ESPN Article on Bob Sapp

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Beast of the East

 

By Shaun Assael, ESPN The Magazine

 

Tokyo is a city of uniforms. Girls on school trips in navy-blue sailor skirts. Salarymen in smartly tailored black suits. Ladies who lunch in kimonos. A bunch of them are bustling past one another in a swanky hotel lobby when an elevator opens. As Bob Sapp bounds out, it's hard to decide what's more startling -- the sight of a 375-pound American in denim shorts or the sound of his deep voice rumbling, "I'm hungry for pancakes. Time for Denny's."

 

Sapp looks left, then right, scoping out his next move like he once did in the NFL trenches. A year ago, the ex-Viking was just another out-of-work jock trying to eke out a future. Then he stumbled into a new career that has turned him overnight into a cross between Ali and Elvis -- at least in Japan. But he's too slow mapping out a path to the door. A dozen bankers spot him and start squealing like so many Lizzie McGuires. It's the same everywhere you go in this city of 12 million. Not since Godzilla (and we don't mean Matsui) have the Japanese shrieked so loudly at something so big.

 

Darting into a cab, a light sweat on his brow, the 30-year-old Sapp wedges his Sumo-size frame into the back seat. "I can't go out anymore," he says. "It's like this everywhere. These people have never seen anything like The Beast."

 

Ah yes, The Beast. He emerges when Sapp widens his eyes, snaps back his head -- roughly the size of a 5,000-BTU air conditioner -- and shoots a long, cartoon-villain cackle. That cackle is now the hottest thing on Japanese TV, because The Beast has become the hottest thing in the national obsession known as kickboxing. His likeness glares at you from store windows, sidewalk noodle shops, subway stations. When Sapp arrives at Denny's, the manager wiping syrup from the breakfast bar freezes midwipe, as if facing the Emperor himself. Before the guy can bow and say Arigato, Sapp has ducked into a booth and ordered four strawberry sodas, four kiwi juices, a blue-plate special and a stack of caramel pancakes.

 

Sapp seems a little jittery this morning, and for good reason. In two days he'll fight a nasty hurt machine named Mirko Filipovic, a.k.a. CroCop, a tightly wound antiterror commando from Croatia. "Things are at such a peak that I haven't had much time to train," Sapp says as his breakfast arrives, carried by a kitchen staff poised at half-bow. They serve him and linger with their paper hats in hand, politely waiting for The Beast to sign them. "At this point, the only place for things to go is down. And that might not be such a bad thing."

 

The half-dozen waiters pick up their mementos and go. Six teenyboppers quickly replace them, holding aloft camera-enabled cell phones. "I'm a sex symbol," Sapp says, letting his food go cold as he strikes a Beastly pose for each. Finally, a man old enough to be their father whips off his suit jacket and begs Sapp to sign his crisp white shirt.

 

Until last spring, Sapp had never even eaten sushi. He was raised by a police detective in Colorado (his mother left home when he was in third grade) and earned a football scholarship to play guard for Washington. In a 1994 game against Miami, he fell on a fumble for a touchdown, part of a comeback that ended the Hurricanes' home winning streak at 58. That was the height of his gridiron career. He was cut by the Bears in camp after they made him the 69th pick in the 1997 draft, spent two years on special teams with the Vikes, then battled injuries during a stint with the Raiders. By the summer of 2000, he was out of work, broke and sitting "alone in my apartment with black sheets on the wall, playing a video game where I shot a lot of werewolves."

 

Sapp picked himself off the couch and answered a talent call for World Championship Wrestling in Atlanta. Even in a land of outsize caricatures, a guy with a booming laugh, seven-foot wingspan, bald head and (at the time) a 422-pound, V-shaped body will stand out. "People kept calling me a freak and a specimen," he says. "I put it all together and came up with The Beast."

 

But The Beast didn't arrive fully formed. Sapp spent about eight months honing his shtick mostly at low-level, nontelevised events. Then an offer arrived from the FX cable network to fight a three-round Toughman match against The Fridge, ex-Bear William Perry. "You need an angle, otherwise no one will watch," Sapp explains. "Our angle was that I wanted revenge on the team that cut me." It wasn't pretty: "Fridge hit me with a straight right, and I had to hold on for dear life." But Perry tired, and Sapp scored a second-round KO. Afterward his trainer, who had contacts in Japan, asked if he was interested in a new career.

 

Harajuku is Tokyo's trendy shopping district. Around the corner from Yves Saint Laurent you can find Sapp Station, a remarkable testimony to what's happened since The Beast agreed to relocate. Inside are Sapp action figures, T-shirts, posters, cereal boxes, rice cakes, two biographies (a third is coming soon) and a rap-and-soul CD that jumped into the Top 20 on its release and features Sapp in the same pose as Michael Jackson on the Thriller cover. And that's just a fraction of what's available. In a nearby toy store, there's a bootleg Beast mask that looks like King Kong.

 

Not bad for a guy who was unknown when he made his debut on April 28, 2002. If Sapp had one thing going for him when he stepped off the plane (following a six-month training stint in Seattle), it was his agility. Kickboxing weaponizes the lower body, with foot strikes counting the same as punches. At UW, Sapp was known as Rubber Band Man because he could extend his legs straight back over his head. No one in Tokyo had seen that kind of flexibility married to the gale-force upper-body power Sapp brought across the Pacific. The 10 million fans who tuned in to his first fight saw the gargantuan newcomer clobber a 220-pound journeyman named Yoshihisa Yamamoto.

 

In his second fight, Sapp nearly caused a riot. The bout was staged under rules that allowed for less traditional wrestling moves. But after he leaped from a ring post onto the head of 214-pound Tsuyoshi Nakasako, his rival's cut man jumped onto the mat. Both corners emptied, threatening every manner of harm. The Tokyo press ate it up, especially when paparazzi spotted Sapp sneaking into one of the city's finer massage parlors afterward. "The papers said I was on top of Nakasako by day, and on top of a woman at night," he says with a chuckle.

 

Sapp's image is cartoonish, but it's also culturally complex. Jason Hall, a Seattle video game executive and close friend, thinks that when Sapp first arrived in Tokyo, fight fans wanted to see "a big black guy get beat up." Since then, he's become a more endearing figure, but The Beast has also built his fame on some eyebrow-raising scaffolds. Sapp promoted one match by stomping through a zoo eating a banana. A wax sculpture outside his store depicts him bending the bars of a prison cell. And in a print ad for Panasonic TVs, he dressed like a pimp and asked buyers to take him home to see his "big 32 inches."

 

Hall concedes that And Sapp's act would seem to reinforce any prejudices harbored by Japan's older generation. On the other hand, the hipsters in Harajuku get that it's just a big joke. "To the young urban Japanese, black is cool," says Ken Belson, a business writer for The New York Times in Tokyo. "I think they see it as being all in good fun. So it cuts both ways."

 

Sapp is not only untroubled by the contradictions, he seems proud of them: "If it's not illegal, and it's tongue-in-cheek, I got no problem with it."

 

It's two days after the visit to Denny's. Time to fight. The 37,000 fans pouring into Saitama Super Arena are here to see what is regarded as a crossroads bout for Sapp. This is the first fight in a 22-event season that will span as many countries. During the tour, run by martial arts promoter K-1, a field of 50 fighters will be whittled to eight, who'll then meet at the Tokyo Dome in December. Last year, 20 million Japanese watched the tour finale -- a share proportionately higher than what ABC got for the Super Bowl.

 

Tonight will answer an important question for many of those fans: Is Sapp for real or is he just a heavyweight huckster? His opponent, CroCop, has eyes like hollow points, and Sapp avoided looking into them at the prefight press conference by sending a video instead of appearing in person. CroCop's response: "Bob shouldn't have much chance," he said matter-of-factly. "By the time he gets tired, it will be over. If he doesn't get tired, I'll break his leg."

 

At the main event, torch-carrying geishas escort the fighters from beneath a video screen that projects their larger-than-life images. CroCop walks calmly to the ring. Sapp, wrapped in a feather boa and a glittery robe, runs down the aisle like this is the WWE. When the bell clangs, The Beast is a whirlwind. He takes CroCop to the center of the ring, daring him to go blow for blow. But CroCop dances toward the ropes. Sapp chases him, hungry to end things quickly. Less than 90 seconds into the bout, CroCop connects with a left kick, then fakes right. Sapp takes the bait. He moves to protect his side -- and that's when it happens. CroCop pulls back the kick and connects with a ferocious punch square to Sapp's right eye. All at once, Sapp-a-san crumples to the mat.

 

In the locker room, The Beast is rattled by the first KO of his career. "Damn, I was ready. No problem, no problem," he keeps repeating, while holding an ice pack against his eye socket. He struggles for an explanation. "I had to stay down. I was seeing double. Damn, I think it's broken. Damn!" (Turns out it was.)

 

A year into it, Sapp is finally beginning to admit that the punishment he's taking is very real. His punching power has carried him to some spectacular wins, including two against defending world champ Ernesto Hoost, on his way to a 7-3 record as a kickboxer. (He is 2-1 as a wrestler.) But his lack of finesse means that Sapp often absorbs 10 head shots for every one he gets in. "I'm usually sick after a fight," he says. "But then the brain swelling goes down, and I'm just hungry as hell."

 

The kickboxing world is full of earnest competitors. But earnest is for Larry King and high school yearbooks. Anyone who got a UW degree in three years -- like Bob Sapp, for instance -- knows that shtick is what sells. Which is why winning may ultimately be incidental to his success. K-1 has already branded a new crop of fighters under the name Team Beast so that Bob can sell tickets without fighting. The NFL just hired him to be its ambassador to Asia. ("I'm making more money from that than I did in my whole time in the league," he says.) And a rep for Simon West, the director of Tomb Raider, has called. "I'd love to just do movies and play with my cat," Sapp says. "I just knock wood that I don't get hurt too bad first."

 

In January, Nippon TV sent him to cover the Super Bowl in San Diego. There, Tampa Bay's Warren Sapp was besieged by Japanese reporters asking if the two men are related. "I hate that," Warren snapped, dismissing even the faintest blood tie. Clearly, the memory of that loss to the Huskies still stings for one Sapp. But his cold response also stung a little for the other Sapp, who'd like to be known here for something other than bogus rumors about their being distant cousins.

 

The Beast has 15 fights to go on his K-1 deal, and he'll win his share. The ultimate goal, though, is not the Kickboxing Hall of Fame. "With me, it's not about the fighting," Sapp says, flashing the killer smile he hopes will carry him into yet another new career. "It's about being Bob."

 

[Guest CoreyLazarus416]

...he frightens me...

[Guest Nevermortal]

[Guest CoreyLazarus416]

Hahahaha

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

I kind of want to just hang out with this guy. I can see why he's so huge over there. He's charismatic, and the Japanese are kinda insane. It works.

[Guest Lord of The Curry]

Sapp playing with his cat = RATINGS.

 

SAPP TIME~!

[Guest Sandman9000]

I wish I could find the pics of Sapp dressed up as Santa.

[Guest the 1inch punch]

theres a good article, although less serious, up about him at www.whatever-dude.com

 

The gy bothers me though, but he'd be a good fit in the wwe

[Guest Nevermortal]

theres a good article, although less serious, up about him at www.whatever-dude.com

 

The gy bothers me though, but he'd be a good fit in the wwe

Yeah, I'm surprised they haven't scouted him yet.

 

He is a hoss, bah gawd.

[Guest Jimmy Saint]

at the Sapp Time picture.

 

 

the wrestle 1 match against Mutoh was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. If your into star ratings and deconstructing matches you would probably hate it. Its great mindless entertaiment though. The entrance where Sapp dances to the ring surrounded by hot Japanese dancing girls whilst Holiday by Madonna plays probably makes it great.

 

 

Its easy to talk shit about Sapp but the guy is still one of the top 5 heavys in the MMA world and would give anyone a headache.

[Mecha Mummy 0]

I remember seeing a commercial while I was in Japan for some food place that had Sapp in it. He was like a delivery guy for them and he looked fucking psycho... because he was smiling and his eyes were all wide and stuff. Sapp is EVERYWHERE in Japan. You can't go into a 7-11 without seeing him four times.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

Yeah, Corino says that he's bigger than Rock, Austin, and Hogan COMBINED.

[Mecha Mummy 0]

Yeah, Corino says that he's bigger than Rock, Austin, and Hogan COMBINED.

I wouldn't doubt that for a minute. Sapp is crazy over in Japan.