Waru [bad boy] is a Japanese anything-goes fighting tournament started by movie producer and entrepreneur, Yamamoto Yoshihisa. When it comes to organised fighting in Japan, it's about as rough as it gets. There’s no K1 or Pride-style sheen to proceedings and no pretty-boy posturing from the combatants. There are rules but not many: no biting, no hits in the dick and no hits to the face when a player is down. Submissions are forbidden and KOs pay top dollar, so that's the end goal; though usually “matches end up pretty much just like street fights with someone stepping in to break things up”, says Yoshihisa. Waru is blood, sweat and tears, as the red-stained rags used to mop the ring after bouts testify.
Yoshihisa started the tournament in dedication to his old karate mentor, the late Hisao Maki – the manga artist responsible for the comic Waru. Yoshihisa produced the the Takeshi Miike film version of the comic, from which the tournament takes its name. Since he looks a lot like he might have been an extra in a Miike directed movie, Yoshihisa doesn't strike you as someone likely to have produced one. But there’s an unexpected authenticity to his kitschy B-movie Yakuza appearance. This is something that lends him charisma and makes him both formidable and likeable.
Through the karate circuit and his line of work, Yoshihisa was, over the years, exposed to various elements and characters in the underground and street-fighting scenes around Japan. With Waru, he wanted to elevate these elements to the ring and create a tournament that would “keep things as close to the street as possible”. He brought in men from across the country, hoping to find the meanest and toughest fighters he could, to embody the Waru or “dark hero” spirit in Maki’s comics.
Yoshihisa currently has two favourite prodigies under his wing: Ken Moon and Sapp Nishinari, the latter of whom takes his second name from the area he hails from. Nishinari is probably the only place in Japan that can legitimately call itself a ghetto. Nishinay is made up on one side by one of Japan’s oldest and largest red-light districts and on the other by labour centres, shelters and cheap one-coin bars that cater to the hundreds of homeless who populate what is truly a grim corner of the city. In a country with a famously low crime rate, Nishinari holds its own when it comes to danger and public disturbance. It is an obvious breeding ground for the kind of street-hardened talent that Yamamoto is after for Waru.
Ken Moon and Sapp may look, dress and drink like they’re auditioning for a Japanese version of Jersey Shore, but these guys are the real fucking deal. Ken Moon, who has a face like a brick wall, is entirely unreserved about his motivations as a fighter and doesn't mince his words: “The first time I saw someone using violence to pay the bills I knew that's what I wanted to do." He originally came to the Yamane Dojo, where the two now train together, to challenge Sapp, a well-known Osaka talent at the time. In the end Sapp won, and the two have been tight ever since. As far as they’re concerned, together they’re now the best in the country.
On a night out with Yoshihisa, the night before a big fight at Okayama Orange Hall, the pair drink and smoke in a way that would scandalise any regular pro-athlete. Both are confident that – hungover or not – they’ll be able to bring the goods the next day. Yoshihisa jokes that they don't really practice either, but adds that these guys “are naturally tough so there’s nothing to worry about. Only people with strong hearts can take things to the end – like life or death. They have been in situations [out on the street] where they could’ve easily been killed, and it was only by luck that they survived.” Natural fierceness and an untamed proclivity for violence is arguably a lot more scary when met within the ring, than a gym-cultivated, smile-for-the-camera-and-shake-hands technique. “Outside [on the street] the bottom line is you can’t lose,” says Sapp.
Even though most of the Waru fighters have nothing more than street-level experience, there are some who are more professionally trained. In the case of the former, ignorance, a blind desire for violence and the inability to objectively size up an opponent can actually turn into an advantage for those pining for a knock out worth 30,000 Yen and the balls to see it through. It’s this aspect that gives Waru a distinctly underground feel despite it being an organised tournament.
Yoshihisa believes that violence experiences generation gaps. He cites the man-to-man fighting of his youth and the pure fighting depicted in the Hisao Maki comics Vs. the use of weapons and foul play of kids today. To him, Waru is a way of taking things back to that purer bad-boy form. Sapp acknowledges that he is no stranger to weapons out on the street; the guy has had guns pointed at his face and lived to talk about it. His view is that what little rules there are in the ring help to make him tougher. By bringing street fighting and guys like Sapp and Ken Moon into the ring, Waru has created an untempered arena for conflict. It is unapologetic, unpretentious and as pure as it is frightening. “I’m really grateful to Waru as it gives me a reason for violence,” says Ken Moon, summing up what is the crucial element behind the tournament. One that is all to often forgotten in today’s fighting arenas.
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