (including near-misses with big money offers), Bas Rutten bad blood, and John's take on grappler-to-striker limits. Raw, firsthand history from the source. 0:00 MMA history podcast intro 0:32 Joey Venti’s guest introduction 0:57 interview start 2:19 Extreme fighting 4 in Iowa 3:20 budget for Extreme fighting 4 4:09 Ralph Gracie vs Eugenio Tadeu rumor 6:28 allegedly matchmaking Brazilians to lose fights 7:40 training Igor Zinoviev to fight Royce Gracie 9:47 Bas Rutten altercation with Rickson Gracie 11:55 Roster of fighters at Extreme Fighting 4 12:50 power outage during event 14:14 Allan Goes vs Todd Bjornethun 18:14 Gary Myers vs Tommy Glanville 19:38 Paul Jones vs Erik Paulson 21:22 Kevin Jackson vs John Lober 22:37 creating modern MMA 25:12 Extreme fighting changing how you viewed the sport 26:13 thoughts on Joe Moreira 30:06 John Lober personal issues 32:12 Matt Hume vs Pat Miletich 35:44 financial issues coming into event 37:18 Kenny Monday vs John Lewis 43:47 John Donehue reffing all 4 events 44:43 Maurice Smith vs Kazunari Murakami 51:24 altercation with Ken Shamrock in lobby 56:18 drug issues at the Lions den 58:13 matchmaking fights in the UFC 1:02:05 realizing Extreme fighting is finished 1:05:15 Igor Zinoviev injured out of extreme fighting 1:05:38 receiving a call to work for the UFC 1:10:02 Art Davie’s letter to congress to ban MMA 1:11:41 plugs/ promotions 1:12:42 interview wrap up 1:24:19 outro/ closing thoughts Please follow our channels on Follow the MMA History Team on Instagram: MMA Detective Mike Davis @mikedavis632 Co Host Joey Venti @aj_ventitre Records K