MILTON — Frank Tigano now lives a quiet life in East Milton, but the Vietnam veteran and retired U.S. Steel worker has the distinction of becoming — arguably — the first Mixed Martial Arts lightweight champion.
Tigano’s story, and those of several other fighters and their promoters, will be told in Director Henry Roosevelt’s upcoming documentary “Tough Guys,” which could be released later this year or in early 2017.
The book, “Godfathers of MMA: The Birth of an American Sport,” by Dr. Fred Adams and Bill Viola Jr., says most MMA fans believe the first Ultimate Fighting Championship in 1993 marked MMA’s origin as a sport.
“CV Productions provided the blueprint for a multi-billion dollar business in 1979: the first league of its kind with no pay-per-view or the internet to spread their message,” page 14 of the book states.
Tigano was among those pioneers in Pittsburgh.
BULLIED NO MORE
Tigano — who grew up in Rankin, Penn., just east of Pittsburgh — learned how to fight just to defend himself. He, the oldest of four siblings, lived in a rough area near “the projects,” he said.
“… I would come home crying every day,” Tigano said. “Every day they beat me up. You know what I mean? They’d pick on me, because I wouldn’t fight back … That was the problem. They actually did me a favor — because I eventually made up my mind that that wasn’t going to happen no more.”
In 1968, he was drafted into the Army. Tigano became a helicopter pilot and flew Special Forces soldiers behind enemy lines in Vietnam. Tigano stressed he was not Special Forces himself, but transported them. According to his certificate of release from active duty, Tigano received four Distinguished Flying Crosses, a Bronze Star Medal, a Purple Heart and 25 Air Medals, among other honors.
THE FIRST FIGHT
Nine years after Vietnam, Tigano said, he learned about a new challenge. “These two promoters (Bill Viola and Frank Caliguri) came up with (the question) who would win — a boxer, a fighter, a karate guy, a wrestler, a street fighter, gang man, a bike rider,” he said. “Who would win? Who would be the toughest guy?”
At the time, Tigano was already competing as a white belt in karate competitions Viola and Caliguri sponsored. He said he contacted Caliguri and helped promote the first “Tough Guy” competition.
Tigano’s first fight — against a boxer — didn’t go well.
“A lot of people came to see me … and I was showing off,” he said, adding he started with a flying kick and, instead of dodging back, he said the boxer dropped.
Tigano said he wasn’t used to fighting a trained boxer. “He blasted me. He broke my jaw, basically,” Tigano said. However, after losing the first two rounds, he said he realized how to take him down.
“Once I figured out how to fight this kid, I creamed him the third round. I got him so bad he didn’t want to do this any more. He quit.”
TV’s “Evening Magazine” covered the fight — and Tigano’s lightweight championship win — defeating “Mad Dog” Moyak, “a drywall finisher and lifelong street fighter from Eerie,” the host said.
‘EVERYBODY LOVED IT’
The first “Tough Guy” competitions were held March 20-22 in 1980 at the New Kensington, Penn., Holiday Inn ballroom.
They became quite a spectacle — “Everybody loved it, no matter where I went throughout the Pittsburgh area,” Tigano said.
At this time, Tigano was an inspector with U.S. Steel, but he was laid off when the company downsized “from a 50,000 working force to 10,000,” which gave him more time to train.
Tigano said he stopped fighting after winning the lightweight championship, and he never followed MMA, even when it became popular in later years.
‘SO RIDICULOUS AND UNBELIEVABLE’
Most people with whom Tigano plays basketball at the Navarre Youth Sports Association don’t know about his background, which includes being inducted into the Pittsburgh Mixed Martial Arts Hall of Fame in 2012.
They will now — along with the stories of several other fighting pioneers. Both the book and the movie detail the story of everyday men facing the unknown.
“The story is … so ridiculous and so unbelievable…we’re talking mafia influence, corrupt politicians, fighters who would beat their opponents then steal their wives that night,” Roosevelt said. “We had high school wrestling coaches, steel workers, Vietnam veterans.”
Of Tigano, Roosevelt said, “You never lose that fighting spirit … He served his country. He came back and, at that time, the veterans weren't treated with a resounding respect.
“In between jobs at the steel mill, he found an opportunity to make a little money to use that sort of aggression and fighting spirit in some form.”
VIDEO REFERENCES
MMA's First American Champions
“They’d pick on me, because I wouldn’t fight back … That was the problem. They actually did me a favor — because I eventually made up my mind that that wasn’t going to happen no more.”
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Documentary to feature Milton's Mixed Martial Arts forefather