Dana is my first cousin. His mom Evelyn was my mothers eldest sister. Remember when he was just starting out with Karate in West Covina, CA. I remember all the freaking trophies he collected as a young man. Eventually ended up in Australia. His death came as a huge shock. He was a wonderful person that would give the shirt off his back if it would help another. RIP Dana!
Dana Goodson was one of the nicest and coolest guys I have ever met. After the Benny Urquidez fight, Dana went on to train in boxing and Muay Thai and became the unofficial heavyweight kick boxing champion of the world by thoroughly defeating (then champion) Ross Scott in a non title bout. After his retirement from competition, he also became an internationally known trainer until his untimely death in 2000.
neat video. i was at this fight at the HIC (a.k.a. the NBC) in honolulu. it was just the beginning of full contact karate. most fighters really didn't know how to throw real punches. benny was the real deal having trained with bobby chacon. he met his match with ernie hart. praise to dana goodson. he was one of the hawaii pioneers of full contact karate. others: fred cresanto, bill takeuchi, teddy limoz, george iverson. a lot of fun. they were all brave fighters.
gotta love how when they actually start punching each other it starts to resemble those cartoon effects when a cloud of smoke envelops them and all you see are fists flying everywhere
This was my first intro to Benny the Jet, and was a fan ever since. The fact that he was doing aerial kicks in a full contact scenario was impressive enough, but the way he was throwing Dana like a big stay puff mars mellow man convinced me that karate DID work,and that a little guy with skills could defeat a big guy. It was like Wolverine fighting Colasses,and wolverine never loses
Great fight I've trained with master Benny he's a gentleman and one of the greats in martial arts.Dana Goodson was Stan the mans trainer who had a good career in kickboxing.
Damn - where the hell did you find this??? This is how tournaments SHOULD be - all the champs in their respective weght divisions, fight for the grand championship. Dana Goodson was #5 rated heavyweight in the world - Benny was the light weight champ. Benny took on ALL comers - a true champion. Thanx for posting!!!
This was almost an early version of MMA and they had weird rules like scoring points for pinning. Around the middle of the fight, you see Benny win points for pinning Dana for 5 seconds.... If they kept and continued with these rules, it might have evolved into what is more like MMA today, but instead full-contact karate became kickboxing.
Wow! Urquidez is quite a bit lighter. Picked the guy up and put him down. Got in the opponent's face. My regards to the students of Dana Goodson. That was a good display of sportsmanship by both men through the whole fight. It is unfortunate this isn't the norm in the martial arts. It starts with the instructors!
World Karate Championships. If you have never been to a martial arts tournament, many times the winner in each division of black belt men will have a fight off to determine grand champion. Light wt, middle wt, heavy wt, and executive black belt or larger tornaments have more weight divisions.
Some of you who don't know much about fighting first hand I see. Benny's opponent was much larger and stronger. A barely middleweight Benny going against a heavyweight. With that in mind, Benny did a great job here. Had that guy been Benny's size it would have been an easy win.
Obviously (well, obvious to folks who understand the evolution of the sport...), they were working out the rules on what "full contact" actually meant in 1974, and what techniques were permissible and prohibited...ok to 12-6 elbow on the head, and stomp a grounded fighter, but merely "pin" a person in guard (and not pound and/or submit). Very fascinating. These competitions are the progenitors of modern MMA and the UFC. So, I don't get why people think these fights are "lame...," I mean... you don't see anyone in 2019 fighting like Royce Gracie or Chuck Liddell anymore, either. Today, without question Benny would be attacking the lower leg and calf/shins... and just like we are starting to see that "Chinese jab" Lee always mentioned ("...only much more damaging..."), we are going to start seeing full downward sidekicks to hyperextend knees and chop down mobility. (We already are....) Point being, it always takes a while... a whole cycle of fighting, ring/cage experience, and stomaching the transition of imagination into reality before practical techniques get developed and evolve into something we are accustomed to seeing in our era. For a long time, many years actually, lots of MMA experts poo-poo'd spinning techniques as worthless and even dangerously flashy... some of those techniques that were long being tried and tested in kickboxing where elbows and low-kicks were being disallowed... and now over the past 5-6 years we have seen the roundhouse to the head become an essential KO tool (as opposed to a niche weapon that one guy like Mirko could perfect... even though 15-20 years prior Wallace was doing it all day, in a slightly different way-- shins, top of the foot, and ball all have their place depending on rules...). And the spinning back kick has become essential, and to a lesser degree the spinning hook kick has come back from the '80s. Things have to get messy and sloppy, and fighters have to dare to try a mix of things (and often look goofy doing it, and maybe get KO'd for being flashy, too...), for all these techniques to find their place in an MMA fighter's toolbox. Just like it took the first UFC tournaments to legitimize jiu-jitsu as combat effective in the cage/ring... and took even longer to hash out its necessity and fusion between Greco-Roman wrestling, too. Just like Muay Thai had to be fused into the sport also, speaking of... What I think people are justified in finding lame are these watered-down "handcuffed" combat sports that purport to be faithful to a style, and yet carve out huge essential chunks of that style to streamline (or "continue the action") the competition. For example, it drives me a little nuts when I look at a fighter's professional record, and it will say "Muay Thai Record"-- and you look at the fights and promotion, and it's obviously limited kickboxing that disallows elbows or lower leg kicks or head clinching... what is "Muay Thai" without elbows... 🙄 So, I suppose if you see "Full Contact Karate," and nobody is getting punched in the face, that is suspect, sure.... But this is not that. This 1974 World Series of Martial Arts was full contact MMA fighting as best as they understood it at the time. We watched these things, and Muay Thai and Vale Tudo and cagefighting way before UFC 1 was concocted... we traded shitty VHS tapes of all sorts of weird bareknuckle tough-MF fights... otherwise UFC never would have been organized to begin with (because it was organized, in essence, so yet another "my kung fu is better than your kung fu" challenge could translate skills to competition and evolve the sport... and to take our money for love of bloodsport, because the promotion knew that there is always a market for gladiatorial combat sports in a free society...). (🤔 Speaking of bloodsport... remember Paulo Tocha in "Bloodsport?" How many kids were mesmerized by the Paco fight...) Anyway, just musing while I watch old footage. For those of you youngsters who think Benny Urquidez is "lame...." Well, he was a cocky dude, like a lot of fighters are ("a legend in his own mind" etc.), but he had the chops to back it up. He didn't duck, fought in wildly disparate weight classes, and would bring the action with fast and good technique. He could definitely fight in this era, no doubt. The "best?" Well... there are a lot of "bests." "The Best" is all a matter of what era you are watching; "the Best" is indelibly linked with fleeting time. But he was pretty exciting for the day. Watch some old tape. 🤓
Early (actually new/second-generation) full-contact martial arts--it's gonna look like there's no style. Dana also was an active heavyweight pro boxer in Hawai'i and was probably better a boxer than a martial artist. Benny was waay smaller and became a true martial arts legend.
If Dana was a boxer, his skill sure didn't show up in this match. I noticed Dana kept throng these downward elbows on top of Bennys head and neck, which really could have crippled him, especially given his height and weight. I suppose Benny was putting so much firepower to him that he felt like he was fighting for his life. Benny trained with Judo Gene Labell, and clealy learned his grappling lessons well.
@mannybrucesalvador Get my facts right before I talk smack.OK lets see I think Chucks record was something like 180-10.Notice the 10.Those are losses in Karate Kid Point matches but yes he never lost as champion.LONG LIVE THE KARATE KID!!
Dana Goodson is a clumsy fighter, and would had totally defeated record in modern MMA. Benny on the other hand could have been deadly in modern MMA. I seen this fight in person, and it was a very one sided match up.
What kind of fight was this? Bennys opponent was doing everything he could to actually fight and Benny acted like a clown the whole time. That is disrespectful to an opponent that had the balls to face the man behind the name, and all he did was dance around like a clown. Not a fan anymore
i dont know where your brain went. sometimes you have to act overconfident cocky so th bigger oppenent doesnt thin his size and strength is hurting you. if you see them after each round and at the end they are hugging and holding eachother. i see only respect. you have never been a fan if you havent seen this. more a sore loser
What are you taaalking about. Goodman had some 85 lbs and seven inches on the Jet. That's a huge deal. You can't trade one for one with that kind of disadvantage you have to use finesse and somehow avoid any haymakers for an entire fight. Anyone with eyes should be a Benny fan after watching this.
