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I’ve been following MMA for close to 15 years now and have known of the sport since the late 1990s/early 2000s. (Shoutout Blockbuster!) That may not seem like much time but when you take into account that the sport itself is relatively new, then I’ve practically been there from the start. Why MMA? I love fighting. I love watching people fight for something. UFC president Dana White once said “that there is one thing people from all over the world can understand, and that’s fighting.” It’s in our DNA. When a fight breaks out, we all gather. Few tend to stop the fight at its genesis. We love a good fight. When the UFC holds a PPV event, fight fans gather from all over the world to witness the spectacle. Two men stripped down to their shorts with their fists up waiting to hurt one another using only their own body parts to do it. We are a wild species.

But in today’s age of rapid technological advancements, we all tend to gather not only in our living rooms to watch the sport of fighting, we gather using our phones and our laptops. Specifically, we log into our social media account of choice to root for our favorite fighter or give our opinions on the fights themselves. I personally use my @X account for almost every MMA event. I check the “#” for that event and see what people are saying. It’s a way to create a sense of community with those who hold the same desire to watch people fight. And we also like to follow certain social media accounts or personalities because they make the sporting event more fun. Which brings me to the reason I’m writing this article. There is one particular social media account that has this vivacious blend of fight knowledge with a blazing stamina to keep us in the loop of all the fights going on around the world. But that’s not what intrigues me about this account. It’s the mysterious nature of it. Not in a supernatural way but in a way that it’s very much grounded to the everyday need for the reality of the present. He doesn’t change. It’s the same energy every time. Fight post after fight post. Who can sustain that type of online presence and not be humanized and figured out? It’s none other than the man we call “Caposa.”

I’ve been trying to find out the man behind the X handle Grabaka_Hitman for several years now. Year after year the closer I get to finding out the real name of the man behind the most grass roots fighting account there is the farther I seem to be from it. I cannot count how many late nights and 3am IHOP visits I’ve had. I must have looked like a madman, with a cork board, tub of push pins, a bundle of red twine and pictures and names all over it. A conspiracy theorist board if there ever was one. Hair disheveled of course. But that’s due to the fact that I don’t own a comb. That’s another article for another day.

One would say, what about the name “Grabaka?” Surely those are clues to his real name? But a little bit of digging, you would find that “Grabaka” seems to be an invented term. But most closely tied with a martial arts gym founded by Sanae Kikuta, a Japanese mixed martial artist. Kikuta established the Grabaka team and gym in June 2000 in Nakano, Tokyo, Japan alongside some other fighters. So we are left with the name we all call him by, Caposa. Seemingly Italian in origin. But nothing else to give away it’s roots. There is no direct connection to Caposa and Grabaka. Two years of research and I’m left with nothing but the daily posts of the most enigmatic social media presence on planet earth. Nothing to show for it. Until…

I was staring at Caposas’ X account for hours as I normally do every morning. I noticed something that I hadn’t noticed before. His banner picture.

The Appalachian Rumble in the Jungle

If you look closely, you can tell this is a picture of the infamous fight that took place in 1865 between Max “The Hitman” Stevens and George “The Bear” Smith. “The Appalachian Rumble in the Jungle” as it was called back then. I used to think that was just a nice nostalgic photo someone would put up because it looked cool. The evidence was right in front of me the whole time. The strange thing was there was no surviving picture of that fight. But here it was hiding in plain sight. So, what am I getting at?

I know who Caposa is now… Max “The Hitman” Stevens. But this fight took place in 1865? So, is there more to the story?

You see in all my research I didn’t account for the mysterious nature of the account. In that it was mysterious, because the man behind the account is mysterious in nature. Caposa is a time traveler, but not just any time traveler… a fighting time traveler. Could he be the father of MMA? Could Max “The Hitman” Stevens be Caposa, or maybe he’s something else altogether?

The legend of Asopac

There’s a legend of a man who started the “art” of fighting and it goes back centuries. The first account of a man who threw the first “fist” was at the infamous tower of Babel. After the Lord our God was said to have mixed the languages of those building a stairway to heaven, as it were. A fight broke out over a dispute of the building of the tower itself. Because they didn’t know what language the other was speaking, a young man by the name of Asopac, got frustrated and flung his fist toward another one of his neighbors and struck him the face. The man was knocked out and died instantly. The people in the village both marveled and feared the young Babylonian. Asopac was banished from the village. A curse was put on him so that he would wander and travel through time for eternity without rest, even rest in death. Asopac was said, to have wandered the earth and created new fighting moves and learned how to mix them.

Of course, we as a society don’t believe in these myths… these fairy tales. But why do we have such rich accounts of a man who lived so long ago and accomplished these incredible fighting feats? Maybe Asopac was the genesis of the heroes we’ve read about? Maybe they are based on him? Maybe they were him? Achilles, Alexander the Great, or Odyssesus. It was said the curse would also allow to change his features, his ethnicity at will. Maybe he was Bruce Lee, Muhammad Ali, or even John Wick? He might just be “all” of our great fighting champions. He’s had centuries to perfect his craft and look like anyone. Could he have been leaving us clues all along? The banner picture on his X profile. Max “The Hitman” Stevens. His X handle: Grabaka_Hitman. Was he also Sanae Kikuta? He’s left us all these clues. And I cracked the code.

Caposa is Asopac

Asopac “The Babylonian Fist of Fury”

I see you legend. May the world know you as I know you now.

-La Mancha