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シリーズ PRIDE（ナンバーシリーズ）
主催 DSE
開催年月日2000年8月27日
開催地日本
埼玉県所沢市
会場 西武ドーム
試合数全10試合
放送局スカイパーフェクTV!
入場者数 35,000人
PRIDE.10 IS AT LAST UPON US MY FRIENDS and I would like to begin by asking if you are able to recall the time its various glories were first visited upon you? PRIDE.10's, I mean? For me, it could not be clearer: the university judo club I had joined but a few short months before had been shunted from its improbably lovely Hart House training room to the worst part of the sweltering Athletic Centre basement (how do you swelter-up a basement? well they did it!) owing to summer renovations, and our 疊 tatami did not make the trip with us. We were left training on what I can only describe as "gym class mats," and our head instructor pretty much took one look at them and was like "looks like it's newaza summer." I still credit my enthusiasm for ne-waza (and, fifteen years later, our own club's emphasis on it [and, if you will forgive me this immodesty, the unusual ne-waza skill of our senior students]) at least in part to those formative summer months. At that same time, growing out of a curiosity I am pretty sure began with Fire Pro Wrestling A (ファイヤープロレスリング A [Faiyā Puro Resuringu A {the Game Boy one}]), I rented PRIDE.10 on VHS from Toronto's utterly crucial Suspect Video (which somehow lasted until 2017; that's unreal), and was delighted to see things I had only recently learned at the club reflected therein to such sikk effect. I just did a quick search to see if I have talked about Suspect Video before in these pages, and here are my findings (they may be incomplete):
"(I rented a tape of Pride 10 from the Suspect Video under Honest Ed's during an enormously formative period in the development of my ne-waza both technically and æsthetically.)" (QUINTET 2)
"Glancing at the rest of this card I am again struck by just how little I remember of these earliest PRIDE offerings but in fairness why would anyone (not a diss [to the time we are spending together to revisit them]), as this all happened really quite a long time ago, and even if you only saw them when you rented them from Suspect Video (there is a video store on the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles show called Weirdo Video that captures its ethos perfectly) or even when you picked up the early-Pride dvd sets when they came out, that's something like a dozen (or more!) years ago right there even." (PRIDE.4)
I have also treated The Karate Kid episode in verse, which I include here before returning to our findings:
my wife asked the clerk
at suspect video for
the karate kid
once he’d consulted
the computer he said no
with palpable shame
I am embarrassed
to tell you we do not have
the karate kid
not on dvd
not even on vhs
(this was years ago)
suspect video:
the best of horror, sf,
and exploitation
To return now to our findings:
"Kimo vs. Dan Severn! By reputation an all-time unwatchable fight, right? I have not seen it since probably 2005 when those sets of Pride 1-5 and 6-9 plus 11 came out (they were not going to give you Pride 10 as part of that deal; they knew what they had with that one [it's ok I rented it on VHS from the wholly admirably grimy Suspect Video underneath Honest Ed's [r.i.p. to Honest Ed himself and to that whole complex and also to that time] where my wife once asked the horror movie/metal guy at the counter if they had The Karate Kid and the guy was like I am so, so embarrassed and sorry to have to tell you this but I am checking in the computer and no we do not, please pray for me) and have no distinct memory of any of it so we'll just see, I guess. I am feeling pretty chill right now and the light is a little low and Doris the cat is sleeping in such a way that her little nose is somewhat whistly and I had a nice green tea a little while ago so I am not looking for excitement right now and will probably be ok with whatever, in all honesty." (PRIDE.1)
The mention of my dear little cat in that last one has me pretty broken up, in all honesty, as it is with great sadness that I share with you now that my wonderful friend Doris, mentioned more than once in these pages, passed peacefully last month at the age of sixteen. She was my little pal and I loved her very much.
I am sorry for bringing down the room by talking about how much I miss my little cat. But anyone who has lost a pet knows what an intense sorrow follows, and that has definitely been the case at our house. Doris loved to settle in as I would write (this is further evidence that she was a cat), so writing isn't so much a break from the heaviness of it all as it is an intensifier of it.
Actually there is a video I can show you that ties a lot of this together, in a way, in that it depicts Doris and I tussling in trademark fashion while watching what is probably a bootleg PRIDE DVD the summer after the one I am describing in all of the PRIDE 10 VHS Suspect Video newaza-summer talk above; also, and this might sound odd, but the fact that Doris as a kitten (2003!) had an instinctive way to fight that was actually pretty rad made me think it was weird that I didn't have a way to fight that was rad at all, and this definitely contributed to me thinking about taking up a martial art, and my friend Simon had quite a life in judo, and the university club was excellent, and one thing led to another, and anyway behold the martial prowess of Doris the Cat circa 2006 (embedded below, but that can get weird sometimes, so also linked here):
She loved to scrap! With me, that is: she was very much an indoor cat, though I have had occasion lately to reflect that they are all outdoor cats in the end. May peace be upon Doris the Cat. God bless the dead. Thank you for reading about her.
Let us turn to our show, though. Or rather, before that, let us turn to two items of interest that have come to my attention lately that I thought I should share with the group (the group is us). The first is that Youtube user "Indie Uploader" has outdone himself by posting 5h59m09s of "Weekly Pro Wrestling - Bridge of Dreams 04/02/95," available here (but for how long? you might want to gather ye rosebuds on this one). You will perhaps recall extensive Dave Meltzer writings on this subject as we made our way through the Fighting Network RINGS shows of that era, and an excellent brief write-up accompanies the video as posted to Youtube, so I will not belabour the matter unduly, but look at this card, just look (ctrl+c'd and ctrl+v'd from the Youtube post):
Weekly Pro Wrestling - Bridge of Dreams
April 2nd 1995
Dome Spring Full Bloom
Tokyo Dome
Crowd: 60,000
Raw Footage, not hand Held
(JWP)
Hiroumi Yagi, Cutie Suzuki, Mayumi Ozaki & Devil Masami vs. Fusayo Nochi, Candy Okutsu, Hikari Fukuoka & Dynamite Kansai
(LLPW - Mixed Style Match)
Harley Saito vs. Shinobu Kandori
(AJW)
Blizzard Yuki & Manami Toyoda vs. Kyoko Inoue & Aja Kong
(Go Gundan - Alien Death Match)
Uchu Majin Silver X vs. Ryuma Go
(IWA Japan)
The Headhunters & Cactus Jack vs. Shoji Nakamaki, Leatherface & Terry Funk
(PANCRASE)
Christopher DeWeaver vs. Minoru Suzuki
(PWF-GUMI)
Carl Greco & Don Arakawa vs. Yuki Ishikawa & Yoshiaki Fujiwara
(Michinoku Pro)
TAKA Michinoku, Gran Naniwa & Super Delfin vs. Shiryu, Sato & The Great Sasuke
(RINGS)
Chris Dolman vs. Akira Maeda
(UWFI)
Gene Lydick, Kazuo Yamazaki & Gary Albright vs. Billy Scott, Masahito Kakihara & Nobuhiko Takada
(FMW - No Rope Exploding Barbed Wire Death Match)
Pogo Daio vs. The Great Nita
(AJPW)
Johnny Ace, Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Stan Hansen, Kenta Kobashi & Mitsuharu Misawa
(NJPW)
Masahiro Chono vs. Shinya Hashimoto
---
For this show, which lasted over six hours, the Japanese magazine "Weeky Pro-Wrestling" managed to get 13 promotions on the card, but there were no cross-league matches:
The participating promotions in order of matches:
Japanese Women Pro-Wrestling Project
Ladies Legend Pro Wrestling-X
All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling
Go Gundan
International Wrestling Association Japan
Pancrase
Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi
Michinoku Pro Wrestling
Fighting Network Rings
Union Of Professional Wrestling Force International
Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling
All Japan Pro Wrestling
New Japan Pro Wrestling
Before the show, each of the participating promotions was greeted by a representative.
Akira Hokuto came into the ring after the third match and spoke to Aja Kong.
Lou Thesz was then called into the ring and gave a speech to the fans.
The 40-year-old Chris Dolman played the first match of his Retirement Series in Japan and was given various gifts. Before wrestling and MMA, he was successful in, among other things, judo, Greco-Roman wrestling and karate.
After the tenth match, there was the retirement ceremony for the 66-year-old Kintaro Oki , who was brought into the hall by Lou Thesz in a wheelchair and whose successes were read out. He then made a speech in the ring.
Then there was a Ten Bell Salute for the Korean wrestling legend. Great Kojika attended the ceremony . In the end, his theme song "Theme One" was played one last time by Cozy Powell.
A separate FMW ring was set up in the hall for the eleventh match between Pogo Daiyo and The Great Nita.
The Promotion Wrestle Association-R was not invited to the show because Genichiro Tenryu struggled with Tarzan Yamamoto, editor in chief of Weeky Pro Wrestling magazine.
On the same day, WAR organized WAR Battle Angel in cooperation with the competition magazine "Weeky Gong" in Korakuen Hall, in the immediate vicinity of the Tokyo Dome.
Hidekazu Tanaka accidentally announced a time limit of 60 minutes for the main event. However, there was a limit of 30 minutes for all fights on the show.
Tarzan Yamamoto and Shinya Hashimoto ended the show together in the ring.
Incredible, right? Word that this video spread, like, immediately after it was posted on April 28th. Dave Meltzer tweeted it out, saying first:
"Oh My God. This was just put up. As far as star power goes, probably the greatest pro wrestling show of all-time, 13 main events from 13 companies promoted by Weekly Pro Magazine in 1995"
Then:
"We should do a watch along show on this, but my God, it's like six hours."
And then:
"I was at it. I would not say it was the best live show I've ever been to, but it had the most top tier stars of any show I've ever been to. But there has never been a show like it in history."
In response to someone saying FMW-expert Bahu (remember him?) wrote about the show being a disappointment for that group, and how the tricked-out FMW ring set off to the side meant a lot of people couldn't see, Dave said:
"I remember seeing it just fine. It was weird, the people were not into that match at all. I think one of the key takes is with fans of so many companies as casuals, how over Misawa & Maeda were as compared to Chono & Onita. And except for All Japan, the women blew away the men."
Some strange person responded to Dave's original enthusiasm for the show saying "Depends what you want from your wrestling," to which Dave replied in turn:
"Star power. Check. Great matches. Check. 50,000 fans. Check. Misawa, Kobashi and Toyota on the same show. Check. Suzuki in a shoot. Check."
Which seems to me a Liquid Swords-level checkmate, as depicted here (on Liquid Swords):
Someone noted to Dave that "One thing too here, was the main rival, Weekly Gong, completely no sold this sold to ridiculous levels, and claimed the biggest show of the day was a WAR event (only promotion not at this show) at Korakuen," to which Dave responded, "Not just Weekly Gong. Every other media outlet pretended the show never took place. Even the daily sports newspapers ignored it. It was one of the biggest shows ever in Japan, and almost the entire media pretended it didn't happen."
If you think it is weird that I have included all of these things Dave Meltzer said on Twitter about the Youtube upload of Weekly Pro Wrestling Bridge of Dreams, I would at first concede that yes I suppose seen from a certain angle it is, but I would then point out that the top comment on the Youtube post of the show is from the Indie Uploader himself, and reads, "I appreciate Meltzer tweeting about this, if you're reading this Dave hurry up and unblock me." For me, this sparks joy.
I of course leave all of this very much to your own discretion, as little of that show, sikk though it may be (is) on its own merits, is directly relevant to our study here. I would be remiss as all hekk however did I not tell you that if you skip ahead to 3h18m16s (one wonders how many thousands of VCR "counter" units that equals) CHRIS DOLMAN VS. AKIRA MAEDA will appear before you, and I mention this because that is totally what we will talk about here before going into PRIDE.10, a no-less worthy subject, certainly, and yet not the most Fire Pro thing to have ever occurred in real life, which is what we're looking at as the winning side from the Michinoku Pro six-man (TAKA Michinoku, Gran Naniwa, & Super Delfin) head to the back to clear the way for Fighting Network RINGS. How can this have been real life. Note too that the VHS quality is just poor enough to really hit. I wonder if Dave is right that Akira Maeda was insanely over at this? We will have to wait on that a moment as Chris Dolman enters first to the corporate-training-video synth-funk of the early RINGS theme, sans RINGSrap in this instance, which is maybe the right call I don't know . . . HAHAHA I WAS WRONG HERE IT IS: "I am the champion, I rule all the ring, I am I, the king of the universe, I am I who conquers all, if you mess with me, hey, you're gonna get slayed, cuz I'm the king of all kings, I mean what I mean, hey, lemme tell ya, let's step into the ring" and so he does. This is incredible. And holy moly yes, this 東京ドーム Tōkyō Dōmu crowd is unreasonably into Akira Maeda; "the dirtsheets" have been vindicated. He's running to the ring! Down the Tokyo Dome ramp! This is already incredible.
If you thought the crowd was pretty into Akira Maeda before he got to the ring, just wait until you hear what they think of him once he is in the ring. And this is not because of any disdain towards his opponent, RINGS Holland's Chris Dolman, whom we too hold in highest regard. These two sportsmen (well, one sportsman and Akira Maeda, haha) shake hands just before the bell rings and now they are very much a-clinching. I LIKE THIS VERY MUCH ALREADY is the feeling in my heart as Dolman drives Maeda down with his bearlike girth and takes the back. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN one guy yells, and then seemingly maybe the same guy yells MAAAAAAEDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA no wait I am pretty sure it's two separate guys and anyway I would like to thank them both because they are adding so much to this right now. Leg locks are pursued, but we are all of us very much in the ropes, aren't we, so let's restart standing (clapclapclapclapclapclap). Dolman squishes Maeda's single-leg/朽木倒/kuchiki-taoshi/decayed-tree-inversion and comes close enough to the naked strangle of 裸絞 hadaka-jime that Maeda must needs burn a rope escape; Dolman may have partaken of one on some manner of ashi-kansetsu leg-lock when next they were down and OH HEY there's the finish on an ashi-kansetsu just now, and it came with true martial ashi-kansetsu suddenness as opposed to dramatic shoot-style ashi-kansetsuISM and so a good portion of the crowd was uncertain of the result until it was properly announced. But then they were pretty okay with it! Maeda and Dolman raise one another's hands at the conclusion of what was a totally acceptable Akira Maeda/Chris Dolman match though I am pretty sure not the best one (I would have to go back and check to see which one was the best one) but at the same time the setting and the crowd response made this really great to me, and I'm very glad to have at last seen it. Hear what comfortable words Akira Maeda sayeth as he praises Chris Dolman after the match (he definitely says judo; he definitely says sambo) and there are little trophies and such for Chris Dolman also, as is meet and right as his career draws to its end. I have not yet mentioned that all of this is impressively æsthetic but let me demonstrate to you now that it is:
Also there is an image I would like to share with you of Tsuyoshi Kohsaka's RINGS Japan tracksuit jacket but it is somewhat marred by the Youtube video player which pains me considerably but here it is all the same:
DOLMAAAAAAN, ARIGATOOOOO a fan yells as presentations of various curios continue, such as lovely print from the editor of Baseball Magazine and a neat little cabinet of samurai things that I absolutely guarantee that Chris Dolman still has at his house (not his gym, his house):
This really is great to see! I have been and remain staunchly in favour of Chris Dolman, as longtime readers will no doubt recall. It would be very weird for anyone reading this, I think, to not think Chris Dolman is at least slightly neat (though I suppose this is possible?). "Thank you very much for supporting RINGS, always the best fighting style in the world. Domo arigato," is the right way to end this, Chris Dolman, that's true. "Captured" plays again as Maeda and Dolman make their way, which is probably the right call instead of the RINGSrap in this particular instance though I bet it was a pretty close call.
Well that was a delight! I think I'll watch the other five hours and forty minutes of BRIDGE OF DREAMS another time, perhaps, though. Just the other day, there was a new Pacific Rim podcast where Jim Valley and Fumi Saito (obviously mostly Fumi Saito) talked about Bridge of Dreams, as Fumi was Weekly Pro Wrestling's lead columnist for years and years. He wasn't at the show, though, and for just the worst reason: he had to go to America for Wrestlemania XI! Poor Fumi . . .
There is only one more thing I wanted to share with you before we actually get to PRIDE.10 and that is this fifteen-second Japanese television ad for Sega's Virtua Fighter 3 Team Battle for the Dreamcast (what else?) which I will also attempt to embed below but as I have mentioned previously in this very post, the embedded videos get weird sometimes:
Isn't that wild? I sent this to a number of my judo pals (several of whom are also jiu-jitsu players) and wrote things to the effect of "I guess it's 400-1!" and we all had a nice time about it. I have mentioned バーチャファイター Virtua Fighter more than once in these pages, certainly, but I would like to state as clearly as I am able that the comments are very much open for any and all Virtua Fighter talk, such as how weird it is that the 32x Virtua Fighter is the most æsthetic version of that first game (Virtua Fighter 10th Anniversary is wonderful but different enough, in that it is truly VF4: EVO underneath, to not really be part of that discussion), or how Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown is not only a crass oversimplification of Virtua Fighter 5 (for really any number of reasons; again: let's talk) but in fact a true betrayal of all that Yu Suzuki had given us? From there we could branch out into Yu Suzuki talk more broadly, centering, at least for a time, if we maybe could, on Hang-On (Sega Mark III/Master System, please):
That is a gif I made of a part of Hang-On that I find powerful. I wrote a poem about it once:
the dream of hang-on
fleeting as any other
is the city night
AND NOW IT IS TIME FOR PRIDE.10 WHICH I REALLY DO ENJOY TO STYLE THAT WAY WITH THE PERIOD IN THERE BUT I WILL CUT IT OUT BECAUSE WHILE VISUALLY STRIKING IT IS ALSO A LITTLE CONFUSING as the crowd gathers in and around the 西武ドーム Seibu Dо̄mu, sometimes styled SEIBUドーム which is visually very strong. Oh no how can this be: joining Stephen Quadros on commentary is Eddie Bravo; no; no. I have absolutely no recollection of this impossibly dark fact. I must have blocked it out, like in a real way. I am not going to go any further into all of the ways in which Eddie Bravo is absolutely the worst: if you're familiar with those reasons already, I am sorry; if you are not, you have lived a blessèd life and I hope that it continues to be that way for you. The first match sees 松井 大二郎 Matsui Daijirō face a full-on, juiced-as-ever Vitor Belfort, like Vitor is beyond swole here. I think it was maybe in just last week's Observer (or perhaps the one before) that Dave Meltzer was writing about how weird it was that when Vitor's "therapeutic use exemption" for "all drugs" was taken away he became a shriveled old man decades beyond his years, and now that he is fighting for ONE FC he is once again jakked beyond and all things and ways. Note though that I have not seen Vitor recently and am relying utterly on hearsay. Belfort has had Matsui down for a really long time and has been hitting him such that Matsui has a bad cut. Vitor has Matsui's back for a lot of the time, but not in a way where he even has hooks; he is just squishing down upon him and hitting semi-legally (some are to the back of the head). That's the whole first ten-minute round. I wonder if they've figured out to do 10-5-5 yet? It really turned out to be the best way to do it. You will perhaps have noticed what a good job I have done of not telling you things Eddie Bravos is saying.
Nobuhiko Takada has advice for Matsui between rounds but we have been presented with very little evidence over the years that Matsui should listen to it, unless it is advice related to how to look ultra-sharp in purple boots (fair is fair). I don't know if I have mentioned this but I have never really enjoyed Vitor Belfort very much as a fighter, as I find it unrewarding to watch this guy who everybody says is a great grappler but who never does sikk moves of it (grappling) and instead just punches, which he is not objectively good at in like a professional boxing way, but good at against people who aren't very good at it either, so in Vitor Belfort we have the whole problem with mixed martial arts in a single guy, I am discovering as I get to the end of this sentence. When I watch Vitor Belfort, as I am doing right now, I am not just like "I don't care about this" but indeed "I honestly don't see how anybody would care about this" and it just gets me down. He might be a very nice man for all I know but I am just out on this dude's style, utterly out (on it). This is not too much of a match, and to me, it's Vitor Belfort's fault. So to return, then, to Suspect Video, after a fashion: recently I decided to try once again to read through all four-hundred-sixty-four pages of Kagan McLeod's Infinite Kung Fu comic (amazing video trailer for the comic here, full ***** for the trailer), which I have attempted several times in the past but never quite managed. Visually, it is just the best (McLeod makes his living as a magazine and newspaper illustrator, and you may very well have seen his work just going about your regular things) but the story is a little bit here and there, as I recall (maybe it won't seem that way this time! I choose hope!). After the introduction by Gordon Liu (how neat is that!), there is a foreword by Colin Geddes, whom, if you were of the Toronto of a certain era, and you were interested in martial arts movies or really genre cinema at all, you would definitely know as the curator of Kung Fu Fridays, a series that ran at a few of the different rep cinemas to a group of small but enthusiastic disciples, who would get pins like this:
and then fourteen or fifteen years later, when they still have a little button like that in a drawer, they would write a poem like this:
these many years on
I remain a staunch kung fu
fridays disciple
Colin Geddes did Kung Fu Fridays for years and years, and also ran the Midnight Madness section of the Toronto International Film Festival for even longer (I have read that he was important in getting Takashi Miike screened in North America, and also Prachya Pinkaew aka the guy who made ONG BAK), and I remember he also put together a programme of kung fu movies that ran at the little theatre they had at the Art Gallery of Ontario (I fell asleep at one but this is not unusual [it was maybe Dirty Ho?]). When Kung Fu Fridays ended in 2006 (there have since been a few one-night-only revivals, I think), CBC did a little thing on it in which Geddes doesn't come across all that well I guess but I was still happy to find it recently. I went to that last screening of Crippled Avengers at the Revue (it was by then a total dump with all kinds of exposed speaker wire and what seemed like all these extra radiators, like just way too many of them), and arrived super early fearing a sell-out (which indeed it was) and the first person I saw when I got there was DAN LOVRANSKI, if you can believe it, which you totally can if you've already watched the CBC video because he speaks in it (though he is not identified). Dan Lovranski (who used to front a punk band called Bruiser Brody that I never saw [possibly for the best {though who can say}]) was a key dude of the Live Audio Wrestling radio show with Jason Agnew and John Pollock, all of whom are still around in that world, though now on the Patreon-funded end of things I believe. Lovranski once named The MMA Encyclopedia as his book of the year, which is super dark, but I appreciated it. They used to host wrestling nights at a pub on College Street called O'Grady's and they were all super nice guys. But yes, Colin Geddes and Kung Fu Fridays, a film series we happened upon by accident when the Royal Cinema (also on College Street) misprinted its Friday night listing and we went expecting The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and instead saw something that I could have sworn was called The Good, The Bad, and the Beautiful though I can't seem to find a kung fu movie by that name right now. Anyway, there was almost nobody there, but it was a reasonably pleasant time, and I was just enormously in on the concept. I should mention the best Kung Fu Fridays story, which is from before my time, back when the series was at the Metro Theatre in Koreatown, which I knew as the pornmost theatre in town ("why do they rent batteries?" I wondered at their sign), and Quentin Tarantino showed up one time to see The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and brought with him an enormously bored Mira Sorvino. ISN'T THAT A GREAT STORY? I just love it! So yeah Colin Geddes, he of Kung Fu Fridays (amongst other attainments -- like he is a movie producer and such now -- also he showed up as the first guy to speak in a pretty good documentary [it is very stylish and informative but trails off hard] called Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks I saw on Netflix a few weeks back), wrote a foreword to Infinite Kung Fu, and it says, in part this:
"One of the best jobs I ever had was being the manager of Suspect Video & Culture, a hole-in-the-wall video store located in a corner of the Toronto city block that houses the mammoth discount store and landmark, Honest Ed's. Suspect was a repository of everything related to deviant film culture and had a staff that, although surly [not my experience of them at all: they were always nice to me, even the young lady who had to repeat the name of the band she was listening to several times for me to catch it {it was Unsane, who I later saw play at Lee's Palace, emptier than I'd ever seen it}--ed.], were deep wells of knowledge on all areas of film culture, high and low, just waiting to be tapped. The store was jammed full of comics, magazines, toys and dusty shelves of VHS tapes of rare films ranging from horror, sci-fi, biker, anime, conspiracy docs, blaxploitation and, of course, kung fu. One afternoon I got a call from a woman who had very prim and proper phone manners, who proceeded to ask me if we did special orders. Of course we did, I told her, expecting to get a request for some BBC TV series [dude she did not call Queen Video {also excellent, but different}--ed]. But she proceeded to blow my mind with a request for some uber-rare kung fu titles like Mystery of Chess Boxing, Eight Diagram Pole Fighter, and others. Clearly these titles were not for her, but for her son's birthday, and I was glad to source these VHS tapes to make the day of a kung fu fan out in the burbs. A few months later I got to meet the young grasshopper, Kagan McLeod, who turned out to be a lanky and enthusiastic, but shy young adult when he came by the store for a visit. Suspect was often like a cool speakeasy where people hung out and gabbed about their favourite films and swapped trivia. We'd trade facts about our fave martial arts actors and their bouts, like Sammo Hung monkey boxing in Knockabout or Lar Kar Yan's smackdowns in Legend of a Fighter. Then came the loaded question from Kagan: 'I saw that you guys sell zines and comics on consignment. Can I bring in my comic for you to sell?'"
Geddes then details his concerns that it would be terrible (because of how, immediately post-Matrix, there was a lot of interest in Hong Kong action but it was in his view insipid and trivial!) but how in the end it wasn't -- what a relief! Please forgive me this long digression but when I re-read that foreword the other night for the first time in years and years, the Suspect Video link seemed freakily à propos given the PRIDE.10ISM I have been engaging with. Also it turns out my copy is autographed, which I wouldn't have told you:
 |
| The George Clintonesque character is called "Moog Joogular" |
"Starting Sunday, March 22 we’re going to be holding the first of what we hope will be a regular uninstructed life drawing session with Toronto artist Kagan McLeod!
Kagan has been illustrating for newspapers, magazines and design firms since 1999. He has received awards for his work from such groups as the Society of Newspaper Design, the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles, American Illustration and the Society of Publication Designers. Kagan’s latest book Draw People Every Day: Short Lessons in Portrait and Figure Drawing Using Ink and Color was released last summer by Watson-Gupti, and this isn’t even mentioning his numerous comics works, including Infinite Kung-Fu and Kaptara!
This session will feature a live model and a playlist curated by Kagan McLeod!! There is a $10 cover charge to help pay our model, Meredith!
Here’s the details all in handy point form!
-UNINSTRUCTED LIFE DRAWING WITH KAGAN MCLEOD
-SUNDAY, MARCH 22
-6:30-9:30PM
-THE BEGUILING, 319 COLLEGE ST
Hope to see you there!"
THIS.
IS.
UNSANE.
Also the more I think about it, I must have picked this book up at Strange Adventures; there's no way I was at The Beguiling in 2011. He must have been in Halifax and signed a bunch for Strange Adventures, which, though lessened by its move to a nicer location (it could not be helped: the building that housed Night Magic Fashions above its dank basement relam was being redone), is still a lovely place.
FINALLY, I think, on the whole Suspect Video scene, at least for now (ah but who am I kidding), in 2012 I listened to an interview with Kagan McLeod wherein the interviewer talked about seeing Rumble in the Bronx as a teen and then finding everything kung fu he could at the good video store, then the bad video store, then the flea market, and McLeod is like yeah, I miss that, there's no place to do that anymore, to which the interviewer replies that Swedish pirate sites are maybe the new video stores in this regard, to which Kagan McLeod says, "I guess that low resolution is the new bad tracking," and I was so taken with that turn of phrase that I adopted the badtracking name for all of my music and my twitter and the whole works (that is it actually, just those two works [also it is just very much "the æsthetic" obviously]). I am perhaps alone in being struck at how interconnected all of this is? I should be less so, maybe, when I bear in mind something that my friend Neil said once as a corrective to an idea some of our internet friends have put forth that I seem to like everything, and Neil's observation was that no, in fact I like very few things, but like them with great intensity, and tend to speak of comparatively little else. In light of this observation, for which I thank Neil, as I think it generous to have said, it should not be so weird when everything kind of comes together in what seems to be a strange way, because there is relatively little to come together, if you see what I'm saying, and yet here I am thinking strange thoughts all the same, and if you think the thoughts are strange, then wait til you get a load of the feelings.
"It doesn't look like Vitor is trying to finish Matsui," Stephen Quadros rightly notes well into round two. A clear but tedious decision win for Belfort, but look at all the time it allowed us to walk once more the shady lanes of the past! And so it has been a gift to us (at the very least to me) from both Vitor Belfort and Daijiro Matsui and I thank them both for it.
The Seibu Dome, home to the Saitama Seibu Lions (埼玉西武ライオンズ Saitama Seibu Raionzu; GO LIONS), was first built as an open-air stadium, and then years later they built the roof, and left a little bit of space where the light comes in ("ring the bells that still can ring / forget your perfect offering / there is a crack in everything / that's how the light gets in," is an idea I just had) and it's really lovely as the sun starts to get a little low in the sky. It might be pretty rough for playing baseball in though depending on how it hits around the plate I imagine though.
WANDERLEI SILVA VS. GUY MEZGER extremely seems like a PRIDE match of this period and let me tell you that I am "here for it." There's a really nice ramp-and-elevator set-up to the entrance situation, and I welcome any little quirk like that to a stadium entrance, though all of course dwell in the great shadow cast by those little carts that looked like rings in Wrestlemania III. The hope here is I can find an image of André the Giant and a despondent Bobby Heenan in one . . . well this is close: André the Giant and a not-yet-despondent Bobby Heenan in one (R.I.P. to both, of course).
Mezger and Silva both come out firing, and Mezger is doing great: he has Wanderlei cut, and lands a really slick left high-kick yiiiiiiiiiiiikes though, Silva wobbles him and then knocks him very out with a combination of big wide looping hooks and an awfully deliberate-looking head-butt. Sounds weird to say about a fight in which he got knocked out in three-minutes and forty-seconds of the first round, but Guy Mezger looked really good here, especially when you keep in mind just what Wanderlei Silva was in the process of becoming: he's about to go on a twenty-fight run over five years where the only people he does not finish are Mirko Cro Cop, Mark Hunt, and Hidehiko Yoshida, the first two of whom are K-1 fighters both bigger and technically better than Silva (not that my thoughts on striking merit any consideration), and in the case of Yoshida, Yoshida just turned out to be able to take a punch improbably well for a guy with no background in that and just like a good-natured disposition about it (you can't teach that). This is Wanderlei Silva just getting settled into that whole way of being. So good job, Guy Mezger, all things considered.
Next we have golden-boy Ricco Rodriguez, who fought Gary Goodridge but two short months/one brief PRIDE ago, against Takayuki Okada, billed here as GIANT OCHIAI, who I don't actually remember even a little. Let me see about him: okay I have learned that he is a Fighting Investigation Team Battlarts (格闘探偵団バトラーツ Kakuto Tantei-dan Batoratsu) guy, which is a rightly exalted kind of guy to be, who also worked for Riki Chosu's Fighting of World Japan Pro-Wrestling, so okay his taste-level is high; that much we can say with certainty. Oh my goodness, though, this is terrible news: "After an August 2003 'training accident' while training with Kenzo Suzuki[4] at World Japan's dojo, Okada suffered an acute subdural hematoma and entered a coma from which he never recovered.[5] Okada died on August 8, 2003. Okada's August 13 wake was attended by Masaaki Satake, Nobuhiko Takada, Kazushi Sakuraba and World Japan Management Director Katsuji Nagashima. A moment of silence was held in PRIDE Grand Prix 2003 in his honor." A subdural hematoma is what ended Katsuyori Shibata's career, was it not? He was spared the fate met by Giant Ochiai, mercifully. R.I.P Takayuki Okada aka Giant Ochiai. Here's some more about him: "As a student, Okada won the All Japan Industrial High School Judo League Championship four times. After graduating from college, he would went to train at the Seidokaikan Tokyo Bom-Ba-Ye dojo [that of K-1 promoter 石井 和義 Ishii Kazuyoshi, who learned his craft at Fighting Network RINGS, as we have discussed --ed.] with Naoyuki Taira. He also joined the amateur division of Shooto, placing second in its All Japan Amateur Shooto Championship in 1998 and 1999. In 2000, after Seidokaikan mainstay Masaaki Satake tried his luck in PRIDE Fighting Championships, Okada followed him in order to do his own debut. He gained the ring name of 'Giant Ochiai', sporting shades and a large afro wig over his actual afro hair during his entrances, which drew popularity among the fans. The origin of the name would be found in his large height and weight and his mother's maiden name, Ochiai."
Well now that we're all pretty sad about Giant Ochiai, let's see how he makes out against Ricco. The matches, by the way, are two ten-minute rounds, if you were still wondering about that (I know I was). Ricco is in good cosmetic shape here but you can see how there is a really squishy guy yearning to break free from the confines within which he is presently bound, like it's only a matter of time. Giant Ochiai has a strong Party Guy look for the period, and an impressively hairy back that he has just as impressively chosen to do nothing about:
I have enough rudimentary Japanese to know that Giant Ochiai's shorts say "mamushi" on the bottom, but nowhere near enough vocabulary to know what that means or why the crowd would low-key go "HWWWWWAAAAIIIII" when the camera lingers over the word, and so I consult romajidesu.com because of how we are scholars of this:
Ricco starts out with great confidence in his striking, it looks like, and why shouldn't he, as he is connecting with all kinds of things. Ochiai sprawls out of a couple of long-distance 双手刈 morote-gari/double-leg attempts before Ricco does a really nice job with a 手車 te-guruma/hand-wheel or 掬投 sukui-nage/scooping throw (as you like it). Ricco is of course an excellent grappler (although still a brown belt under Jean Jacques Machado at this point) but is unable to get any farther than the half-guard of niju-garami. In a fit of pique he swings around for a 膝十字固 hiza-juji-gatame knee-bar, and although Eddie Bravo is sure Ricco has it, Ricco does not in fact have it (perhaps Joe Rogan makes this same call so often/so famously as an ongoing tribute to his sensei?). Ochiai slips out of a number of things before being smothered between Ricco's yet-to-be-ample bosom. Seriously that is what happened for the finish. Ricco Rodriguez says he loves Japan and he loves the fans, dōmo arigatō!
We are shown compelling backstage footage of Mark Coleman taping up Gary Goodridge ahead of his match with Gilbert Yvel, who, for his part, is shown kneeing pads so hard that I am left disturbed. If I'm not mistaken, this match is a horror show? Maybe it's super pleasant and I am just remembering it wrong. No, it was awful: a great big kick to the head twenty-eight seconds in, and Gary Goodridge is knocked out just hideously. Goodridge's sister, who is always at his fights, is blanketed over him in concern. It's a dark scene. Gilbert Yvel dedicates his fight to the recently departed Swiss karate fighter Andy Hug, who had died only three days before. The crowd receives that dedication warmly.
Things are bound to get lighter as Mark Kerr hits the ring! I don't know what this music he's coming out to but it is incredible in a Japanese ring-entrance kind of way, like in the way Kiyoshi Tamura's "Flame of Mind" is more Fire Pro than anything that has ever appeared in Fire Pro? Like that, but with a different energy, but like that. His opponent is Igor Borisov, whose only previous professional match, I think, is a win over Giant Ochiai in Satoru Sayama (aka TIGER MASK)'s "Ultimate Boxing" show (why was it not held under the auspices of SHOOTO? or maybe it was, what do I know). Borisov is said to be a sambo world champion, but that can mean any number of things. A slim band of twilight tells us that the sun has nearly set outside the Seibu Dome. It's quite lovely. An overhead shot reveals that there are just enough sponsors now that the PRIDE canvas really looks like the PRIDE canvas (reproduced with such fondness and pseudo-exactitude in ファイプロ・リターンズ / FaiPuro Ritānzu / Fire Pro Returns). The time is not yet right for the Pride Canvas to say "Virtua Fighter 4" but soon; soon. Mark Kerr wins with a 首挫 kubi-hishigi / neck-crush / "can-opener" quickly. Borisov is very hurt by this dangerous technique and is carried from the ring on a stretcher. "He's alright," says Eddie Bravo, an absolute idiot. Just one match removed from a thorough Kazuyki Fujita drubbing, the commentators agree that there is probably no one who can beat Mark Kerr, who is about to lose ten of the final twelve matches of his career. "There's no escape here, too tight, too solid, could have broke his neck," is the revised commentary offered over highlights by Eddie Bravo, the lowest fool.
In a pre-taped interview, Stephen Quadros asks Igor Vovchanchyn about working out in hotel rooms. Through a translator (Smashing Machine enthusiasts will be able to summon her image, or at least her glasses, to mind immediately), Igor says he simply stretches, performs various exercises, and boxes; he assures us that fifteen minutes is enough. His opponent is Enson Inoue, who is wearing gi-pants, or ズボン / zubon. There's a great Wiktionary entry for zubon! Let's explore it together:
Etymology
Borrowed from French jupon (“petticoat, underskirt”),[1][2][3] from French jupe (“skirt”), from old Italian jupa, from Arabic جُوبَّة (jūbba, “long garment”).
Note that the meaning has changed from “underskirt” to “trousers/pants”, and the second consonant has changed from /p/ to /b/, possibly influenced by native Japanese onomatopoeia ずぼん (zubon), describing the action of something sliding into place, as when one puts on or takes off trousers.
Isn't that great? The French "jupon" survives into Middle English and appears twice in the 14th-century Alliterative Morte Arture, a four-thousand line poem I have lightly translated and glossed as Arthur is Your Enemy Forever, which can be read here. Or just go here for just about everything, but Arthur is for sure the only thing I have done that says "jupon" in it. Things continue to come together weirdly! (Though as Musashi tells us, if you come to know the Way broadly, you will see it in all things [wouldn't that be a treat!]).
Enson was probably not wrong to zubon-up his zubons, but it did him no real favours. The two fighters came out swinging wildly but not in a way that was not exciting so much as revelatory, and what was revealed is that this isn't really a sport. Once they're on the ground, Igor just hangs out in Inoue's guard pounding away, despite Inoue's best efforts at throwing up triangles and jujis. He couldn't really get anything going in that regard. By the final minute of the round, Igor had nearly passed the legs, and Inoue turned away from the many awful punches thrown towards him in such a way that I thought the referee would just end the match, but no, the bell sounds to end the round, and Inoue is incapable of standing without help, so that's a TKO / doctor stoppage after ten brutal minutes. Enson Inoue, whose Twitter presence is quite lovely (I was moved recently by the fasting day he observes each year in memory of one of his dogs) is for sure one of those "too tough for their own good" kind of guys. I hope he is well these days. He seems to be.
Next up is Ken Shamrock, who I am not capable of finding interesting, like very soon it will be twenty-seven consecutive years of not finding Ken Shamrock interesting. His opponent is 藤田 和之 Fujita Kazuyuki; now there's a guy who is interesting! I don't suppose we have yet had occasion to talk about the 3-29-20 Pro Wrestling NOAH GHC heavyweight title match between Kazuyuki Fujita and Go Shiozaki? And how it is an unreal æsthetic achievement that seriously considered absence and dealt fearlessly with our moment in history? A beautifully clear copy can be seen here and I cannot recommend it highly enough. To me, it is the match of the year in more than the usual sense. Fujita enters the PRIDE arena to the strains of Honō no Fighter (Part 1) (Antonio Inoki Theme) アントニオ猪木, as it is titled at that youtube link, after having been introduced by the ring announcer whom after some initial confusion my friend Russell Mac and I have determined to be Kei Grant:
The commentators tell us that Don Frye, Fujita's NJPW fellow and second, has a great deal of antipathy towards Ken Shamrock and other Lion's Den fighters stemming from some incidents years prior. ANTONIO INOKI STRONG-STYLE LOOKS ON FROM RINGSIDE:
The crowd is more indifferent to Ken Shamrock than I would have anticipated but not any more than I understand. Fujita, though, this Fujita, they like. Shamrock is all juiced up for this but that has very much been the vibe of the night so far so one can only be so critical given the overall context. Shamrock does well enough in the early moments, sprawling out and landing a decent shot to Fujita's great big head, but Fujita's great big head is kind of impervious to (short-term) damage. Shamrock is yellow-carded for egregious rope-grabbing in avoision of Fujita's quite mighty takedown attempts and actually could have been yellow carded for that same affront a moment or two later. Eddie Bravo insists that Fujita is about to tap to a guillotine choke but that is plainly overreach on his part (Bravo's, I mean). Shamrock is dong really very well, it must be said (Bravo goes so far as to say that Shamrock is fighting a perfect fight) but one wonders how well his big dumb useless juiced-up cosmetic musculature will fare if he has to keep on moving his ludicrous body for even a little while longer as things continue except one doesn't wonder that at all does one because this is the infamous "Petey, My Heart" episode and everybody knows it. Let us all turn to that entry in our copies of The MMA Encyclopedia (except please do not). What has always struck me as baffling about all of this, and no less so to see it all again -- as a weary Shamrock pleads with his baffled corner (at least as baffled as I am) to throw the towel as Fujita leans in hard against him in the corner, Shamrock's left arm hooked over the top rope to prevent a takedown, and a referee yelling at him about this all the while -- is why didn't Shamrock just tap? Or say "tap tap tap" as people sometimes do when they are in a weird spot and either can't tap (arms tied up) or are in a situation where a tap is going to be for some reason non-obvious and so risks not being perceived? Is the idea here that tapping out to exhaustion is soft or something compared to pleading with your corner to do it for you? I would disagree, plainly, but more than that, I literally have no idea what thoughts would have to happen in what order to have that make any sense at all. Like, we know that Ken Shamrock (whose life has been a horror, let us repeat that once more) is not necessarily the clearest thinker . . .
. . . but even so I remain confused by this all these years on. I am recalling too a Ken Shamrock appearance on the old TSN Off the Record show where he offered a reading of Gladiator that bore such little relation to the movie itself that the host and other guests were in a real pickle for a minute. But, fundamentally, what can you say.
If you read all of the Dave Meltzer excerpts in the previous post, you will perhaps recall an unreal amount of "ink spilled" over the looming 石澤 常光 Ishizawa Tokimitsu (or if you prefer ケンドー・カシン Kendō Kashin) bout against Ryan Gracie? There was a lot of it! But the match itself is merely Gracie talking Ishizawa down in the corner, the crowd going bananas as Ishizawa holds a loose "front face-lock", and then Gracie punching him super hard like eight times in a row when they both stand up real quick. Let me count actually let's see: it might have been twelve times. Two minutes and sixteen seconds. The commentators make much of Ryan's reputation in street fights as though that were a sikk thing to have, and not a disgrace for a grown-up, and I have made the poor decision to revisit the circumstances of Ryan Gracie's untimely death: "On December 15, 2007 at 7:00am Ryan Gracie was found dead in a jail cell in São Paulo, Brazil. At approximately 1:30am, Gracie had been arrested for stealing and crashing a car and attempting to hijack a motorcycle. The owner of the motorcycle hit Gracie on the head, and he was detained by several cyclists until police arrived. A toxicological examination at the Medical Legal Institute was conducted, after which he was transported to the police station.[9] While in jail, Ryan Gracie's wife called psychiatrist Dr. Sabino Ferreira de Faria to attend to him. The psychiatrist was later accused of medical negligence by over prescribing medication and causing the death of Ryan. Ferreira was later sentenced to two years of community service for recklessness.[10] The doctor was with Gracie most of the night, and was notified of Ryan Gracie's death as he was driving home.[11] Gracie was found alone and slumped into a corner when police were doing a routine check of the jail cells.[9]" That's no way to go.
One more match before the main event, and it's Masaaki Satake, the karate-fighting favourite who last we saw doing pretty well vs. Guy Mezger, this time against 村上 一成 Murakami Kazunari, judoist, Inokiist, "Terrorist of Heisei," and Naoya Ogawa's little buddy. The crowd is enormously pleased with this one before it even begins, and it only gets better for them from there, because these guys really do some neat stuff: Murakami's 小外掛 kosoto-gake / minor outer hook takes him straight into 縦四方固 tate-shiho-gatame (right up on top) and things look really good for him but Satake, as we saw against Mezger last time around, is improbably wily! They scramble back up and the crowd is like HWAAAAIIIIIIII and I join them in that judgment. Murakami botches a 捨身技 sutemi-waza sacrifice throw so thoroughly that Satake pounds him out for the finish moments thereafter and then offers a post-fight speech that consists chiefly of saying OSSU a bunch of times (this is not a criticism) until Ogawa comes in and does a little face-off thing. This could easily have been a work, and if so, it was a really good one that I enjoyed a lot. Just before this whole finishing sequence got started, there was an incredible image of Ogawa I would like to share with you:
Ogawa is just the greatest, and I eagerly await his next appearance.
AND SO THEN THE MAIN EVENT OF KAZUSHI SAKURABA AND RENZO GRACIE which is a fairly big deal but is not, I don't think, "the greatest fight in jiu-jitsu history," as Eddie Bravo suggests in a pre-taped question to Renzo Gracie; as it is not a jiu-jitsu fight, I would argue that that doesn't even make sense. Old Renzo matches have become a little less enjoyable for me personally ever since he became a toady for Bolsonaro but what can you do. I really do not at all regret taking a pass on the opportunity (graciously afforded me by a wonderful student) to meet Renzo when he was in town that time. I am sure I mentioned that when it happened; there is no need to dwell on that any further. Renzo has apparently been getting into it pretty good with Wallid Ismail on twitter lately, if this summary can be trusted:
Quadros calls this the fight of the century (20th? 21st?), in that we have been waiting for it for over a year (what?), and Bravo calls it the biggest mixed martial arts fight ever this time (not just the biggest jiu-jitsu one [what?]), and I don't get this even slightly, as much as I like this fight (a lot!). Are we supposed to not know about Renzo Gracie losing to 田村潔司 Tamura Kiyoshi just six months earlier on the RINGS KING OF KINGS 1999 FINAL show? That's unlikely, due to the extent to which we have blogged it. But even if all the English-language viewing audience had seen were Renzo's previous matches in PRIDE, which is obviously a totally reasonable assumption, Quadros and Bravo are carrying on like Renzo is some kind of unstoppable legend, rather than a super-skilled and very-pleasant-to-watch martial artist whom Akira Shoji fought to a half-hour draw, and Sanae Kikuta went more than an hour with. And again, that's setting aside the face that, as mentioned a sentence or so ago, Renzo was decisively decisioned by Kiyoshi Tamura (like they didn't even go to the optional third round in that one) like six months ago? This is "mark shit," first in the sense that they expect us to just be like OK, WOW! and not know any better, and in a second and I would argue darker sense that I think Eddie Bravo is himself such a ludicrous/credulous Gracie mark that he really might think this stuff. It's wild! And again, I like watching Renzo fight a lot: you will recall, perhaps, the enthusiasm with which we greeted the step-over 腕挫腕固 ude-hishigi-ude-gatame with which he bested both Wataru Sakata and Maurice Smith at RINGS 12/22/99: RISE 7th: WORLD MEGA-BATTLE OPEN TOURNAMENT KING OF KINGS (detailed here) (I have almost certainly mentioned that when my student who is a Renzo Gracie black belt texted me to know if there's anything I wanted him to ask Renzo and I was like CAN YOU HAVE HIM PUT YOU IN THE STEP-OVER UDE-GATAME HE USED ON SAKATA AND SMITH AT KING OF KINGS 1999 AND SEND PICS he did not, exactly, but my student texted back to the effect that he had (obviously) already asked him about that earlier [this student is, as you can tell, a great student)]. But to return to the mark-debacle of this commentary, I denounce it. Have some perspective, boys.
AND WHAT FIRMER GROUND MIGHT WE STAND UPON FOR THAT PERSPECT THAN THAT WHICH LAY BENEATH OUR FEET AT THIS VERY RINGSBLOG AT THIS VERY MOMENT TWENTY YEARS REMOVED FROM THIS MATCH THAT I REMEMBER BEING GOOD BUT LET US SEE LET US AT LAST SEEEEEEEE as the opening bell sounds. Ten PRIDES in (actually more than ten, as there have been GP 2000 shows, haven't there) we have stopped noting that former Fighting Network RINGS referee 島田 裕二 Shimada Yūji abounds but he abounds; he abounds. A little kick-boxing leads to a little clinching leads to a little guard-pulling and the crowd is like HWAAAAAIIIIII already; it didn't take much (or did it?). Sakuraba hangs out for a sec but opts to stand up and we are back to striking range. Have we talked about how I have come to believe that the "MMA" fighting stance in Fire Pro (ファイヤープロレスリング [Faiyā Puro Resuringu]) is specifically Sakuraba's stance? If I was hesitant about that at all the last time it came up, I am without hesitation now. Renzo is on his back and Sakuraba is smoking him with kicks to the legs and Quadros wants us to be sure that we do not mistake this as a position of weakness for Renzo, and while we all know what happened to Oleg Taktarov that one time (and which happened to me accidentally [I hope! she is otherwise so nice!] from a student who had definitely not been born when Renzo upkicked Oleg to smithereens), I think that is overstating the case, and to myself (and so now to you) I am like "sure, that is why Renzo clearly regrets this immediately and gets back up, Stephen, jeez." I will once again really try to stop talking about the commentary, though, as it is plainly not the Way.
There is a nice energy to the standing exchanges that so far make up the bulk of the round but a lot of these punches are wild and looping and miss by a tonne. Renzo takes a break from that sort of punching by clinching Sakuraba and getting some solid rope-leaning in (this is not a diss, I too have clinched; clinched and leant). After a restart, a neat camera angle that they stick with for a good long while displays to advantage what Shakespeare would have Innogen call Kazushi Sakuraba's "Martial thigh," and also reveals that Sakuraba, as my friend Tosh recently said of Carla from Cheers, "lowkey has a wagon on [him]":
That Sakuraba kicks sharply is no surprise, but Renzo's kicks are snappier than you might think. He does not land a tonne of them but when one connects it is like *snurp*. Sakuraba threatens the standing Mongolian chop but does not fully commit to that 技 waza. The first ten-minute round ends, and while there kind of wasn't all that much to it necessarily, there was an energy both to it specifically and to these guys generally that is undeniable (to me) and I am having a lot of fun! If I am understanding things correctly, this match is scheduled for two ten-minute rounds and, if required, a five-minute final round. I will remind you once more than an additional round was not deemed necessary in Renzo's recent RINGS contest with Kiyoshi Tamura but at the same time I do not wish to dwell on that fact unduly.
Round two! Sakuraba ducks in under a punch and goes super low for the takedown. Rather than risk its completion, Renzo doesn't contest it so much as bail on it so that he can be on his back and maintain a lil' space. So now he's on his bottom once more, Renzo is, and Sakuraba is snapping these snappy kicks in and around and through. A cartwheel guard pass does not work but imagine if it did! It might look a little something . . . like 小田常胤 Oda Tsunetane:
A quick reminder that there's lots of great material up at the Let's Play Judo tumblr! I bumped a number of classic texts to the top for my students just as the club shut down for while (may we all return safely and soon) in case anyone wanted some home-study material; there's both volumes of Dynamic Judo (Throwing Techniques and Grappling Techniques) (Kazuzo Kudo, 1967), Kodokan Judo Throwing Techniques (Toshiro Daigo, 2005), Ma Méthode de Judo (Mikinosuke Kawaishi, 1956), Vital Judo (Tetsuya Sato and Isao Okano, 1973), Vital Judo: Grappling Techniques (Isao Okano, 1976), Best Judo (Isao Inokuma and Nobuyuki Sato, 1979), Fighting Judo (Katsuhiko Kashiwazaki 1985), all kinds of stuff! And I was thinking about making a gif of a neat 帯取返 obi-tori-gaeshi I saw the other day and uploading it a little later, so "keep it locked" to letsplayjudo.tumblr.com! For now, though lots and lots of kicking, mostly from Sakuraba into the seated-Renzo's legs, but also a few from Renzo to Sakuraba's knees and thereabouts. Once again, this position doesn't really do Renzo much good, and he back-steps out of it (my students who also study Brazilian Jiu-jitsu refer to this as a "technical stand-up" and I am not one to bicker). Whenever Sakuraba comes in low for a take-down, Renzo bails immediately so he can have Sakuraba within his guard, but this time Sakuraba passes it pretty easily! Oh wait Renzo got it right back, nice job Renzo. Now that Renzo's guard has been passed once, if only briefly, you can see that he takes the threat seriously, and closes his guard right up rather than play more dynamically. Renzo is just shutting things down completely: ankles crossed, both arms around Sakuraba's head to keep him super close; as soon as Renzo switches his grips to the arms, Sakuraba stands up and and, grabs Renzo's right ankle, and gives him a bit of a swing!
Like 須藤 元気 Sudō Genki!
Or ウルフ・ホークフィールド Urufu Hōkufīrudo!
No not really: Sakuraba just grabbed an ankle and ran a jaunty little turn, but the crowd totally received it as a merriment. Back up to the feet, Sakuraba tries once more his low 朽木倒 kuchiki-taoshi (to fell the rotted tree!) or 踵返 kibisu-gaeshi (heel reversal/ankle pick) and only now do I realize that the very same kanji 踵 is read both kibisu, as we saw a moment ago, and kakato/kagato, as in 踵絞 kakato jime, also known as the "gogoplata," a technique which, years and years ago, I wrote about in some detail, archived here (my sincere thanks once again to Abrantes for translating that piece into Portuguese as "Aprendendo Mais Sobre a Gogoplata"). Renzo really does a very good job with these takedown attempts, either shrugging through them standing or, as is more often the case, bailing out of them early enough that, although he does go down, he goes down very much on terms agreeable to him: squared right up with Sakuraba between his legs.
And then it all happens. First, Renzo makes a nifty move to take the back that I have never properly appreciated before; look at his crafty little leg-hook and heel-trip:
I would understand if you were like "dude why didn't you just make a gif of that? it probably wouldn't have even taken much longer" to which I can only respond that I don't know but that you can just scroll up and down real quick and the effect is largely the same. What a technique! This is something I would have certainly had no real capacity to appreciate in the Suspect Video VHS-era and it made no real impression. But what follows sure did: though Sakuraba's back has been taken (he is currently backless; it's very sad), he is not only unconcerned, but seemingly pretty pleased, as he has managed to snag a fulsome 逆腕緘 gyaku-ude-garami grip, known to the jiujiteiro as "Kimura" after 木村 政彦 Kimura Masahiko as well you know:
That last one is from the National Film Board's Doug Rogers documentary Judoka (directed by Josef Reeves, 1965), which is incredible, and which I assure you will be to your taste if you are reading this (you can watch it here). Like, it is literally inconceivable to me that someone could read this far but not like the Doug Rogers documentary. We have spoken more than once here about the time Doug Rogers taught at my old sensei's club and was on the verge of tears telling tales of his time with Kimura-sensei and how being close with him was the greatest thing judo had given him. And I bet we will talk about that again!
But for now, Renzo Gracie is in a real pickle, much as his great uncle Helio had been years previously. I would be remiss were I not to mention that as I type this I am wearing an exceedingly battered bootleg of the Masahiko Kimura vs. Helio Gracie fight poster t-shirt that some lifestyle brand jiu-jitsu company put out years ago for a lot of money but that got knocked off pretty hard pretty much immediately. I got one of ebay for basically no money as soon as that happened, and the print was so rough (in a good way) that my senior student was like "oh man that looks like a DOS game" (in a good way) and I just checked now to see if you could still get them on ebay and while you can't, I don't think, you can get this . . .
"Sakuraba loves that move. I don't think he's ever finished anybody with it, maybe in his gym. But real time? Real fight? I don't think it'll happen," is Eddie Bravo's analysis that I offer with no further comment other than to note that he may not be a reliable guide as to which things are and are not hoaxes. Renzo trips Sakuraba down to the mat, but the grip is still intact (how real is that) with one minute to go. "Renzo needs to make a move right now, he needs to sink his hooks in right now, he needs to go for it," is Eddie Bravo's further analysis that I offer supplement only by the comment or rather the query, isn't it weird that he isn't, almost as though something is preventing this from occurring? Like a grip or something? They're back up to their feet for just an instant, same grips, and then this (gifs of this are extremely out there; I didn't have to make one):
The crowd roars at the technique but is quieted at the stoppage because they're not sure if the round has ended or what. But when it becomes clear Yuji Shimada has stopped the match due to Renzo's extremely broken arm, they are pretty into it once again. This is a lot like the feel at the end of Maeda/Dolman from Bridge of Dreams! I think I even said how real the ending of that one seemed because the whole crowd got confused for a sec! "Boy was I wrong about that move," Eddie Bravo laughs at himself, to his credit. "Many people make excuses when they lose," Renzo says. "I have only one: he was better than me tonight. I wish him all the best." Well that's nice! I wonder if he's about to tank this so-far-quite-lovely speech with his weird narcissism though? "The only gift I can give to him is say that he's the Japanese version of the Gracie family." There it is! Ryan Gracie and Vitor Belfort both get on the microphone but the PRIDE theme has already started to play, guys, let's move it along with your thirst. Eddie Bravo thinks Rickson Gracie is the only fight that makes sense for Sakuraba going forward, whereas Quadros feels Rickson is forty so what's the point (this is hurtful to me personally but I get it), and maybe Wanderlei Silva would make more sense (oh god no). And that's that! Still a lovely match to watch all these many years later! Thank you for joining me on this particularly digressive revisiting of it! One wonders still, however, WHAT DAVE MELTZER MAY HAVE SAID:
August 28, 2000:
Masahito Kakihara newz and notez:
"Masahito Kakihara surprisingly quit the promotion after doing an angle with Yoshinari Ogawa on the debut show. There are reports that Kakihara will go into shooting, either with RINGS, Pancrase or Pride, which doesn't make much sense because he can do a lot better in pro wrestling doing a shooter gimmick than as a small guy actually having to shoot. Kakihara was originally from UWFI which included both Kiyoshi Tamura and Kazushi Sakuraba who have done very well in shoots, and he does have fast hands for a pro wrestler and submission background, but the size will work against him."
September 4, 2000:
"Kazushi Sakuraba scored his third straight win over a Gracie and Ken Shamrock suffered his most decisive defeat under these rules in more than six years to highlight the first major fighting event ever held at the new Seibu Dome in Tokorozawa, Japan, before 32,919 fans.
In a show that got great reviews and will air in the U.S. on the dish network on PPV starting 9/8, it featured six pro wrestlers and two Gracies as the main draws. Shamrock, who earlier in the week signed a several fight contract extension with DSE through August 2001, was upset by a larger and younger New Japan wrestler, Kazuyuki Fujita, a former Japanese national champion in amateur wrestling. It was a very strange match and finish. The ending came, in a match Shamrock totally dominated, when he told corner man Pete Williams to throw in the towel after apparently running out of gas at 6:46. The audience live and watching on PPV were shocked to see the towel come in so quickly. Fans live at ringside did report that in a moment, suddenly Shamrock looked very pale when Fujita pushed him into the corner and he grabbed onto the ropes to hold on. According to a report by Rafael Torres of the ADCC web site, he told Williams, "Throw in the towel, Petey! My heart, my heart!" [LOLOLOLOL IT MADE THE OBSERVER! I LOVE IT! --ed.] At that point to those at the ring it looked as though he was about to pass out, those at the ring feared a heart attack, and the ring doctor started administering oxygen to Shamrock. Shamrock was fine after the match but refused to comment about what happened and the only report was that he suddenly just hit the wall. What was weird is that it was the second straight match where Fujita was pounded on almost at will early by a big name star, and suddenly, when it seemed Fujita was battered and ready to lose, the opponent suddenly ran out of gas. The win by Fujita sets him up as the likely challenger for Mark Coleman in a match that is expected to take place in December at the Tokyo Ariake Coliseum for Coleman's DSE world heavyweight title.
Reports are that the Seibu Dome was incredibly hot, more than 100 degrees with heavy humidity, probably much hotter under the TV lights, since the baseball stadium had no air conditioning.
With the exception of a split decision loss in the legendarily bad 30:00 match with Dan Severn on May 17, 1996 in Detroit, Shamrock hadn't had a clean competition loss since 1994 in Pancrase to Masakatsu Funaki in a fast match it was said Shamrock simply wanted to get over with to avoid an injury as it was only a week or two before his rematch with Royce Gracie. His only decisive loss under rules similar to this in competition was to Gracie on the first UFC show on November 12, 1993. He dropped the King of Pancrase title in early 1995 to Minoru Suzuki, but that was a business loss as Pancrase didn't want to risk its world champion losing in other competition before the first Shamrock vs. Severn UFC superfight title match, which Shamrock won anyway.
Coming on the heels of a dominant performance but somewhat of a controversial finish in a win over much smaller Royler Gracie, a win in what will become an all-time legendary 90:00 match over Royce Gracie, Sakuraba followed by beating the man who the fighters themselves would state is the best of the Gracie clan, Renzo, winning in 19:43 with a Kimura armlock in what was described as a very close fight. Gracie, who never tapped, suffered a dislocated elbow in the move and the referee stopped the match. After the stoppage, Gracie, showing the sportsmanship that somewhat eluded his two cousins, did a symbolic tap for Sakuraba to indicate no complaints about the referees decision. The match ended with just 17 seconds in regulation, and was close enough that it would have almost surely been sent into overtime rather than either man getting the decision as all three judges afterwards said they had the bout even up to that point.
It appears the Sakuraba vs. Gracies program, which has turned into a strong money drawing program in Japan, will continue on 10/31 as he'll most likely face Ryan Gracie, who made his pro fighting debut with an impressive win over New Japan wrestler Tokimitsu Ishizawa (Kendo Ka Shin) in just 2:16.
Masaaki Satake of K-1 fame defeated another pro wrestler, Kazunari Murakami, who started as a shootfighter and has since wrestled for many organizations, most notably New Japan on some of the big shows this year. They really tried to use the death of Andy Hug, to push Satake (who was a rival of Hug not only in K-1, where they had both memorable and non-memorable matches, but dating back to their pre-K-1 days in Seido Kaikan Karate) in this match in that he was fighting dedicated to the spirit of his late rival. In what appeared to be a pro wrestling angle and there have been suspicions voiced about this match, Naoya Ogawa was in Murakami's corner, and the two squared off after the match to seemingly build for a match, which would garner a lot of interest in Japan. Inoki has since hinted the match would take place on 10/31, and with Ogawa's position as the "golden boy" of Inoki and pro wrestling, it's a match he can't afford to lose, which means he probably won't.
With the booking fitting perfectly in many places in building up future matches and Antonio Inoki as the producer of the show, in particular the main matches, skepticism in some of the matches may be healthy, although except for Murakami vs. Satake, there were no suspicions about any of the matches in any of the early reports.
At the rules meeting, there was a confrontation between Frye and Shamrock. Frye, a former UFC headliner and a current pro wrestler with New Japan, whose 10-1 MMA record and two tournament wins was better on paper than Shamrock's, but was never the star to the public that Shamrock was, has done some major interviews challenging Shamrock and running down that Shamrock was a created superstar who never won a UFC tournament, over the past year. It nearly wound up as a fight with Frye and Tra Telligman as both stood up at one point after Shamrock had left at the rules meeting and Mark Coleman immediately stepped between them and Mark Kerr walked up to Frye and calmed him down. Shamrock left the meeting early to avoid the confrontation, saying he didn't need the headache and wanted to train. Telligman and some of the other Lions Den fighters stayed behind. Shamrock said that he would never fight Frye because he wouldn't give Frye the satisfaction of the big payday because of what he's said in several magazine interviews.
We should have a more detailed rundown of the show next week after viewing the videotape.
1. Vitor Belfort defeated Daijiro Matsui via unanimous decision after two rounds (20:00). Belfort continually took Matsui, who started as a pro wrestler for UWFI in 1997 and wrestled for Kingdom, down and would pound him, never going seriously for submission. Matsui, who bled heavily, hung tough even though he took a beating, which has turned into his specialty on these shows.
2. Vanderlei Silva defeated Guy Mezger in 3:45 via knockout. Said to be an awesome fight, all standing. Mezger was able to use his skill and reach to keep Silva at a distance, but when Silva closed the distance, he landed some really strong punches to end the fight. Silva challenged Sakuraba, and with his hard punching, he poses a real threat to Sakuraba.
3. Ricco Rodriguez easily beat Giant Ochiai in 6:04 with a choke. Rodriguez, a strong wrestler, dominated the fight as expected.
4. Gilbert Yvel knocked out Gary Goodridge in only 1:28 with a fast left high kick to the Goodridge's right temple over his hand attempting to block in the first offensive move attempted in the match. This knockout also wreaks havoc on the 9/22 UFC show in New Orleans, as Goodridge was scheduled to face Pedro Rizzo in the semifinal, but with the 90 day knockout rule in effect, that match theoretically would be out the window.
5. Mark Kerr beat Igor Borisov, a sambo master, with what is known as a can opener submission or neck crank in just 2:06. Kerr destroyed Borisov badly in the short fight.
6. Igor Vovchanchyn beat Enson Inoue when the doctor stopped the match at the end of the first round (10:00). Inoue did well early, including buster Vovchanchyn's eye. But Vovchanchyn came back with some brutally hard punches, and then got the mount position and hit dozens of hard punches before the round ended and Inoue was unable to continue. Many people felt the bout should have been stopped with Vovchanchyn reigning down hard punches from the mount and Inoue offering no attempt to do anything but cover up. Vovchanchyn actually looked the worse for wear, with big cuts on his face and eyes nearly swollen shut. Inoue was rushed to the hospital afterwards for a CATSCAN due to the power of the punches he received, but he didn't suffer a concussion.
7. Satake beat Murakami in 6:58. Murakami, who came out wearing a gi of the largely fictitious UFO pro wrestling promotion, took Satake down early and controlled him on the ground. Satake escaped, and being a lot larger and a better standing fighter, he took control from that point. They did a lot to build up Ogawa vs. Satake coming out of this fight, so the result was largely expected. With all the pro wrestling trappings, people were suspicious, but after the match, at least none of the fighters watching at ringside said they thought it was worked. If it was a work, it wasn't readily obvious. [I do think it was one . . . and I liked it! --ed.]
8. Fujita beat Shamrock in 6:46. As mentioned prior, Shamrock was dominating early with punches, busting his nose, marking up his face, and able to stop all of Fujita's takedowns. One report stated that Shamrock knocked Fujita down once and on two other occasions, nearly had Fujita out on his feet, although other reports said Shamrock pounded him at will but was unable to knock the larger man down. Shamrock received a yellow card early for grabbing the ropes, which was considered a strange call since he didn't grab them to avoid a takedown or escape from a move. It was also strange that Fujita delivered an inadvertent low blow and didn't get a yellow card, but they did stop the fight to give Shamrock a chance to shake it off. Shamrock was hit with a punch, before having his corner throw in the towel. Fujita had Brian Johnston and Don Frye of New Japan in his corner. Johnston fought Shamrock in Shamrock's last ever UFC match in 1996. Fujita after the match said that he thought he was going to lose.
9. Ryan Gracie beat Ishizawa in 2:16. Gracie, who had very limited wrestling training, scored a takedown after faking a punch on a former Japanese national champion amateur. Ishizawa tried to hook him in a front guillotine. When Gracie slipped out, he pounded away at will and continued the onslaught until the ref stopped the match. It was a very impressive win and Ishizawa's image for pro wrestling as a shooter took a beating as he did nothing on offense and had no punch defense.
10. Sakuraba beat Renzo Gracie at 9:43 of the second round (19:43). Said to be a very competitive match. They traded punches standing and Sakuraba was able to take Gracie down, but didn't seem to want him there, more content to fight with him standing. Gracie hung tough on his feet."
and
"Yoshiaki Yatsu was at the 8/27 Pride event at the Seibu Dome and there was talk of Pride attempting to use him as yet another pro wrestling drawing card. Yatsu, 44, as you'll note from the Olympic section, was at one point considered one of the best amateur heavyweights the country ever produced, but he hasn't had a competitive match in 14 years and 44, even for a gimmick deal, is awfully old to put in a real fight
Nobuhiko Takada was announced as appearing on the 10/31 Pride show in Osaka."
and
"Pride is talking about if Sakuraba can beat Ryan Gracie on the next show, to build for a Tokyo Dome show early next year against Rickson Gracie, who up to this point has successfully avoided facing anyone near the Sakuraba calibre."
September 11, 2000:
Japanese business thoughtz:
"In Japan, for the short-term, the All Japan vs. New Japan feud should and will pop business for both companies. Still, history has shown that companies that enter into this agreement with New Japan, which ultimately occurs as a last ditch for survival, in the long run don't make it as the famed UWFI feud showed. Pro Wrestling NOAH right now is also a hot ticket as a novelty and Pride seems very strong. But of the four, only New Japan looks from this vantage point to have long-term stability, and even that company on its own is suffering from what up to this point has been the most boring year for the promotion in recent memory. All Japan, after this angle runs its course, has its questions, particularly after losing its television and most of its wrestlers as its perception as an underdog company right now trying to survive will only take them so far. NOAH, once the novelty of the new group runs its course, needs to create new stars for survival, because the old guard thrived and later survived and presenting great matches, and the bodies are banged up badly from that and the matches are neither new, nor can they match up to the memory of what those matches once were. With wrestling being even more a part of the future of cable in that country, what with already having a 24-hour fighting channel which concentrates on wrestling along with MMA, boxing and martial arts, it's value as TV programming over the long-term will down the road be similar to what it is today in the U.S.
Pride is a hot ticket right now, but history has shown it is far more difficult in the long run to book a shoot organization than a worked organization for all the obvious reasons. Just five years ago, UFC was rivalling WWF and ahead of WCW on PPV. Now it's hanging onto existence, and while politics has a lot to do with it, the difficulty of booking a shoot sport had already started taking a chunk out of the UFC buy rates before the political problems did the major damage. The main difference of course is that it is easier to create storylines and tons easier to keep them fresh and alive. Also, a worked match is inherently more entertaining to the general public because it can be formatted specifically for that purpose. It's also harder to market superstars, because in a worked organization they can be booked and protected and made larger-than-life. In a shoot organization, the reality is that even the greatest of fighters are mere humans, and get hurt and have a shorter shelf life as top fighters than a shelf life of a box office attraction, which affects their performances, and when facing top competition, are going to get beat. Unless you have a once in a lifetime superman like Karelin, or you book stars against nobodies who are tomato cans like they do in boxing (which is dying in the U.S. except for the occasional major PPV marquee match-up and to the over-50 audience), the superstars are going to show weakness. They'll be knocked out, or they'll tap, and unlike whenever the Rock has to lay down for three, a finish can't be booked to protect him such as having outside interference, a foreign object or a biased referee as the scapegoat. This happening once or twice makes the superstar become far too human and far less of a novelty to sellout domed stadiums."
On an All-Japan/New-Japan feud:
"While All Japan needed this feud for survival, New Japan needed it almost as badly, because its place as one of the big two sports entertainment group in Japan was threatened by the recent success of Pride running big stadiums and by the huge television success of K-1, which may realistically be No. 1 in Japan right now, as well as competing with both groups as the top attraction in the new PPV marketplace."
DAVE
GETS
TAPE:
"The 8/27 Dream Stage Entertainment show from the Seibu Dome, which airs on American PPV on the dish network on 9/8, was an interesting blend of the world of pro wrestling mixed in with less controllable reality.
Make no mistake about the show, virtually everything on the show, except what happened bell-to-bell was a cross between the K-1 pageantry, ring entrances and fancy production (which was spawned by pro wrestling) and what would be considered to Japanese as old-style pro wrestling angles, which should also be no surprise with Antonio Inoki involved as a producer of the show.
This will be the third DSE show on PPV, albeit to a terribly limited market. The first, the finals of their world heavyweight title tournament, was an excellent show and drew an encouraging buy rate in North America to build from. The second show was largely forgettable, and seemed to have little appeal. This third show had both good and bad points. For serious fans of MMA, it's a show they'd probably want to see because there are enough big names involved, and the Gods were on their side with a lot of spectacular finishes. But I'd stop short from saying it's a must see show. What was a positive for the Japanese market is that the big crowd, which means tons of casual fans, reacted to almost every fighter as if they were someone important and they knew them, and not just to the pro wrestlers, which is good for company longevity.
This week's Weekly Gong had the first 20 pages of the magazine devoted to the Pride show, showing its appeal to the pro wrestling audience, with most of the emphasis on Ishizawa vs. Ryan Gracie (full cover photo as well as first seven pages) to show that to the wrestling fans, that was actually the biggest deal on the show. Fujita vs. Shamrock got five pages, and Sakuraba vs. Renzo Gracie also got five pages, while Murakami vs. Satake got a page-and-a-quarter. They had a crowd shot of the stadium and it was very close to packed so the announced crowd looked legit.
Some thoughts on the various matches:
1. Vitor Belfort (205, Brazil) defeated Daijiro Matsui (198, Japan) via decision. In the first round, Matsui shot in, Belfort sprawled and got behind him and started punching. Matsui was very bloody at the 6:00 mark. Belfort controlled him in that position the entire round. In the second round, they circled for 3:00 with nothing happening until Belfort took him down, but was caught in the guard. Matsui had a good guard in that in this position, he didn't take the kind of punishment he took in the first round, but Belfort was still able to score with punches throughout the round. He got a side mount with one minute left, but basically just kept him down the entire round. It was an easy decision but a boring spectator fight.
2. Vanderlei Silva (204, Brazil) defeated Guy Mezger (211, United States) in 3:45. It started off standing as both seemed to want to test their kickboxing skill. Silva was cut badly over the right eye early. Mezger also tagged him with a good high kick as they broke from a clench. Silva rocked Mezger, who went down, but on the ground Mezger quickly reversed him. After a good standing exchange, Silva made Mezger crumble after a series of punches. Very good match.
3. Ricco Rodriguez (240, United States) defeated Giant Ochaihi (270, Japan) at 6:04. Ochaihi is a total pro wrestler gimmick with this giant afro like Meng and came to the ring with two kids wearing giant afro wigs. People were entertained by the ring entrance. Rodriguez got the match to the ground early. Ochaihi had more staying power than you'd think for what appeared to be a gimmick to feed Rodriguez, who has charisma for the Japanese market because of his look. He seemed to be very close with a kneebar but Ochaihi escaped. He got a mount, started pounding, went for a choke a few times but Ochaihi was able to squirm away until finally being choked from the mount.
4. Gilbert Yvel (229, Netherlands) knocked out Gary Goodridge (242, Canada) in 27 seconds. It was announced in the building as 1:28 which is where that time listed in last week's issue came from. Goodridge has incredible charisma coming to the ring, which is why, no matter what his won-loss record is, he'll continue to get booked on big shows. He had Mark Coleman in his corner, and Coleman seemed totally uncomfortable in the middle of a pro wrestling ring entrance. Hope the American PPV shows the ring entrances because to the casual audience, the fancy entrances get the product over as being major league probably more than what happens bell-to-bell. Just an awesome kick to the head on the first move of the match and it was over. It was a spectacular finish.
5. Mark Kerr (251, United States) defeated Igor Borisov (215, Russia) in 2:06. The "big" Kerr showed up this time. Borisov was clearly out of his league and couldn't stand with Kerr or physically stay with him. Once Kerr took him down, even though Borisov had him in a guard, Kerr used his power to bend his neck forward and got a quick tap. It was an impressive performance by Kerr but it was clear it was an overmatched foe. Borisov ended up being taken out on a stretcher.
6. Igor Vovchanchyn (231, Russia) defeated Enson Inoue (217, Japan) in 10:00. The first 20 seconds were a wild uncontrollable slugfest with the crowd going crazy. Surprisingly, since Vovchanchyn is the more feared stand-up fighter, it was Inoue that did more damage as both of Vovchanchyn's eyes were tagged and he was very bloody and the eyes were swelling shut from the original exchange. Vovchanchyn got Inoue down at that point and he never got back up the rest of the match. Vovchanchyn with his power punching got hard shots in and kept him down and was punching him. The last minute was too much, as Vovchanchyn was pounding on him bad. In the words of UFC ref John McCarthy, Inoue at the end was just covering up and hoping for Mr. Wizard to save him. It definitely should have been stopped about 30 seconds before the end of the round. Inoue was totally out of it when the round ended and it took him a while before he could even get up. The doctor stopped the fight while he was in his corner. Inoue acted like he didn't want the stoppage, but it wasn't even debatable. Vovchanchyn is a hard hitter so in that sense it was good, but he controlled him on the ground and there wasn't much good matwork so it was kind of boring.
7. Masaaki Satake (237, Japan) defeated Kazunari Murakami (211, Japan) in 6:58. Regarding suspicions about this match. From a booking standpoint, it seemed very convenient. Naoya Ogawa was in Murakami's corner and is his UFO stablemate and tag team partner at the Tokyo Dome earlier this year. The post-match stare-down angle and announcement of Satake vs. Ogawa on the next show came off as pro wrestling. People were also suspicious because the usual good sportsmanship thing to do at the end of a fight when the ref stops it, is to check on your opponent, and Satake didn't do that, instead he gave a speech dedicating the fight to Andy Hug. Whatever it was, it was not an obvious work. Usually in works, you either do an entertaining match but it's clear because of the intensity factor, it's different, or it's the half-work, where the guy going over doesn't know, but the guy losing "takes a dive." Usually it's best to keep those matches short. Satake didn't appear to be holding back and if it was anything, it was that Murakami "knew his role," and given how everything worked out, one should be at least suspicious even though of the fighters watching the match at ringside, nobody was talking about it as if it was a work, which they all do in those situations. Murakami got a leg trip early and Satake turned his back on the ground. Satake scored a nice backdoor escape to get to his feet, and was stronger standing, although he had a bloody nose by this point. Murakami tried to throw Satake, but the larger man blocked it and Satake fell on top. Satake got a mount and started pounding on him until the ref stopped it. Not that good. [I disagree in that I think it was both i) very much a work, and ii) good --ed.]
8. Kazuyuki Fujita (242, Japan) defeated Ken Shamrock (215, United States) in 6:46. First four minutes were really exciting. It was all stand-up, with Shamrock able to avoid all of Fujita's takedowns and pounding on him, bloodying up his nose. Fujita did get behind Shamrock standing and Shamrock grabbed the ropes to avoid a takedown, which is where the yellow card came in. Shamrock rocked him with hard punches including one where Fujita's mouthpiece flew out, and Fujita was on the verge of going. Fujita went down, more of a shove after being rocked than a knockdown. Shamrock basically let him get up, figuring he had more of an edge standing. Fujita nearly took Shamrock down with an ankle pick but Shamrock again grabbed the ropes momentarily to steady himself, and went for a guillotine. Fujita escaped and they traded with Shamrock coming out the better. At the 4:00 mark, both were tiring but Shamrock more so. Even at this point, Shamrock was still winning as they traded fists, kicks and knees at a slower pace. Fujita bulled Shamrock into the corner, where Shamrock hooked the rope again to steady himself. At this point you could see something was wrong in his face as he looked exhausted and said "towel" and motioned as if to throw it to his corner. His corner didn't respond at first, because it almost seemed surreal, and he kept motioning and finally they threw it in. It didn't look as dangerous as the report last week and at least on TV he never appeared to say anything about his heart, but that report did come from someone at ringside. He just appeared to run out of gas. This may be a tough one for Shamrock to mentally handle because I'm sure this isn't how he wants his last fighting memory to be, although he is under contract for more fights, it's not the kind of finish that the Japanese (or for that matter the North Americans who do see it on PPV) will be forgiving of. In one of those pro wrestling becomes reality stories, Shamrock left the ring with Alicia Webb (Ryan Shamrock/Symphony). Fujita and Coleman shook hands after the match and Coleman said he'd be glad to fight Fujita and they posed together. It was interesting seeing them together because Fujita was physically much bigger than Coleman, and it'll be interesting to see if it stays that way when they get in the ring together.
9. Ryan Gracie (176, Brazil) defeated Tokimitsu Ishizawa (187, Japan). Ishizawa came out with two seconds, both wearing Kendo Ka Shin masks. Not only that, when he was introduced, he was introduced as the 34th IWGP jr. heavyweight champion as a credential, which was funny seeing not only a pro wrestling credential listed in a shoot intro, but the acknowledgement with that credential and his seconds that he was Ka Shin under the mask (even though everyone already knew it). Gracie faked a punch and scored a strong double leg takedown. Ishizawa tried for a guillotine, but wasn't even close, and when Gracie broke it, he unloaded with a flurry of punches to the face before the ref stopped it at 2:16. Every wrestling promotion that considers putting a guy with a shooter rep into an uncontrollable situation like this should get a videotape of this match, because for New Japan, this was the equivalent of the Bart Gunn vs. Butterbean embarrassment for the WWF. I think the idea here was that this Gracie had never even had a competition fight, so a New Japan guy, since Ishizawa in pro wrestling had a great shooter rep as it pertained to wrestling and submissions, could beat someone with a Gracie last name, but Ishizawa only had one month of training (he was secretly training with college wrestlers as well as with Pancrase grapplers such as Yoshiki Takahashi and Kei Yamamiya. Yamamiya as well as former New Japan wrestler Akitoshi Saito were both in his corner) for this fight after so many years of pro wrestling and hadn't had a competitive match in something like eight years.
10. Kazushi Sakuraba (187, Japan) defeated Renzo Gracie (174, Brazil) in 19:43. The fact this show drew as well as it did (32,919 fans to the Seibu Dome) speaks volumes for how well the Sakuraba vs. Gracie family program has gotten over and that Sakuraba is finally after the wins over the Gracies becoming someone capable of selling tickets mainstream. What is also important to note is that the four big Dome shows this year, which all drew well live and did great television ratings were all headlined by small guys, as the real big drawing matches on the respective shows were Royce Gracie vs. Takada, which was actually the biggest draw of all since it involved Takada and was Royce's Japanese debut, Royce vs. Sakuraba, Rickson vs. Funaki and Sakuraba vs. Renzo. The first round was mostly standing. Sakuraba won the round slightly but did not dominate Gracie. Second round saw Sakuraba get a quick takedown. Gracie did a butt scoot and Sakuraba would kick his leg before finally letting him up. He took him down a second time and was on top in the guard. After Sakuraba stood up, he connected with a nice high kick. Gracie started to tire and Sakuraba took him down again. Gracie reversed Sakuraba on the ground and got his back. From that position, Sakuraba reached behind him for the arm and got the Kimura lock and the ref stopped it when Gracie's elbow dislocated. It was close enough to send it into overtime (in Pride, a close fight is judged at first a draw and sent to overtime), but Sakuraba was clearly winning even before the submission. Match was very good for Japan because of the submission move winning on a Gracie, but won't translate as well to an American audience."
and
"In what I'd consider something of a big surprise, the New Japan TV show on 9/2 aired the Ryan Gracie vs. Tokimitsu Ishizawa match from Pride. I guess they must have figured since everyone knew, they might as well show it. When WWF had the fiasco with Bart Gunn and Butterbean, if you recall, the match after the fact, despite the spectacular looking finish, was not only never shown, nor the finish ever shown, but never even referred to again by the WWF."
and
"Road Warriors return to Japan from 9/24 to 10/1 for Battlarts. Among their foes will be Yuki Ishikawa & Naoki Sano, Alexander Otsuka & Osamu Tachihikari (actually two guys that have each worked in jobber roles for Pride), Rastaman & Kazunari Murakami (New Japan, Pride, EFC)."
and
"Yoshiaki Yatsu held a press conference on 8/31 to announce he would fight on the 10/31 Pride show in Osaka. It is being billed as the 20th anniversary of Yatsu's pro wrestling debut. His actual first match was December 29, 1980 in Madison Square Garden beating Jose Estrada. Yatsu started training this past week in Japan with the Japanese and the Cuban Olympic teams, which are training together in a camp in Yamanashi."
September 18, 2000:
"OBSERVER POLL RESULTS
Traditional Observer PPV poll results based on phone calls, fax messages and e-mails to the Observer as of Tuesday, 9/12.
PRIDE FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIPS RETURN OF THE WARRIORS: Thumbs up 102 (100.0%), Thumbs down 0 (0.0%), In the middle 0 (0.0%). BEST MATCH POLL: Vanderlei Silva vs. Guy Mezger 52, Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Renzo Gracie 25, Ken Shamrock vs. Kazuyuki Fujita 12. WORST MATCH POLL: Very few responses listed a worst match, and no specific match got more than three votes."
and
"Kazuyuki Fujita was training in Brazil this past week and said he would be attending the 9/22 UFC show to cheer on Yuki Kondo and that he wanted to do a UFC in 2001. Fujita is clearly a tough guy as to his ability to take punishment, and is a very good wrestler, but he's been the luckiest man in the world in Pride and they ought to quit while they're ahead, because he can be a shooting legend with wins over Shamrock and Kerr, but if he keeps fighting, he's going to run into someone who isn't going to have a medical problem a few minutes into the match and if they can strike, he's in trouble because his striking defense isn't good."
and
"Kazunari Murakami, after taking a pretty bad beating at the finish of his match at Pride against Masaake Satake, returned to pro wrestling on 9/7 for Battlarts at Tokyo Korakuen Hall. Murakami teamed with Naoyuki Taira to lose to Yuki Ishikawa & Carl Malenko (no relation). Murakami's right eye was swollen badly from punches from Satake and worked the show with a broken orbital bone and has been suffering from severe headaches since the match. There apparently has been internal dissension within the company of late with the younger wrestlers and President Ishikawa. They called a meeting at this show and Ishikawa got everyone to agree to work together to save the tour that starts later this week featuring the Road Warriors. It'll be interesting to see what the Road Warriors mean in Japan in 2000, as they were a huge deal in Japan in the late 80s and Japan is a lot better about honoring past their prime legends than the U.S."
and
"Some notes from the Pride PPV that aired on 9/8. They aired every match from the Seibu Dome except the Vitor Belfort vs. Daijiro Matsui opener, which was a boring match. They also aired in a 3:30 broadcast, four matches from the 1/30 Tokyo Dome (Coleman vs. Satake, Kerr vs. Enson Inoue, Vovchanchyn vs. Alexander Otsuka and Fujita vs. Hanse Nyman). The added matches hurt the show as a whole because the 1/30 matches were a weak follow-up after the so-called live show, which was actually, and this is a credit to the announcing of Steven Quadros and Eddie Bravo to an extent, better than seeing the original live PPV tape from Japan. Part of it is on the American broadcast, and this has been the case in every Pride American PPV, the impact and sound of the punches comes across so much better than on the Japanese live show which makes the matches better. All the matches that aired came off as good and it came across as an excellent PPV event. Some of the weights listed here last week were a few pounds off as they had the real weigh-in weights on this show, which they didn't on the live show. Shamrock actually came in at 211 and Fujita at 245, which is why Fujita looked so huge and thick next to him. They still have to learn to market the entertainment aspect of the show, as they edited out the best ring entrances (Giant Ochiai and Gary Goodridge), which for American entertainment, the ring entrances, the ring card girls, the pyro, etc. are what would make the show seem major league. Granted, at this point, casual fans don't even know it exists and to the hardcores, they only want to see good quality fights, but it's the trappings around the fights, and DSE is actually good at this because they spend money for the total show, that to a casual fan makes the difference between a major league event and just another of the zillion hours of TV sports every week. They did note that Sakuraba, Fujita, Ishizawa, Ogawa and Murakami were pro wrestlers, and credited Antonio Inoki for developing a stable of pro wrestlers that can actually fight in real fights. For Murakami, whose ring outfit had a UFO patch, they said UFO was a famous pro wrestling organization and blamed his loss on being rusty after switching from real fighting to pro wrestling a few years ago and rightfully noted Ishizawa had no punch defense. In the closing credits for the show was Barry Bloom, who is Shamrock's agent who is the most notable agent for pro wrestlers, and another connection is that Pride is opening a California office and has either hired or has talked of hiring Sonny Onoo."
and
"While no matches have been officially announced, although they've already shot the angle for Ogawa vs. Satake, the Pride advertising (priced from $1,000 for ringside down to $70 for the cheap seats) for Osaka Castle Hall on Halloween night lists Sakuraba, Goodridge, Otsuka, Takada, Renzo Gracie, Inoue, Satake, Fujita, Kerr and Coleman as appearing and they've also announced Yatsu as appearing."
September 25, 2000:
From a New Japan story:
"Kawada would be like Tenryu was a few years ago for New Japan as a big money drawing outsider against the regular crew, where he'd be portrayed as an outsider but really be an New Japan big show regular, and allow Choshu to have someone to fill the position Naoya Ogawa had last year without the headaches of dealing with Antonio Inoki and Ogawa. Keeping Kawada strong is doubly important for New Japan right now because it allows Choshu to run Dome show match-ups without having to deal with the two, since Inoki is intent on making Ogawa into superman and New Japan has trouble dealing with him and hasn't been able to get him to put anyone over since the big angle. Choshu is always looking for an answer to lessen the influence of Inoki on New Japan. At this point Choshu has no plans for using Ogawa, which leaves Inoki having to maintain a strong relationship with Pride and get Ogawa over on those shows. Choshu is hopeful he can get a good two years of Dome main events out of Kawada, and given the disappointing advance for 10/9, it means they have to work at getting him over to pull this off, unlike in the famed UWFI feud, where they sold out the Dome in three days for the first Keiji Muto vs. Nobuhiko Takada match."
and
"Pride announced it would run another 16-man world heavyweight title tournament starting in January as it did this year.
Ken Shamrock, who had been quiet the past three weeks publicly, kind of broke his silence this past week and attributed his loss to Kazuyuki Fujita, his first what would be called conclusive (as opposed to the split decision time limit match with Dan Severn) loss in MMA competition in more than six years, simply to not being in shape to fight and that things happened which contributed to him not training properly for the fight."
and
"Nobuhiko Takada announced that he would be facing Igor Vovchanchyn, on the 10/31 Pride show in Osaka. He said that if he had an unsatisfactory performance in the fight, that he would retire. Due to the fact Pride has given Takada several wins in worked matches, every match with him has to be considered suspicious ahead of time. If it's not a work, it's scary for Takada, 38, who insiders have no respect for as any kind of a real fighter, to face such a hard hitter who is ranked probably behind only Mark Coleman as the top heavyweight in the world."
October 1, 2000:
"UFC doesn't want to acknowledge there are other promotions around (when Mark Coleman, the heavyweight champion for Pride was interviewed, they mentioned he had been fighting overseas and brought up the idea of him coming back to UFC, but Pride and his winning the biggest tournament in the history of MMA were never mentioned, which left everyone involved looking foolish as if they're hiding something)."
and
"It is believed that Dan Henderson, who won the $223,000 first prize in the [RINGS KING OF KINGS --ed.] tournament that ended in February, will not be back to defend his title because he has signed with Pride and they are setting him up for a match next year with Kazushi Sakuraba."
and
"Fujita is said to be headed to Russia after the Olympics (November) to train under Alexander Karelin, which at least makes a good story. It also could be a way to get Karelin into Pride next year, since Alexander Otsuka is going on the trip."
and
"Pro wrestler and former 1976 Olympic wrestler Yoshiaki Yatsu's opponent at the 10/31 Pride show will be Gary Goodridge. Sakuraba, who is advertised as being on the show, said that he didn't want to fight Ryan Gracie, and that the only other Gracie that he is interested in fighting is Rickson. Pride wants Sakuraba on the show as a Japanese star because at this point neither Naoya Ogawa or Kazuyuki Fujita will appear, so aside from Yatsu curiosity, the only draw is Takada. The 10/31 show won't be airing on PPV in the United States. The reason being given is that it is only going to be a seven match show and will be a Japanese oriented card without any American draws. At this point, the subsequent show on 12/23 from the Ariake Coliseum which they are hopeful of getting a Mark Coleman vs. Fujita match as the headliner, will air on PPV in the U.S. in January
The 8/27 Seibu Dome Americanized PPV, which was really hot, will air on Viewers Choice Canada on 10/6
There are Brazilian newspaper reports that a fight broke out between Ryan Gracie, fresh off the win over Kendo Ka Shin at the last Pride show, and Wallid Ismail, best known for his choking out Royce Gracie in a submissions only match in Brazil in 1998. Ismail, who has marketed himself in magazine ads for his tapes as the Gracie killer, has had bad blood with Ryan Gracie and the two at one point were scheduled for a match in Georgia that never came off. The reports were that the two were at a party when Gracie came from behind and allegedly struck Ismail in the side of the head. Ismail turned around, Gracie shot in and Ismail supposedly choked him out. There haven't been any stories around that dispute this story from the Gracie side other than Gracie may not have been in what one would call his best condition when the fight started, but he was the one who started it so that hardly qualifies as an excuse."
October 9, 2000:
"On 10/1, Antonio Inoki met with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori. Before Mori was Prime Minister, he was a major political figure during Inoki’s wrestling heyday and used to frequently go to Inoki’s matches and go backstage to meet with him. Well, former President George Bush used to, on occasion, attend Houston wrestling matches, and President Jimmy Carter’s mother was a frequent fan, but somehow these stories never got a lot of mainstream news in this country. Inoki won’t be at the 10/9 Dome show. Inoki had a comeback idea for Hashimoto, but there are some bad feelings because Choshu didn’t listen to the idea and instead did the start from the opening match comeback idea instead. Inoki still wants Tokimitsu Ishizawa to come back to Pride. Naoto Morishita, the President of Pride, will be attending the Dome show and attempt to make a deal to book Hashimoto for a Pride show, which would be a huge mistake for New Japan."
October 23, 2000:
"Akira Maeda, 41, on 10/7, said that he would like to come out of retirement for one more match with Karelin, but said it would be very difficult to put it together because Karelin is in the Russian Diet. Maeda actually tried to publicly take some credit for the Gardner win by saying he gave Karelin leg damage from low kicks in their pro wrestling match in 1999. Might as well take credit for causing the finish for what historically is considered the biggest Greco-roman match in history. Maeda also said that he didn't think Dan Henderson would join Pride. He also spoke of wanting to put on a ten-year anniversary of the RINGS promotion show for 2001 where he would come out of retirement for a match with Rickson Gracie, but also said if Naoya Ogawa would have a shot at Gracie, he'd rather Ogawa, who was younger, would get the shot."
and
"Pride announced a show on 12/23 at the new 25,000-seat Saitama Super Arena in Urawa. The show will be taped for U.S. PPV, probably in January and with tickets ranging from $920, $210, $110 and $65, it's going to have to be a loaded show. The probable main event is Mark Coleman vs. Kazuyuki Fujita. Also on the show will be Renzo Gracie, Ryan Gracie, Mark Kerr, Ken Shamrock, Gilbert Yvel, Igor Vovchanchyn, Gary Goodridge, Ricco Rodriguez, Kazushi Sakuraba, Enson Inoue, Masaaki Satake, Alexander Otsuka and Akira Shoji. Antonio Inoki held a major party on 10/11 in Tokyo with 1,000 people paying $92 apiece to attend to commemorate the release of his poetry book. [OMG YES WHAT YESSSSS -- ed.] At the party he announced the Naoya Ogawa vs. Masaaki Satake match for 10/31 at Osaka Castle Hall on the Pride show. Two other matches involving big-name pro wrestlers are the next two big drawing matches, Nobuhiko Takada vs. Vovchanchyn and Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Goodridge. With the top of the card featuring wrestlers, in particular, Ogawa, who simply can't be put in a position to lose because he's Inoki's guy and Inoki has strong influence on the show, people are going to be suspicious of all three matches until after they are finished, and with good reason. In the case of the Takada and Yatsu match, there are two alternatives, neither of which are pretty. Either Takada and Yatsu are both put in a very dangerous position where there is a good chance of them being hurt, perhaps even badly, because Goodridge throws a good punch and Vovchanchyn throws a great punch and neither Takada or Yatsu at their age, has good punch defense. That or the match is worked and it lessens the risk of them taking a potentially ugly beating. The reality of a promotion in which pro wrestlers are the biggest drawing card almost makes it an evil necessity for survival at the level of being able to do several Dome shows per year to work some matches to keep the wrestlers' drawing power strong. At that point, however, you can't call it a sport. Maybe you can, because they call boxing a sport here. Three other matches have been announced. Tom Erikson, a U.S. Olympic team hopeful as a superheavyweight wrestler who is undefeated in this type of competition, but, at 37 or 38, is getting up there in age, faces Heath Herring, who is a young powerful guy who started with the USWF in Texas. Gilbert Yvel faces Vanderlei Silva in what has all the makings on paper of being one of the great matches in history, no exaggeration. The other match announced is Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Shannon Ritch. Basically, this is an easy touch for Sakuraba, as Ritch is a smaller guy, about 170, with a good physique and colorful personality and somewhat skilled, but has lost fights to such huge names as Victor Hunsaker, Tom Schmitz, Dennis Hallman, Ben Earwood, Kevin Cook and Steve Berger. Of course anything can happen, but it looks like Sakuraba didn't want to fight on this show because he's fought way too often, but they figured they needed him, so gave him what on paper is a very safe fight. Two more matches, involving Akira Shoji and Alexander Otsuka, are to be announced."
October 30, 2000
"EYADA POLL RESULTS
Which of these events would you be the most interested in attending live? a) UFC or Pride 55.0%; b) World Sumo Wrestling League 3.2%; c) Women of Wrestling 15.1%; d) Urban Wrestling Federation 4.9%; e) None of the above 21.6%."
and
"Tadao Yasuda, 37, has either been fired or suspended by New Japan. Yasuda is apparently deep in debt due to heavy gambling losses and on the verge of filing bankruptcy. On 10/16, Antonio Inoki said he could get himself out of debt by fighting with Pride, which may mean there is some storyline involved in this. Yasuda has never done any form of real fighting with the exception of being a high level sumo wrestler, and at his age, that's not a good time to start. What he has going for him is he's 6-6 and 330 pounds and is well known in Japan, and guys like that, particularly with a pro wrestling background, make great looking victims in shoot fights."
and
"In a very strange story, Ken Shamrock and Mark Hall have agreed to a match in Japan on the 12/23 Pride show at the Saitama Super Arena. There was an incident earlier this year that wasn't an angle stemming from some problems the two had regarding promotion of a show Hall was putting on in Southern California and his feeling Shamrock wasn't helping promote it. The whole story was basically ridiculous. It led to some bad blood, nasty phone messages left by Hall, and exploded at a show in San Jacinto, CA when Hall confronted Shamrock. The two began arguing, a fight started, from most accounts by Hall, although there are those who dispute that story. Either way, it was ended in a matter of seconds by Shamrock with Hall being taken out of the building and then threatening to file a suit. Lawyers got involved and the two sides agreed to settle it this past week by having a match, which sounds ridiculously like an angle, although I'm pretty sure it didn't start out as one. The fight itself on paper looks terribly one-sided as far as who is going to win as Hall has never beaten a major name. He has something of a name in Japan because on May 17, 1996 in Detroit, he defeated pro wrestler Koji Kitao when he broke his nose with a right hand and the match was stopped in 47 seconds, and Kitao, who was a sumo legend before being kicked out of the sport and going into pro wrestling, had a huge name in Japan. Reports have it that Hall has gained a ton of muscle of late, which, in fighting, usually indicates something positive for a short match and negative when the match goes any length of time. Hall came to Japan several times for different groups based off that win, but lost a few pro wrestling matches in Kingdom and a few shoot fights, most notably to Don Frye, and has not been active much in recent years
Pride added Akira Shoji vs. Herman Renting of The Netherlands and Alexander Otsuka vs. American Mike Borku (?) to its 10/31 show. Renting is a guy who has a little name value in Japan as in the early days of the RINGS promotion, he was pushed as a mid-level star, but those were strictly works and he's long past his prime and fighting has evolved greatly from the early 90s. He did place second this year in the Netherlands Brazilian Jiu Jitsu championship tournament at 215 pounds."
and
"Pride is looking at doing some shows in the United States."
And that's it! Thank you once again for joining me. I hope to continue with this newly sprightly pace we have happened upon, and I am very confident that the PRIDE.11 post will not, as this one has, run to over twenty-thousand words. And maybe that will be for the best? Thank you for your attention to these matters. I wish you all the best. Everyone be well!
I found Quadros revolting when he said on two occasions that a fighter had "blown his wad". What's strange is that I wouldn't be grossed out if it was absentee Bas saying it. Quadros also gets too argumentative with his broadcast partners (he did it on this show with Bravo and a few times previous with Bas). It's sort of like Kellerman arguing with Roy Jones Jr or any other color commentator on a boxing broadcast. When in doubt, defer to the experts. A guy who calls himself "The Fight Professor" might think he's an expert though.
ReplyDeleteLol yeah it was a bit demeaning when Renzo said Sakuraba was the the Gracie of Japan. Maybe Sakuraba would like to change his last name to Gracie, wouldn't that be an honor?
Renzo, and I say this with all the authority of a fool who knows nothing, is *for sure* a narcissist.
DeleteQuadros is capable of being enormously irritating, and yet I think I would take him over Mauro ten times out of ten. Have you ever happened upon any of Quadros' old writing for Black Belt magazine? He writes so exactly like he speaks that I wonder if he just dictated it and that was that. Quadros' best work, at least that I've seen, was for sure as a trainer in NEVER BACK DOWN 3: NO SURRENDER, an utterly first-rate Michael Jai White movie I cannot recommend highly enough if you have not seen. They mention TK Scissors in it! (the technique, not the blog [although I choose to accept it as a "shout out")
I have seen never back down 3, the best fight in the whole series is Michael J vs Josh Barnett in my opinion, it is however overshadowed by the utterly excellent undisputed 2 as a mma movie. If i were to be commentating with eddie bravo I'd argue with him the whole time, he besmirched the honor of pancrase, saying "alot of those fights were fake" prior to jong wang kim (3-17 in pancrase) fighting Jason Lambert (7-0 in garbage aesthetically bankrupt mma) before jong wang proceeded to run straight through lambert in 30 seconds. He seems to not do actual research
DeleteWeirdly I have not seen Undisputed 2 but I *have* seen Eddie Bravo and he STINKS.
DeleteMetaphorically physically or both?
DeleteI have no reason to doubt the man's hygiene.
DeleteHave you read the Ken Shamrock biography by the ever twitter bellicose JE Snowden? Its a confronting read but it does explain why his he nearly exploded against Fujita, the reasons are cocaine, marital infidelity and lots and lots of steroids
ReplyDeleteThose reasons certainly sound plausible! I am aware of the book and that it has been well received but have no plans to read it.
Delete