BUT SO TOO WILL LITERALLY HALF OF THE GUYS SET BEFORE US (that's just how it goes) IN THIS PARADE OF FIGHTERS ACCOMPANIED BY THE FAMILIAR-YET-NO-LESS-STIRRING-FOR-THAT PRIDE FC THEME THAT YOU TOO HAVE PROBABLY CALLED UP ON YOUTUBE TO LISTEN TO SOMETIMES BECAUSE OF A FEELING THAT YOU GET. I must admit it is jarring to return to an English-language broadcast after having Summer Night Fevered in the high taste-level Japanese home-video release; also just on YouTube recently I have stumbled across a number of Japanese-video-intro'd, no-commentary uploads, and those are probably the absolute best? Where you can hear every instruction from the corner? Even if that instruction is just a second screaming "NOOOOOOOO" whilst their charge is getting juji-gatame'd? I think "yes" to all of those half-questions. I enjoyed them (the commentary-less videos, I mean, but also I suppose the half-questions that arose from them) with my longstanding computer friends David and TOM, in particular, both of whom are the best, and whose fellowship I treasure.
Our first contest is between Kevin Randleman, who has always seemed nice, and whose death by pneumonia aged only forty-four is a cautionary tale (please be careful out there, everybody; please do take care), and 新日本プロレスリング株式会社 / Shin Nihon Puroresuringu Kabushiki-gaisha / New Japan Pro Wrestling's 小原道由 Ohara Michiyoshi, whom we've seen just the once before at PRIDE.17（プライド・セブンティーン）, whom we introduced thus: "I must admit I am entirely unfamiliar. Let's learn together: I see that he was once IWGP Tag Team Champion alongside 後藤 達俊 Gotō Tatsutoshi as "The Mad Dogs," for a time affiliated with the great 蝶野正洋 Chōno Masahiro, later with 斎藤 弘幸 Saitō Hiroyuki and indeed Enson Inoue, known well to us from his martial exploits broadly. Though I can find no source for it apart from his Wikipedia page, I see Ohara described as '[t]he former captain of the Kokushikan University judo team,' which is a fine credential, but I do have my doubts about taking your first professional mixed fight at the age of, let's see . . . yes, okay, Ohara was twelve days away from his thirty-fourth birthday at this, our moment of encounter, and his first professional match is against Renzo Gracie. A tough assignment! My expectations are unhigh!" Ohara lost that match by decision, you may recall (it is no big deal if you do not), as he loses this one to the ever-game Kevin Randleman. The ten-minute opening round (do we all agree that ten-five-five is the best format for mixed fighting? do we all agree that it was neat when they added that as an option in ファイプロ・リターンズ / FaiPuro Ritānzu / FirePro Returns for the noble PlayStation 2?) is illustrative of one of the great disappointments of mixed fighting, like just as an overall thing: two interesting grapplers who, rather than grapple interestingly, elect to box in a way that is comparatively uninteresting. I am not faulting anyone's sporting strategy here, but merely the æsthetic impact on the twenty-two-years-later viewer (and who else could this possibly be for?). The second round sees Randleman proceed more takedowningly, and spend a good amount of time on top slugging away, half-trapped in the half-guard of niju-garami whilst Mark Coleman (ever his second) shouts "GET YOUR LEG OUT, KEV! SIXTY-NINE! SIXTY-NINE!" (north/south is the preferred English-language nomenclature, Mark Coleman, please). Round three is all Randleman, and in much the same fashion, although a little less energetically (fair enough). "I can't say they're doing less than nothing," is Stephen Quadros' note, an instant before Mark Coleman can be heard to yell "Kev, you're not doing anything; let's go." When they are restarted standing, Ohara turns away from Randleman's punches in a way that really should be the end of the match, but referee 島田 裕二 Shimada Yūji (both in his ways, and the very man himself) remains an enigma. A light-work decision win for Kevin Randleman, and so shabby a showing by poor old Ohara as to elicit jeers from the Nagoya crowd. Not great!
Next up, Guy Mezger, with his Lion's-Den-mandatory sideburns (I kid! I like them! I probably had something similar in 2002!), enters to a genuinely surprising ovation (not that there's anything wrong with Guy Mezger; I am just surprised how many パンクラス PANKURASU enthusiasts seem to be present [he was, you may recall, their king]). His opponent this day is 山本宜久 Yamamoto Yoshihisa, with whom we are well familiar from RINGSdays of yore, and who most recently we saw wildly clobbered (indeed, clubbered) by Bob Sapp's wild clobbering (clubbering). This is a more tactical bout than Yamamoto's previous contest, certainly, and Yamamoto does reasonably well on his feet considering the clear skill differential in striking between the two (only one of these guys is a seventh-degree taekwondo blackbelt [that's so many degrees!]). Yamamoto continues to come forward despite eating some pretty nasty shots, which leads Mezger to pause and offer a little backhand fist bump as he tells Yamamoto, nice and loud so the whole class can hear, "You're tough." A nice moment! The rest of the fight follows pretty much along these lines. A clear decision win for Mezger, but everybody did well: Mezger looks sharp and gets the win; Yamamoto has the opportunity to show a lot of heart, and does; and the crowd seems reasonably entertained. You could do worse.
Oh no, it's アレクサンダー大塚 Alexander Otsuka vs. Anderson Silva, which sounds just horrendous from the perspective of Otsuka's survival; and yet one must of course bear in mind that Anderson Silva in PRIDE had not yet attained his final form (nor had he yet tested positive for any of the agents that may have assisted in that eventual attainment, although who is to say when, exactly, he developed such interests [new hobbies are fun!]). He's taken down mere moments in, Silva is, but comes awfully close to finishing a particularly lovely 三角絞 omote-sankaku-jime. Otsuka "turns the corner," settles his knee into Silva's face, and rolls through to escape. This is really good so far! Otsuka, by no means our favourite guy, has improved immensely. Silva brings his far-side arm across and slips out of half-guard to the near side to take the back super impressively, and next thing you know it's a body triangle and undefended blows and, if not a true 裸絞 hadaka-jime, a series of neck-cranks and jaw-smooshes that are better in the sense that you will not necessarily lose a match immediately because of them, but considerably worse in that they feel awful in ways that a nice clean blood-choke never does (blood chokes are of course among the friendliest of things that can happen to you in 寝技 newaza), and so you must largely bear them, these hateful crankings and smooshes. What a great first round! It really flew by!
Otsuka shoots low for a takedown early in round two, just like he did to start the bout; Silva more or less accepts it, but is less dynamic off his back this time around. This has probably occurred to everybody else already, but Silva and Bas Rutten (who is very much enjoying this match on commentary) were pretty similar fighters, weren't they? Great striking, really sharp submissions at times, but not so much with the takedowns or defence thereof. Round three starts identically, but rather than the positional caution that characterized round two, we're back to round-one energy, as Silva follows an 三角絞 omote-sankaku-jime attack with an 足三角絡み ashi-sankaku-garami in a way that comes nowhere close to finishing but which delights me considerably (it calls to mind a particular juji-gatame / sankaku-jime / ashi-sankaku-garami sequence that I have found in recent years you can totally teach to near-beginners with really good results [imagine my delight!]). As the round ends, Silva makes a spirited attempt at really any number of 足関節技 ashi-kansetsu-waza / leglocks, but Otsuka hangs tough throughout it all. Silva takes the unanimous decision, the judges clearly favouring his repeated attempts to finish over Otuska's surprisingly solid positional work. It is a decision with which I find no fault.
It occurs to me that, three fights in, if you made a card of the seconds in people's corners, you'd be all set for a robust 東京ドーム Tōkyō Dōmu: so far we've had Yoshida (Ohara), Coleman (Randleman), Sakuraba (Yamamoto), Wanderlei Silva (Silva), and hey I'll throw Tra Telligman (Mezger) in there too; I've got no problem with Tra Telligman (I actually just checked his Wikipedia, and here is the entirety of his "Personal Life" section: "Personal life [edit] Telligman is married.[1]" [hell yeah, brother]).
The very clever observation I have just now cleverly observed is made all the more clever by the arrival of Josh Barnett (book it! book this Tokyo Dome show!), carrying a rad banner in support of 小路晃 Shoji Akira, who has been training at the AMC Pankration gym in Woodinville, Washington under Matt Hume and alongside not just Barnett but also Bob Sapp, who is here too. He is to face Brazilian Top Team's Paulo Filho, and so, unsurprisingly, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira is among his seconds. They're all here! The stars have come out to shine! Corneringly! Filho is a judo dan-rank holder of no great distinction (more sympathetic I simply could not be), and a Carlson Gracie Jiu-Jitsu black belt with significant competitive success in that sport; I am mentioning these things to you now by way of introduction because I am pretty sure this is the first time we have seen him here together? And yes, upon checking, that turns out to be the case, as this is just his fifth professional match (decision wins over both 美濃輪 育久 Minowa Ikuhisa and 近藤 有己 Kondō Yūki so far! that's pretty good!). Shoji, of course, has been a scrappy little stalwart of a guy, with us since the very first PRIDE event, and a good number of those since. We find him here, alas, on something of four-fight slide (Almeida, Henderson, Schilt, Horn), but he seems like an optimist by nature.
Filho, who I sometimes thinks looks more like Ricardo Arona than Ricardo Arona does, flashes 大内刈 ouchi-gari, 払腰 harai-goshi, and 大外刈 osoto-gari early in ways that I very much enjoy, but when this contest does in time go to the mat (which felt inevitable, given both guys' preferences) it is perhaps surprisingly Shoji taking Filho's back after a failed 朽木倒 kuchiki-taoshi. Filho rolls through to guard, though, and seconds after Bas Rutten calls for a restart in the centre, hits a totally classic climbing 十字固 juji-gatame as though he was demoing it. A nice little match with a great finish, and some excellent sportsmanship both before and after. There is really no reason we can't all be friends.
Our next contest sees Heath Herring, still very much a dude of significance at heavyweight, against RINGS KING-OF-KINGS veteran Yuriy Kochkine of Russian Top Team. Herring's early pace is ludicrous, and in the ever-important transitions between 立ち技 tachiwaza and 寝技 newaza, he throws truly ghastly knees. Ah yes, of course he'd throw them from the north/south position as well (the classic "PRIDE knees"), and this excellent crowd is like HWAAAAAAIIIIII with each awful blow. Kochkine is a gamer, though, and the two exchange pretty solid 腕緘 ude-garami attempts moments thereafter. In the end, it's Herring's knees that win the day, although Kochkine is pretty miffed about the stoppage. Just holding your crossed arms about your forehead as Heath Herring rains knees endlessly upon your dome is probably not enough to convince the referee you're still in it, but I can honestly see both sides.
Hey, it's Andrei Kopylov! We love that guy! Let's go all the way back to RINGS 12/22/99: RISE 7th: WORLD MEGA-BATTLE OPEN TOURNAMENT KING OF KINGS, and things we got into at that time, as we attended "with all due rigour to our opening bout between Andrei Kopilov, a sambist long-admired in these pages, and Leonardo Castello Branco, a 1999 Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu world champion (of some kind or another; it's a very complicated scene [I'm sure there are excellent reasons for its cacophony {capitalism}]) who is new to us. AAAAAAHAHAHA Andrei Kopilov who is like a thousand years old has won in sixteen seconds with a rolling hiza-juji knee-bar straight out of the pages of Iatskevitch's Russian Judo Masterclass Book that I really should return to my friend this week LOOK I MADE A GIF OF THE WHOLE MATCH:
Will Kopilov find such favour and good fortune in this bout against the great Mario Sperry? Well no, as this one gets stopped on a nasty cut (or maybe a bad dental situation?) from a standing kick to the face six minutes into the opening round, but it was enjoyable while it lasted, if what you enjoy is aggressive positional 寝技 newaza (you know I do!).
Ігор Ярославович Вовчанчин / Igor Yaroslavovych Vovchanchyn vs. Quinton Jackson sounds potentially crowd-pleasing, doesn't it? I felt like I had not memory of this match at all until Jackson passed Vovchancyn a light-hearted note before the bell, which he would later explain was supposedly from his mother asking Igor to go easy on her son. We can see only a fragment of it, クソン "ku-so-n," which would be the transliterated second half of "Jackson," and then JACKSON in romaji on the bottom right, nothing more. There is the seed of a charming little gag here for sure, but handing a Ukrainian a note written in Japanese complicates it a little? Vovchhancyn smiles lightly and bows his head as he receives this strange but not unwelcome offering, and away we go. All of this was to say: I do recall the note thing, now that I see it, but beyond that, no memory of this at all. So I guess we'll just see! I am thinking about the unreal overhand right that is known as RUSSIAN HOOK in ファイヤープロ Fire Pro, and how Vovchanchyn is a CRITICAL!-menace with it (I know I need do nothing further to convince you of the limits of my boxing knowledge, but I think this kind of punch is sometimes called the "casting hook," or simply "casting punch"? I could easily be mistaken). This fight is actually pretty great: after some cautious, tactical kickboxing (as far as I can tell!), Igor grabs a 前裸絞 mae-hadaka-jime / front choke, and attempts to hop up into a finish; this leads, perhaps unsurprisingly, to really quite a slam, with another to follow not that long after. Jackson does solid work from the top, and seven minutes in, Vovchanchyn taps to rib injury that doesn't seem the direct result of a strike—maybe it came from an earlier slam?—but it sure seemed bothersome, and Vovchanchyn is normally a very stoic guy. Yikes!
Hey, remember a few PRIDEs ago, when Renzo Gracie, en route to a unanimous decision loss, spit on 大山 峻護 Ōyama Shungo, seemingly out of frustration because he couldn't take him down? I sure do! Anyway, Renzo's henched-up brother Ryan Gracie (congrats on the gains, bro) has no such physical or emotional difficulty here, as he plants Oyama immediately with a spirited 双手刈 morote-gari, and, when Oyama manages to reverse the resulting position, finishes with a very fine 腕挫十字固 ude-hishigi-juji-gatame to which Oyama does not tap, but totally should have (the referee extremely agrees with my position here, rather than Oyama's). With an ease that suggests that, between them, they've done it a thousand times before, Oyama's cornermen (Yoshida among them) fashion a sling out of his 帯 obi—a neat thing to do, but what a thing to have to do.
And there we have it: kind of a placeholder show to bridge the gap between ones of arguably way greater import, but not at all unpleasant. Pretty diverting! It had some guys we enjoy! And actually, looking ahead a little, there is in fact one further show, isn't there, before we are truly domeward bound ("I'm sittin' in the 新幹線 Shinkansen station . . . ") and that is MMA THE BEST Vol.3（エムエムエー・ザ・ベスト・ボリュームスリー）at the humble ディファ有明 / Difa Ariake / Differ Ariake, torn down and replaced ahead of the 2020 (well, 2021) Tokyo Olympics. I believe it to be the final event in the minor-minor THE BEST series, too, with the major-minor BUSHIDO series soon to succeed it in 2003. Yes, we are well and truly into it, my friends; well and truly. Into it.
OKAY SURE BUT WHAT DID DAVE MELTZER HAVE TO SAY ABOUT IT:
September 30, 2002:
from "OTHER JAPAN NOTES," but more precisely "THE LONG UWF NOTES":
"At this point it looks like Pride 23 on 11/24 has the working plan of it being the symbolic end of UWFI, a promotion that actually died six years ago, with Nobuhiko Takada’s retirement match. The idea is to build it up as a great moment for all the fans who grew up in the early 90s when UWFI was a hot promotion. While this will work far better in Japan than the U.S., the idea of theming a show based on nostalgia is a tough one. The feeling is there is a generation of fans who still loved the fantasy of UWFI as real pro wrestling and it’s the best theme with all the injured top fighters to draw a big gate. The show is hoped to be headlined by Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Vanderlei Silva each defending their titles plus several matches featuring old UWFI stars in action. Pride recognized that American fans will rip this line-up because they don’t understand what it is."
and
"Although this is largely fantasy, Japanese newspapers were reporting that Alexander Kareline’s term in the Russian Diet is coming to a close and he’d be interested in doing MMA next year. The story is that Pride is looking to match Kareline vs. Yoshida at National Stadium next summer. There’s a dynamic to the name value of that match that would probably be a huge ticket seller. There is legitimate talk in Japan that Kareline would like a huge money fight but at this point that’s not in the plans for Pride, but perhaps another group can raise the money. Kareline is the most decorated legitimate wrestler in history, having won three gold medals and one silver medal over the past four Olympics as a Greco-roman superheavyweight and going undefeated for 13 years until his loss to Rulon Gardner. He’s done one pro wrestling match in Japan, on February 21, 1999 at the Yokohama Arena beating Akira Maeda and drawing the largest arena setting gate in pro wrestling history at $2,479,000. If Kareline were to do it, the natural match-up would actually be a worked shoot with Naoya Ogawa which, with a strong undercard and the right promotion, has record setting business potential."
and
"K-1 and Pride both suffered a major blow as Mirko Cro Cop got a hernia and will be out until the spring, meaning he’ll miss the K-1 Grand Prix in December at the Tokyo Dome where he would have been the biggest draw. Cro Cop’s program with pro wrestlers on Pride shows was probably the most successful business angle of the year and was still going strong as no wrestler has beaten him yet." [Prayers up for big Mirko—ed.]
October 7, 2002:
"A “B” PRIDE SHOW, BUT IT LEAVES A BIG QUESTION – Pride’s 9/29 show at Nagoya Rainbow Hall, a generally successful show sandwiched between mega shows at Tokyo National Stadium and the Tokyo Dome, ended up with some “bad” results which leads to some big questions.
There were five Japanese fighters on the show. All lost, and not only that, the losses weren’t even competitive. As popular as Pride is, every major crowd the company has drawn with one exception (the Vanderlei Silva vs. Mirko Cro Cop match) has been largely drawn by a Japanese pro wrestler in the headline position, whether it be Kazushi Sakuraba, Yoshihiro Takayama, Nobuhiko Takada, Naoya Ogawa, Kazuyuki Fujita, Kiyoshi Tamura or Kendo Kashin.
But none of those names can be counted on for the future, and there are no young pro wrestlers who look to become the next Sakuraba, who have a strong Gracie family members to go through and create a real fighting legend. Sakuraba’s problems have been noted. Takayama has never won a Pride match but has lost in such exciting fashion that he would probably be more of a draw now than ever before. But it’s almost criminal putting him back in there due to the punishment he’s taken at his age. Takada, who has never won a real fight and Pride no longer does works, is retiring in November, a show where they are banking he’s got one last big gate in him. Ogawa won’t do shoots and seems controlled by the rival UFO promotion. Fujita has a great record, but has deep down acknowledged he wants to do pro wrestling because he knows he’s not the calibre of the top heavyweights. Tamura’s rep was destroyed in the Bob Sapp match. And Kashin doesn’t want to do it anymore.
It appeared the idea for this “building” show was to do something with Shungo Oyama, a good-looking guy coming off a win, albeit a boring one, over Renzo Gracie. They had the storyline of Ryan Gracie coming for reverse, largely with the idea the bigger Oyama would beat Ryan, who is largely considered someone living off the name and not a serious top fighter. Well, Ryan destroyed Oyama in 1:37, who didn’t tap and ended up suffering what was revealed days later as a broken arm, to headline before 9,391 fans.
The next Tokyo Dome show on 11/24 will be built around Hidehiko Yoshida, who they turned into a superstar in one night with the Royce Gracie match, and the Takada/UWF nostalgia theme. But Yoshida isn’t going to be able to beat the top level fighters simply with judo technique [he may do pretty well with it!—ed.]. They are floating the idea of Ryan Gracie (since Oyama was a judo guy so he could get revenge for his sport) or Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (which would be a bad idea) as opponents for him. Takada has already been announced as working the main event, so he’ll get one more mega gate and mega buy rate on his resume.
K-1 was a huge success in Japan largely based around Andy Hug, Peter Aerts and Ernesto Hoost, but that was a new thing promoted in a manner Japanese had never seen before (pro wrestling promotion but with real fights). Pride followed that technique and people like Silva and Bob Sapp are huge stars to the mainstream, but without grudge matches the Japanese general public can get into, they aren’t going to be able to continue to draw the crowds they’ve been doing the past three years.
The show, which will be entitled Beasts From the East II, airs on U.S. PPV on 10/13. Reports were that the first half of the show wasn’t good, but three of the last four matches made it a thumbs up show.
Five of the first six matches on the show saw guys with pro wrestling backgrounds in Japan face non-pro wrestling background guys, all with the same result.
1. Kevin Randleman beat Michiyoshi Ohara via decision after three rounds (20:00). Ohara was a long-time wrestler with New Japan, who the company stopped using after his embarrassing performance in a Pride loss to Renzo Gracie. These figured to be a quick squash. It was a squash, instead, that never ended. One-sided, but Randleman wasn’t able to finish Ohara and he was furious at himself once the match ended and stormed off to the locker room. Crowd booed both fighters and Ohara got a couple of yellow cards for stalling. Bad opener.
2. Guy Mezger beat Norihisa Yamamoto via decision after three rounds (20:00). Yamamoto, of course, has the long-time RINGS background. Mezger was in better condition in the fight, which was mainly standing. He outpointed Yamamoto with both punches and kicks and some nice combinations, including knocking him down once. Said to be decent.
3. Anderson Silva beat Alexander Otsuka via decision after three rounds (20:00). As you can imagine, this got old by this point. Otsuka, a long-time pro wrestler, was able to take the smaller Silva down, but Silva was more aggressive and better on the ground getting several near submissions. Otsuka suffered an ankle injury during the match
4. Paulo Filho beat Akira Shoji in 2:48 with an armbar. A one-sided match, making four one-sided losses in a row for the Japanese side. Filho was on his back, and used the ropes for leverage to trap Shoji’s arm for the submission.
5. Heath Herring beat Iouiri Kotchikine in 7:31. Said to be a great match. Herring pounded on Kotchikine (who had many matches in the past with RINGS) with knees to the head. He had a strong armbar but Kotchikine wouldn’t tap. He went back and landed eight more knees to the head and the referee stopped the match. Kotchikine protested, saying he was blocking the knees with his arm, but a replay angle showed even with the blocks, the knees were landing pretty hard.
6. Mario Sperry beat Andrei Kopylov in 6:02 when the doctor stopped the fight. Kopylov is another ex-pro wrestler, who was one of the top stars for RINGS some ten years ago and has great legit submission ability, but is now old and out of shape. Sperry dominated the match, throwing punches from the top. After escaping the guard, he landed a kick right in Kopylov’s mouth. Kopylov was bleeding profusely from the mouth. The match was stopped for the doctor to check the cut, and he stopped it.
7. Quinton Jackson beat Igor Vovchanchyn in 7:13 via verbal tap out. Vovchanchyn, who has probably had more MMA wars against top opponents than any name fighter who ever lived, appears to be shot now at 29. While Vovchanchyn was still able to outbox Jackson standing, Jackson’s power at his size is incredible as he did both a bodyslam and a powerslam. The match ended suddenly as Jackson got the mount after a slam and punched Vovchanchyn in the ribs and he tapped. As it turned out, Vovchanchyn suffered a broken rib and was in great pain. Not clear whether the rib broke from the slam, or from the body punch.
8. Ryan Gracie shocked Shungo Oyama in 1:37 with an armbar. Gracie surprisingly took Oyama down at the bell, but Oyama reversed him quickly. As Oyama was charging in for the kill, Gracie caught him quickly with a reverse armbar. Oyama wouldn’t tap, but the ref stopped it, but apparently not quick enough. Gracie, showing his sportsmanship, kicked Oyama to the face after the match and started mocking and insulting him, after it was over. I guess he considered it revenge for Renzo."
and:
"There have been numerous groups that have talked about doing a fight channel, one fairly prominent for years, that would have been based on the Samurai! network in Japan (24 hours/7 days per week of pro wrestling, boxing, kickboxing and MMA; the model was based largely around pro wrestling and martial arts movies). Anyway, the first launch, scheduled for early 2003, is a station called Blackbelt TV, which obviously means they are pigeonholing themselves since of all the programming on such a channel, the pro wrestling (would have to be using old tapes as well as some current international, maybe top-of-the-line indies) would still have the most potential for audience at the start. This station is going to be built around boxing, kickboxing and MMA competitions, as well as cartoons, self defense seminars, health & fitness through marital arts type shows and its primary draw would be buying the rights to 15,000 hours of martial arts movies. No formal contracts have been signed but CEO Larry Kasanoff said to Multi-Channel News that they’ve got verbal deals to appear on the digital service with six of the top cable systems. I believe they are also going to do either a martial arts nightly news show or some sort of a show with hosts. Here’s the monkey-see monkey-do situation on that. As hosts, they are looking for two hot looking women. Their press release says the hosts of the flagship show will be “gorgeous female fight jocks who will provide humorous, sexy and no-holds barred interstitial commentary.” Guess they must have missed those tapes of Terri and Trish Stratus on Excess on Saturday nights. Why is it so hard for people to realize when doing a news show, that it’s best to hire the best qualified people who deliver and speak well and have charisma and come across as if they know the subject? If a hot looking woman is the best qualified, or even if it’s close and she gets the nod because of looks, it is TV and it’s a cosmetic business. But to specifically look for people to fill a pre-conceived job would have eliminated most of the great and successful broadcasters in most sports, and even pro wrestling. I find it so baffling, since the role of a host or an announcer is so important in any sport and that so many of the most successful ones in history, whether it be sports or wrestling or whatever, were not cosmetically great looking people, that people would think looks before ability when it comes to that role. The backers of the channel are The Threshold.TV Inc., Fusient Media Ventures (who nearly closed a deal to buy WCW with Bischoff) and Sirius Investment Corp. (are they related to Sirius Satellite radio?). Larry Kasanoff will be heading the venture, who has a background in the “Mortal Kombat” franchise and oversaw production of Terminator II."
October 14, 2002:
from an article about Bob Sapp:
"The negatives of his entrance to pro wrestling are that he’s under K-1 contract, so pro wrestling organizations that want to use him have to go through Ishii. Ishii is not likely to allow anyone to beat him and they’ll need Ishii’s blessing for any ideas or angles. Within the traditional Japanese pro wrestling community, there is a huge feeling of impending problems, as there always is when people can see clearly the business is changing, and fear of major long-term damage from Ishii attempting to run the major wrestling organizations through creating these big attractions from K-1’s television exposure, and loaning them out, combined with Ishii’s understanding of fight business largely based on the job he did in creating and marketing K-1 and his background as a pro wrestling fan and learning the fight business through his work with a pro wrestling company, the early RINGS. There is also the question of how much Sapp understands Japanese pro wrestling, as the feeling is what he’s picked up is that in Japan, you can beat guys up more realistically and they’ll take it, but the differences in the products are a lot deeper than that.
Fight organizations and styles of real fighting have come and gone in both the U.S. and Japan, but worked pro wrestling has always stayed around because you can manipulate the most marketable people and because they can work more often. But the entire economic structure of the three sports have also changed and we’re in a major transition period, particularly in Japan. Years ago, the best real fighters that understood pro wrestling, saw it as a way to cash in on their skills and reputations. Now, because in Japan, there is more money in Pride than in the major wrestling organizations, it went in reverse as exemplified by Don Frye. Frye cashed in with New Japan, only to find, years later, that his biggest cashing in came by going back to where he started. But we’ve also been through the UWF phenomenon in Japan in the late 80s, which predated the UWFI phenomenon of the early 90s and later Pride and K-1 phenomenons. UWF and UWFI had incredible runs of popularity, but ultimately didn’t stand the test of time. For all the success Pride is now having, there are many who fear the same pattern will happen. And K-1 became a huge TV hit through creation of a few stars, all of whom are either past their prime and no longer around. Its ratings have declined to where the attempt to rebuild interest is coming from using the famous pro wrestling gimmick, the interpromotional angle, working with Pride, and now All Japan and New Japan."
and:
"All may not be as rosy as it seems financially when it comes to Pride. Announcer Bas Rutten noted on our radio show that at the Nagoya show, the contracted fighters were all told they would be taking a 30 percent pay cut. He also said that cutback in pay would be the reason the much talked about match with himself against Vanderlei Silva won’t be taking place. According to Pride officials, internally it has been suggested to cut pay back because there are only two companies who pay sizeable money for MMA fighters, and Pride is paying far more than UFC and there is no reason to do so. Right now the company says they are looking at cutting travel expenses and food cost expenses rather than fighters’ pay. UFC is also attempting to scale back pay because the idea now seems to be to lose as little money as possible for as long as possible until getting TV, which most concede is the only way it’s going to be able to become big. In what is really scary, Naoto Morishita announced that they are going to have to wait until 10/25, when Kazushi Sakuraba has a doctors check-up on his broke eye socket bone, whether he will appear at the 11/24 Pride Tokyo Dome show. Morishita said that if Sakuraba can fight, he would be put against a major name guy. That would give him one month to train after a serious injury. The money match is a third fight with Vanderlei Silva since Silva is defending his middleweight title on the show, but Silva is nobody to face giving up 20 pounds and not being in top condition with injuries. Pride has no other Tokyo Dome quality main event but has the building booked. He said that Hidehiko Yoshida would make his debut under Pride rules on the show. They are hoping the Yoshida win over Royce Gracie turns him into a drawing card, but with no MMA matches and starting out at age 32 with no striking experience, he’ll have to be protected or his star power will be short lived [or WILL it?—ed]. While there are outside rumors to the contrary, internally, Pride is against putting Yoshida vs. Nobuhiko Takada. If they had their way, they would end the show with Takada winning his retirement match, but that would require a low level fighter in the main event because I don’t believe they would work a fight now, because it would kill all the work they’ve done to get into the U.S. market. Saw the Pride show that airs on 10/13 in the U.S. and Canada. If you’re a huge Pride fan, you’ll probably like the show. If you’re someone who wants to see only the great shows, this is a show you can miss. The first few fights were okay. Kevin Randleman vs. Michiyoshi Ohara was bad as Ohara was just looking to survive and pick up his check. Randleman, due to being ill, had lost a lot of weight and looked like a light heavyweight against a heavyweight. But the last few were fine. The Heath Herring, Mario Sperry, Quinton Jackson and Ryan Gracie’s wins were all good, with Jackson vs. Vovchanchyn probably the most exciting match. The Gracie armbar on Shungo Oyama was a textbook example of why you tap, as Oyama got his arm broken largely for his refusal to tap after being in a tight armbar for too long in an exciting match. Gracie had put on a noticeable amount of quick muscle since his loss to Kendo Kashin [so you noticed that too, eh Dave?—ed.]. The expectation is they won’t air the Randleman match on PPV since the show is long with the first three going the time limit, although after that they’re all over with in the first round. Randleman was very sick with kidney problems going in and was violently throwing up the days before the fight. During the original commentary, when Stephen Quadros asked Rutten where he’d rank Ohara as a fighter, he said, right at the bottom. Rutten was even less kind when describing Ohara on our show."
and, in a crucial follow-up:
"We’ve got more on the Blackbelt TV station. The network is looking at itself as being based on anything from the fight/combat sports/martial arts and entertainment genre. The 'gorgeous female fight jocks' that we wrote about are going to be used more for bumpers telling people what is coming up next. When it comes to commentary itself, they are looking at people who know the subjects."
October 21, 2002:
"It was announced that the 11/24 Pride show from the Tokyo Dome would air on a same day tape delay (or as they say in hyping it, “live via videotape”) on PPV in the U.S. and Canada. That will be the biggest MMA weekend in history in the U.S. with that PPV coming two days after Shamrock-Ortiz."
and
"Pride got some major bad news when the tape of the 9/27 Nagoya show aired on TV on the afternoon of 10/5 and only drew a 4.7 rating, which may be the lowest rating a Pride show has ever done. Definitely the lowest in a decent time slot, which is largely due to the lack of marquee power of the card. The Tokyo National Stadium show did a 10.6 rating in a similar time slot, which was considered excellent. Sumuyabazale Dolgolsuren, 27, whose two brothers are somewhat known in Japan, one being a famous sumo and the other being a pro wrestler (New Japan’s Blue Wolf, real name Ceruzibde Dolgolsuren so you know why he got a name change), is expected to join Pride as a gimmick wrestler for the Tokyo Dome. Dolgolsuren was a powerful amateur wrestler from Mongolia, who lost to Kurt Angle in the Olympics in 1996 and a few years earlier lost to Kazuyuki Fujita in the Asian Games. After leaving amateur wrestling, he became a top star in both pro wrestling for the Mongolia Pro Wrestling Alliance and in sumo in his native country."
October 28, 2002:
This one's a little out of left field:
"At press time, it appears the earliest a proposed Brock Lesnar vs. Lennox Lewis fight could take place would be in the fall of 2003.
There were a lot of talks over the past week regarding such a match, including setting up some preliminary rules, guidelines and strategies. Late in the week, Vince McMahon called up the Nevada State Athletic Commission and said they were attempting to put together a match and would like it to be sanctioned and held in most likely Las Vegas, although he made it clear it was just in the preliminary negotiation stage. The sanctioning would be done to basically guarantee to the public that the match, as well as the undercard, would all be legit. The repercussions of both having it sanctioned by the Nevada commission as a real match, and having gambling on the outcome, and then working it, would be far too severe for either McMahon or Lewis to risk perpetrating that kind of a fraud as could be done in a non-commission state or in Japan. The plan was not to do this match and the proposed Kurt Angle vs. Michael Moorer bout on a regular pro wrestling PPV show, but on a separate PPV event with more of a boxing title fight feel.
However, McMahon’s timetable of a match in February, as a way to set the stage to lead into Wrestlemania, didn’t fit in with Lewis’ schedule. That includes a February boxing title defense against Vitali Klitschko on HBO, and a hoped for big money payday in June against Mike Tyson. Because of the risk of injury in such a match, Lewis’ people wanted to wait until after those two fights, and a possible third fight with Wladimir Klitschko (Vitali’s more talented brother). Lewis at press time was still said to be interested in doing the match in the fall. The Angle-Moorer match was said to be predicated on Lewis-Lesnar going through, but both sides are said to have agreed in principle to do the former bout.
Lewis, who described himself as a pro wrestling fan, having watched it regularly since childhood, was in Toronto this past week for a Muhammad Ali benefit. He told TSN that he was negotiating for a WWE slot, but said it would be as a guest referee or timekeeper, and claimed it was probably going to happen. The belief was that they would shoot an angle from a referee slot to build for the match. Others are questioning whether that would be smart booking. If the match stemmed from a stage pro wrestling angle, people would take it as pro wrestling, which is not what either side wants.
From the WWE standpoint, the gamble that was behind this was the idea that, in February, Lesnar would beat Lewis in a legitimate match. By doing so, Lesnar would become the drawing card that the company needs from someone in his position. Whether that would work or not is debatable and would depend a lot about how well the match is received. As we’ve also learned from shoot matches, it is usually better to lose a great fight than win a boring one. But that’s also not a hard and fast rule, either. A win over Lewis would make Lesnar a household name and an A list sports figure, something he isn’t, nor will he be under any other circumstances. Angle also beating a boxer in a legitimate match on the same show, would set the two up as something special leading into their planned Wrestlemania match. Without it, while they are the two best legitimate wrestlers in the company, that would mean very little toward building up a Wrestlemania main event to the general public.
The risks of putting the guys in a shoot match, where, because of the skills of their opposition, they could lose, would make it the match involving a world champion pro wrestler with the highest stakes in the history of the industry. New Japan last year put its world champion, Kazuyuki Fujita, into a shoot, but the opponent, Yoshihiro Takayama was considered “safe,” and even if the upset took place, all it would do is set up a pro wrestling rematch between the two so they were protected either way. Antonio Inoki was the biggest star in Japanese pro wrestling, but his match with Muhammad Ali was not designed to be a shoot even though it did wind up being that, and realistically, Inoki did take the biggest risk of a world champion pro wrestler ever by going into the ring that night. And while the night was largely a disaster, Inoki’s charisma was able to overcome it, and in the long run, he became a bigger star for having done it.
The rules that had been agreed to for the matches were that Lesnar would not wear gloves, nor would he be allowed to punch. Lewis would wear gloves. There would be a time limit on the ground for Lesnar to work before there would be a stand-up. There is no word on what that time limit would be, if it has even been agreed to, or how many rounds or the length of the rounds, or what kind of scoring system would be in place. A time limit on the ground of, say 20 seconds, would make things very difficult for the wrestler. A womens MMA show in Japan used those rules and the stand-up fighters were able to beat the stronger ground fighters in most cases, including some where the result would have been different under Pride rules. If the stand up rule is after a minute, that would even the odds up, but also make for a slower-paced fight.
If the fight were to be held in Nevada, there would be Nevada judges scoring the fight, which may favor the boxer if they’d be boxing judges looking at it with boxing eyes. And the main event would be drug tested. In this kind of a skirmish, there would be no advantage for the wrestler to be on steroids, because they aren’t going to get out powered or out wrestled. The steroids likely would work against them in conditioning the day of the fight.
The rules greatly favor the boxer, at least when compared with the MMA rules of the state of Nevada. The finishes would likely be either knockout or submission. Lewis has been fighting for decades with knockout finishes. Lesnar has never done a match where submissions are legal. If they do a match where pinfalls could decide it, the odds are that Lesnar would be able to take Lewis down and pin him rather quickly. But that’s unlikely. Lesnar, simply because he’s so powerful, once he took Lewis down, and the odds are still great that’s the first thing that would happen, may be able to get a rudimentary submission just based on power. But he’s untrained at it. The match may wind up being a series of takedowns and ground control, with Lewis waiting for the ground time limit to expire. The wrestlers’ best offensive weapon may be from a dangerous throw, a suplex on the head or a hard slam, similar to the kind of knockout blow Tito Ortiz gave Evan Tanner and Frank Shamrock gave Igor Zinoviev in UFC title matches. Again, Lewis’ side may insist on rules preventing a dangerous throw, since moves of that type are illegal in amateur wrestling and the last thing they want to risk is him getting a serious shoulder or neck injury from a bad landing from a suplex. I’m expecting dangerous throws to be banned but a lot of the rules don’t appear to have been decided. The longer the match goes and the more stand-ups take place, the greater the odds are that Lewis could tag Lesnar. In theory, Lewis would have the conditioning edge, but if most of the match is him being thrown around on the ground, Lewis would get tired first because without training for it, he’d have no ground wrestling conditioning. If the fight were to go a long time, Lesnar would get tired standing, and be more susceptible to Lewis’ skills.
Even though Lewis is a far superior boxer to Moorer, and Angle a better wrestler than Lesnar, under these rules, the odds in the two fights are largely similar. Moorer’s problem as a boxer is a weak chin, which is irrelevant when he’s in a situation where he isn’t going to get punched. Angle, like Lesnar, has no submission training. There is no way of knowing, since neither has been in the situation, who can take a punch better. Getting the home run shot before the take down is more a matter of luck, and Moorer can be as lucky as Lewis, and his punching power is enough to where Angle wouldn’t like being hit by him square. We’ve also seen in MMA fights, that wrestlers like Mark Coleman and Mark Kerr before having any submission training were able to use pure power to get submissions over people who are novices on the ground, and both Lesnar and Angle in condition are in the same league as wrestlers as Coleman and Kerr, and both Lewis and Moorer are novices on the ground.
The key point is the elimination of strikes on the ground. Even without submission training, once the wrestler got the match to the ground, he’d be able to control his foe, and even though boxers are used to taking far harder punches than a wrestler would give them, a ground and pound would likely make them want to turn their head as opposed to constantly getting punched in the face, making them susceptible to a choke. With the elimination of the punches, there is no fear factor for the boxer on his back other than the ability to withstand misery for a time limit waiting for a stand-up. But a strong wrestler against a novice can make them very miserable with a lot of tactics there is no way they would be used to.
Lesnar and Angle would be taking the biggest risk of any pro wrestler in modern history. It’s almost unfathomable to any long-time wrestling fan that this would ever happen, let alone WWE being the company that put it together. WWE did do “Brawl for All” as noted last week, and if anything, that should have diminished the odds they’d go in this direction. WWF also allowed Ken Shamrock, in late 1997 when he was one of the company’s biggest stars (just a few weeks removed from being in the main event against Shawn Michaels on PPV) to do a legitimate match with Nobuhiko Takada on a UFC show. The match ended up not taking place, largely because Takada figured Shamrock, another pro wrestler, would be willing to do put him over for a big payday. As it turned out he and WWF weren’t willing at the time to allow happen because it would have compromised Shamrock’s “World’s Most Dangerous Man” pro wrestling gimmick.
If the match takes place, Lesnar would either make himself into the biggest name pro wrestler of his generation, or his career as a main eventer would be in grave jeopardy. In the case of Angle, the risks may be even greater. At least with Lesnar, he’s losing to the reigning heavyweight champion and a win could make him the next Hogan or Austin. With Angle, a win probably doesn’t help him all that much. And a loss would hurt him, particularly since being a real wrestler is a key part of his character and marketability. While the Lesnar risk is one worth taking, the Angle risk really isn’t. Plus, the last direction the WWE needs to go is a situation where its talent, to get over to the top level, have to beat someone in a shoot. We’ve already seen the short-term benefits and long-term destruction that taking the wrestling audience in that direction causes in Japan.
Moorer, 34, was a former heavyweight champion who won the title in 1994 from Evander Holyfield and lost it via knockout in November of that year to George Foreman. He retired in 1997, but made a comeback in 2000 and won four of his last six fights, but is no longer considered any kind of a serious contender. After losing his last match via knockout in 30 seconds to David Tua on 8/17, his management has been open to him using his boxing rep just to get paydays. They even approached UFC recently about using him, which in a sense would be prostituting his name because it’s highly unlikely he’d have anything more than a punchers’ chance under those rules against any kind of a quality UFC style fighter. UFC turned it down because the sides were far apart on financial terms, as Moorer’s purse for the 8/17 fight was $425,000 and it is believed UFC has never paid anyone more than $200,000 for a fight. The feeling apparently was it wasn’t worth it to UFC for one of its top heavyweights to score a win over him to kind of build the prestige of the sport as its competitors being able to beat trained boxers, something insiders understand because they are more multi-faceted, but that the general public still doesn’t realize.
There has been talk of WWE hiring trainers for Angle and Lesnar, with names like Ken Shamrock and Don Frye having been discussed, to prepare them. As noted last week, if there are lessons to be learned from the Japanese promotions’ mistakes, it’s that Angle and Lesnar would need probably two months off the road, except for perhaps TV appearances to build up the fight, as well as coaching. Japanese who have backgrounds working with pro wrestlers, believe the time frame needed to peak is closer to six months to get away from the pro wrestling natural tendencies and away from the amateur wrestling natural tendencies, but these guys aren’t going to get six months under any circumstances. The coaching should be from a coach with a background in power submissions [what a deeply odd thing to say!—ed]. Frye, who may have trained at some point with Lesnar (as both had background training in Minnesota under Brad Rheingans for pro wrestling), is not a great submission fighter, but a really tough guy with a boxing and wrestling background. But his toughness and mixing it up ability is irrelevant under these rules. Shamrock is closer to what is needed in adding skills, because Shamrock does have a submission background based more on using his natural power as opposed to being a slick submission specialist like many of the Japanese or Brazilians, but probably the Pat Miletich, Tito Ortiz, Frank Shamrock or Matt Hume camps may be the best bet."
and:
"The main event on the 11/24 Tokyo Dome Pride show, which airs same day in the U.S., will be Nobuhiko Takada vs. Kiyoshi Tamura. As noted before, the theme for the show with Takada doing his retirement match, was the symbolic end of the UWFI. The promotion was very popular in the early 90s and Takada and Tamura ended up being their two biggest native stars. UWFI can be labeled the predecessor to Pride, since Takada was its first big drawing card, and its second big drawing card, Kazushi Sakuraba, started out with UWFI. Even though Takada vs. Tamura has little interest among hardcore MMA fans (and for that matter, little interest among the current Pride audience which is early 20s males where a Pride show is considered a high-class sports date in Japan and few of them were fans in the early 90s even though Takada was the guy who originally put Pride on the map) The Takada retirement and match is hoped to bring back for one night the early 90s pro wrestling fan base as Takada had one of the best track records as a drawing card of any pro wrestler in history. I only recall one famous match between Takada and Tamura, at Budokan Hall (storyline then was Tamura was being trained by Lou Thesz to beat Takada, although Takada won that one). It was an awesome match that just aired a few weeks ago on TSN before Raw in Canada. That was also a worked pro wrestling match and presumably, this will be an MMA match. If it is a shoot and for many reasons I don’t think Pride can afford a worked match right now, it may end up being the biggest money shoot match involving two certifiable pro wrestling superstars in history. In hindsight, it sure would have been smart had they sacrificed somebody other than Tamura at the feet of Sapp a few months ago now that he’s being counted on to draw a Dome sized crowd. Pride held a press conference on 10/22 to announce Tamura vs. Takada. Takada said that he wanted former UWFI stars like Yoshihiro Takayama (NOAH), Hiromitsu Kanehara (who hasn’t really resurfaced since RINGS went down [and oh how we have missed that guy!—ed), Yoji Anjo (All Japan) and Masahito Kakihara (New Japan) to fight on the show. They also said they would announce Hidehiko Yoshida’s opponent this week. Kakihara said that he’s booked on 11/24 for a New Japan show and doesn’t know if he can get out. Kakihara, while having fast hands when he was young, has never done a legit shoot fight and has really bad knees. Takayama, whose shoulder and eye are messed up, said he hasn’t gotten an offer from Pride yet for the show."
So that's that—no more mention of this upcoming エムエムエー・ザ・ベストMMA THE BEST than there was of any of the previous ones, it would seem, and while that may be Dave Meltzer's method, it shall not be our own! We'll talk about it plenty! When next we reconvene! To see about it! Until then, again, thank you my friends, and please do take care. It is cold and flu season.
