シリーズ PRIDE（ナンバーシリーズ）
主催 DSE
開催年月日 2002年12月23日
開催地 日本
福岡県福岡市
会場 マリンメッセ福岡
開始時刻 午後4時30分
試合数 全8試合
放送局 フジテレビ（地上波）
入場者数 8,543人
主催 DSE
開催年月日 2002年12月23日
開催地 日本
福岡県福岡市
会場 マリンメッセ福岡
開始時刻 午後4時30分
試合数 全8試合
放送局 フジテレビ（地上波）
入場者数 8,543人
The editor Alex Colston (with whose work I admit complete unfamiliarity) recently posted elsewhere (upon this very same internet through which you and I relate even now) the following: "Levi-Strauss once made a beautiful point that I always keep in the back of my mind as a starting point for aesthetic criticism: that cultural artifacts of any sort are symbolic resolutions of materially real contradictions, that criticism unravels that ready-made synthesis." If I'm remembering well the Claude Lévi-Strauss I was fortunate enough to study under the consummate humanist Roland Le Huenen some decades past (here is Paul Perron on the remarkable career of Professor Le Huenen, who was a very nice man), I would say firstly (i) that sounds about right, doesn't it; and, secondly (ii): TK Scissors: A Blog of RINGS. What else could our project even be? Any number of worse things, I suppose, but few better. Have we yet attained, or will we in time attain, within these electronic pages, criticism in that crucial sense? Who can say/almost certainly not, and yet, at the very least, we are getting our reps in (the way is in training, Musashi tells us; one must always train). And so here we very much remain, all of us together, in a spirit perhaps best articulated by young chess GM Aman Hamblelton, "out here with the homies, building good habits."
As we approach PRIDE.24（プライド・トゥウェンティーフォー）we find ourselves far removed from the cavernous 東京ドーム Tōkyō Dōmu of last time around both in terms of cavernousness and also actually just sheer literal distance from it as we take our seats among the 8,543人 in the comparatively humble マリンメッセ福岡 Marine Messe Fukuoka some five hours away by really very fast train indeed along the 新幹線 Shinkansen. Given what we know to be the tremendous excess of what is to come in future year-end (specifically New Year's Eve) events, it is strange to see so minor a show close out PRIDE's fairly enormous 2002, isn't it? But it's true, certainly, that there are no small ヤクザ / yakuza-adjacent 総合格闘技 sо̄gо̄kakutо̄gi shows, only small ヤクザ / yakuza-adjacent 総合格闘技 sо̄gо̄kakutо̄gi show recapitulations, and we will endeavour not to be one of those (they are a scourge).
Our familiar friends Stephen Quadros and Bas Rutten are here to welcome us to this "first PRIDE show of the new year," a reminder that this one aired in the west on several-week tape-delay, which will no doubt reintroduce the bipartite "Date gets word/Dave gets tape" structure to the final portion of this our final post of an eventful 2002 in PRIDE FC, and quite possibly this our final post of the 2024 of our ongoing experience (things get busy around the holidays! but maybe we can squeeze one more in even so). Our hosts are very pleased to share with us news of the then-forthcoming PRIDE FC videogame for PlayStation 2, and it occurs to me that, inexplicably, I have never played this game! It occurs to me further that PlayStation 2 emulation is remarkably stable in our present moment, and requires far less computing power than one might expect, so little, in fact, that it can be achieved without difficulty on, say, the merest laptop upon which one, for example, RINGSblogs. A further occurrence: there was a JDM-exclusive sequel to that one too, wasn't there? I am intrigued by all of these occurrences and revelations, and hope to be in a position to report on these matters before too long. I am at least as stoked about this situation as Bas, who holds up an oversized box joyfully.
[UPDATE: this game is more or less okay! Though it is certainly no EA SPORTS MMA nor yet EA SPORTS 総合格闘技 (a game of which I am very fond and still return to every so often), the presentation is genuinely remarkable in its attention to detail, and worth spending at least a little time on for it's pre-and-post- fight verisimilitude alone; the gameplay itself, alas, is super easy (I won the PRIDE GRAND PRIX with Carlos Newton within like ten minutes {had to continue one time on Nogueira though! get your quarters ready when Nogueira turns up!}) and honestly not especially engaging, but all the same I am pretty sure I am going to go into Make-A-Guy Mode in order to make a guy. That I will, in time, fire up the JDM-exclusive sequel to see about it as well feels inevitable.]
Our opening bout sees the likeable Guy Mezger set against the also likeable (I mean, I've got no problem with him) Antônio Rogério Nogueira, slightly smaller twin brother of PRIDE Heavyweight Champion Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira, "Minotouro" to his "Minotauro," known too as "Little Nog." After some preliminary boxing (Nogueira would in time take a bronze medal in the sport at the Pan-American Games, and gold at the South American Games [neat!]), Nogueira attempts to take Mezger to the mat with what gets called a guard pull, and that is certainly a fair characterization of the result, but I think it may have been an attempt at the floating drop of 浮技 uki-waza, a 橫捨身技 yoko-sutemi-waza (side-sacrifice technique) favoured by an 一級 ikkyū at our club who is also a second-degree Renzo Gracie-affiliated black belt. In his view, this is an ideal 投げ技 nagewaza or throwing technique for the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, as that it either puts 受け uke on their back and in a very bad spot as 寝技 newaza begins, or, if it falls apart completely, it just ends up more or less as a guard pull for 取り tori, so you lose nothing by trying, right? It pairs nicely with the propping, drawing ankle-block of 支釣込足 sasae-tsurikomi-ashi, and can be thought of, loosely, as a super duper committed sacrifice version of that technique (might be helpful way to think about it; might not, though). It's perhaps the highlight of closely contested first round that doesn't see a whole lot happen, honestly, other than a handful of 足関節 ashi-kansetsu leg-lock attempts from Nogueira and the caution and guidance of 指導 shido offered to Mezger for holding the top rope to resist those same techniques. Nogueira makes the same attack in the second round, and comes a little closer to executing it correctly ("You're very close to performing this technique well," as Bernhard Ganss of the Universty of Toronto's Faculty of Dentistry and also perhaps more relevantly its Judo Club has been heard to remark on more than one occasion). "He tried to pull guard and flip him over at the same time, and sweep him," is Quadros getting most of the way there (much like Nogueira himself). "I am a judo guy," his brother Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira once said with great conviction to Bryan and Dave on Wrestling Observer Radio (free episode!), adding with emphasis, "I am a judo guy." (Me too, Antonio Rodrigo; me too.) Was Antonio Rogerio as well? Was it a thing they did together?
"If God only would have known, eh? That man could be vulnerable there . . ." is how Bas trails off in the aftermath of a fairly crisp kick to Mezger's groin not long thereafter. Moments later, another follows. "I'm okay," a not-that-okay-sounding Guz Mezger says quietly to referee 島田 裕二 Shimada Yuji. "Just give me a second." Those seconds freely given, the fight then resumes with a newfound sense of urgency from both guys, boxingly. Nogueira gets the best of this, but not by much; Mezger takes Nogueira to the mat with the minor outer hook of 小外掛 kosoto-gake, which, it occurs to me, is probably responsible for more successful takedowns in this era of mixed fighting than anything short of 双手刈 morote-gari and 朽木倒 kuchiki-taoshi? It's gotta be up there! Nogueira takes the split decision in the end, and as that verdict implies, it really could have gone either way. Both guys sure worked hard!
The truly enormous Ron Waterman, making his PRIDE (and blog?) début, is next up against the also-quite-large-though-slightly-less-so Valentijn Overeem, known well to us in these RINGSpages. Waterman makes short work of Overeem here, developing a 朽木倒 kuchiki-taoshi ("dead-tree drop") single-leg into the minor outer hook of 小外掛 kosoto-gake (what were we just saying about kosoto-gake!) mere moments in, and finishing with a rugged application of 腕緘 ude-garami that Bas had no faith in whatsoever until the moment of completion. "There's nothing there," Bas explained, because Waterman's right arm was around Overeem's head on the far side, rather than the near side; one could argue that there was lots there, and that he was that one adjustment away from a finish, but Bas chose a different path! Bas is great, though, and we all miss on stuff like this sometimes. I'm just just joshing him a little! It was a little uncomfortable when Waterman's corner kept yelling "BREAK IT" but this one was otherwise pleasant enough.
Rodrigo Gracie dances to the ring to face 佐々木 有生 Sasaki Yūki, whom we associate more closely with PANCRASE than PRIDE, certainly, and with the GRABAKA gym most closely of all. Hey look, it is GRABAKA founder 菊田 早苗 Kikuta Sanae, beloved by all, but especially by us, as first noted in our account of RINGS 4/4/97: BATTLE GENESIS Vol. 1:
A fine submission grappler, as one would expect of any GRABAKA product, Sasaki is also a rangy man of 空手道 karate-dō (hey: it's a way), and has always been an intriguing guy, I think. After an even opening few minutes, in which Gracie gives as good as gets as far as the striking goes, Gracie takes the fight to the mat with a strong 支釣込足 sasae-tsurikomi-ashi, wheeling Sasaki over his blocking foot. Sasaki has busy hips on the bottom, and Gracie works hard to pass, so there's lots to like here! "Not a terribly exciting first round" is Stephen Quadros' assessment, but I felt like it kind of flew by, actually? Early in the second, Gracie slips, which sets off a fantastic scramble that ends with Gracie back inside Sasaki's busy guard, again doing his best to escape it. These are lighter fighters than we're used to seeing on these shows (their weights for this bout are not given, but Sasaki has fought as light as 170 lbs in other contexts), and they are working at a much more pleasing pace than we often see. Just as I say that, both fighters are yellow-carded for inactivity, so what do I know! There certainly hasn't been much hitting, if that is an issue for you (it is not for me [except in the sense that I think it best avoided; that's my issue]). A solid Sasaki 大内刈 ouchi-gari opens the third, and I like Sasaki's knee-squeeze approach to passing Gracie's open guard, because it is one I like to use, too, but Sasaki's attempts here meet with about as much success as mind would against Rodrigo Gracie (which is to say none), and he is left to regroup. A scramble sees Gracie back on top, peppering Sasaki with punches from the guard on his way to a tidy decision win. "You know what, it just was not an exciting match," Quadros concludes. "I mean, they reversed each other a couple times." Some of us really like reversals; for some of us, reversals are enough.
Next, Bas and Stephen play briefly with remarkably high-quality Wanderlei Silva and Don Frye dolls; they do pretend voices and everything (that's the spirit!). I haven't looked into the current, collector-pricing of these two dolls in particular, but every now and then over the last twenty years I have checked in on just how much the resellers are asking for the 吉田 秀彦 Hidehiko Yoshida doll from the same series, and each time my conclusion has been the same: (i) that's too much money, especially considering that (ii) I hardly even play with dolls.
Ataev lands in a solid 横四方固 yoko-shiho-gatame and works towards 腕緘 ude-garami; when Overeem works his way back to the comparative safety of the guard, we hear brief but brisk applause in recognition of how tricky that escape really was. Things stall out a little from there, and Ataev chooses to stand. And to land a spinning heel kick! Holy moly! Quadros says that's probably the first spinning heel kick we've seen connect in PRIDE FC, and I think that's probably right? It knocked Overeem down, but only for a moment, and he's right back into it. In fact, he tackles Ataev to the mat in big heap against the ropes! When the match is restarted in the middle, he too attacks with 腕緘 ude-garami from 横四方固 yoko-shiho-gatame, as it is an attack that develops intuitively from the position. Could he be thinking far-side 腕挫十字固 ude-hishigi-juji-gatame? Or even near-side? I don't know, maybe! What a nice little match so far! Quadros complains that the fighters have been in the same position "for the last five to seven minutes" (nearly true), and should be restarted standing, which is not a conclusion I agree with as I think everything is going well. The bell sounds, and between rounds they show that spinning heel kick from really any number of angles; it looks neat every time.
After a successful little shrug from a body-lock, Overeem spends most of the second round right up on top in 縦四方固 tate-shiho-gatame, punching here and there, thinking 腕緘 ude-garami thoughts, and generally smothering Ataev (metaphorically, chiefly; only slightly literally). Ataev is yellow-carded and the match is restarted standing, which seems just brutal to me, and then even more brutal still, I'm sure, to Ataev, who is felled with a left knee to the body (not a liver shot: straight up the middle) and the fight is stopped at four-minutes-and-fifty-nine-seconds of the five-minute second round. Overeem is an impressive guy!
Kevin Randleman, who has always seemed nice, explains to Stephen Quadros that he is less angry than he used to be, and what he realized is that underneath it all, he was only ever really angry with himself. He is listening to Mark Coleman more now, he says, and he is happier for it. Perhaps Mark Coleman could guide us, too? Murilo "Ninja" Rua, in his own pre-fight interview, is asked to sing his preferred Lionel Richie song, and does so admirably ("Say You, Say Me"); he walks to the ring in the 忍び装束 shinobi shōzoku garb that we associate most closely with his sobriquet, although the existence of such garb is supported less by contemporaneous historical sources than by later rad movies:
Although pride.fc.24.cold.fury.3.dvdrip.xvid.cd2-kyr.avi (which has really been quite a file so far, as files go) would have us believe that the only other bout to be contested on this day was the main event betwixt Pride Heavyweight Champion Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira and the ever-ready Dan Henderson in a rematch of their 1999 RINGS KING OF KINGS semi-final from RINGS 2/26/00: WORLD MEGA-BATTLE OPEN TOURNAMENT KING OF KINGS GRAND FINAL (addressed here), this is not quite so! In fact there were two others! They are helpfully included in the insanely heroic torrent (of information) that continues to bless us with its many gifts, though, and so here we are, about to talk about those ones, too. First up, 松井 大二郎 Matsui Daijirō, of whom all, I think, remain fond, and 大久保一樹 Okubo Kazuki, about whom we know little, other than that he is a man of 柔道 jūdō presently under the sway of 田村潔司 Tamura Kiyoshi, who corners him here; Okubo competed on RINGS: BATTLE GENESIS VOL. 7, a late and minor RINGS show that I do not think we have seen, and I cannot recall if this is because it never made tape, or never made it into the hands of the traders, or if it did but in the end my disc didn't work. There are many possibilities, and a good portion of this closely contested and really-pretty-good bout passes as I consider them, and google unsuccessfully around and about the TK Scissors domain (I am far from the first to note and mind the decline of google search's utility but man oh man, it is ever notable, and mindable) [UPDATE: turns out we did watch it! And it is discussed here in what is, oddly enough, one of the most viewed entries in all of TK Scissor(s)dom.] 桜庭 和志 Sakuraba Kazushi on guest commentary! As well he might be, I suppose, as he is of Takada Dojo, much like Matsui, who, oh dear, has just been very much tagged in the groin:
Such are the dangers of just chilling out on your back against a standing opponent, I suppose, a standing opponent who has nearly unfettered access to "your gear."
I have absolutely no complaints about this workmanlike bout, which featured some tidy Matsui 大内刈 ouchi-gari and always just enough work in 寝技 newaza (including a great Okubo bridging escape from 縦四方固 tate-shiho-gatame) to keep the referee from getting any ideas, but I can see why, if you were at all tight for time, this totally fine but relatively unthrilling bout that goes the distance might not make the cut for the tape-delayed (by weeks!) English-lanugage broadcast. Matsui takes the unanimous decision. The other stray match we have here sees our weird old RINGSpal 山本宜久 Yamamoto Yoshisa best the ever-weird アレクサンダー大塚 Alexander Otsuka when the latter must retire weirdly to a weird leg-injury after the second weird round in a bout he may have been winning despite a yellow card for groin-kneeing? Weird!
Okay, back to our main event after a full hour's diversion into semi-included undercard matches. Nogueira! Henderson! Could be good! In a pre-fight pre-tape, Nogueira shares with Stephen Quadros his view that Henderson's decision win in their previous meeting was questionable, and I remember very much feeling that way at the time too (I have just now revisited our contemporaneous [in a sense {it's complicated}] account of it to confirm, and that was indeed very much the case, yes; I also note that I used the word "lame" several times over the course of that one match and it has led me to reflect on how that really isn't a word I like to use anymore [times change; hearts change]). The Henderson match is actually the only loss of Nogueira's career to this point, which is really something, because he's fought twenty times against really strong competition; the loss to Henderson and a truly excellent draw against 高阪 剛 Kōsaka Tsuyoshi at RINGS 8/23/00: MILLENNIUM COMBINE 3rd (the match itself is here; the previous link was to our discourse upon it) are the only times he has not won, but it's pretty tough to look at either fight and think Nogueira did anything less than a great job. He was just the best guy, and everybody thought he was great.
"Look at this, I can't believe it: Henderson on top!" is a kind of confusing thing to say about Dan Henderson, even had Nogueira not just met with only partial success on his 隅返 sumi-gaeshi attempt. He can't keep him there, though, as Nogueira shrimps to the half-guard of niju-garami and escapes to his feet. They stay clinched this whole time, which is in my view the correct way to fight always and in all circumstances, though I understand this is going to be a matter of personal æsthetic preference. Alas that referee 島田 裕二 Shimada Yūji does not concur, and separates the fighters just as Nogueira began to explore the major-inner-reaping possibilities of 大内刈 ouchi-gari. Some spirited hitting follows (careful out there guys!), before, reclinched, Henderson twists Nogueira to the mat with a form of 支釣込足 sasae-tsurikomi-ashi; I'm sure Henderson would have another term to express this same mechanism. This is all good for Henderson, in that now he can lay in some heavy shots from a stable top position, but ungood in that Nogueira's busy hips get busy so soon, and he traps Henderson's head and left arm in the "diamond" that so often prefigures 表三角絞 omote-sankaku-jime ("腰を少し捻て / koshi o sukoshi hinete," 柏 崎 克 彦 Kashiwazaki Katsuhiko advises: "twist your hips a little") or, if 受け uke cuts the angle to prevent the strangulation as Henderson does here, the 足三角絡 ashi-sankaku-garami (known to some as the omoplata) that then may follow. That's more or less the size of things here:
Quadros sees this coming before Bas, which is a feather in his cap for sure, because Bas is obviously sharp about such matters. Bas thinks he should roll out of this; Quadros wonders if that would mean he was rolling right into an armbar; Bas says no, not if he pulls the arm out while he's rolling. Is this the dialectic? They hold this position, more or less, for a full minute! "Nogueira could go for a choke here," Quadros notes, and if anyone would like to look into which choke in particular, I would invite you to consult page two-hundred of Inokuma and Sato's Best Judo (1979) which, you know what, I'll just post for you here real quick; there's no reason for you to walk all the way over to the bookshelf to find your own copy of Inokuma and Sato's Best Judo (1979) :
In time, Henderson leans back into almost a crucifix position, turns his hips to the mat, and slips his arm out in a sequence I don't think you'd necessarily teach anyone whose arm you valued, but which is, at the same time, just fantastic. The crowd is pretty into this escape! Henderson enjoys several dozen seconds of peace before Nogueira locks in a 逆腕緘 gyaku-ude-garami that looks just about as secure as can be, but again Henderson twists out. Back on their feet, they box excitingly before Nogueira clinches and throws his much lighter foe (a good thirty pounds sperate them) with 小外掛 kosoto-gake with only a few seconds left in the round. This is just great!
Hey in case you're wondering why this match is happening at all, I suppose I could have mentioned this earlier, but you will perhaps recall an Observer excerpt posted last time around: "The deal with Fedor Emelianenko is that he suffered a heel injury to his left foot on 12/1 while competing in Panama at the World Sambo Wrestling championships. Pride wasn’t wanting him to compete in it because of fear he’d get hurt and screw up their main event and title match, but he did so anyway." And so here we are.
It is Henderson now who takes Nogueira down with a little 小外 kosoto (the 小 ko itself means "little"!). More ude-garami attacks from Nogueira, and right up against the ropes this time, making the first round's baffling escapes trickier, not that he's not trying . . . aaaaaaand he's out. Unreal. I thought Nogueira was going to keep the grip and finish with 腕挫十字固 ude-hishigi-juji-gatame but that is not at all what happened even slightly. The next sure-thing finish that Henderson avoids, late in the second, is 腕挫腕固 ude-hishigi-ude-gatame.
"You can't win a fight by escaping submissions," Quadros says, but not at all dismissively; he is super impressed (so say we all). Between rounds, I worry that Nogueira's cornerman is coming way too close to his eyes with the towel he is waving to fan him; the last thing you need heading into the third against Dan Henderson is a terrycloth blinding. Of the many 小外掛 kosoto-gake / minor-outer-hook takedowns we have seen tonight, the one that Nogueira hits to open round three is perhaps the most thunderous (the thirty-pound weight-difference no doubt a factor), and he is right up on top in 縦四方固 tate-shiho-gatame attacking with an 腕緘 ude-garami grip that is hard to finish "qua" ude-garami from here but which transitions seamlessly to juji okay yeah here he goes: it's the 十字固 juji-gatame. Unless Henderson has one more ludicrous escape in him?
He does not.
But that's okay! He did a great job! So too Nogueira! Just an excellent contest between two fine sportsmen. I think technically it was maybe a referee stoppage, as Shimada came darting in just before Henderson actually tapped? Ah okay: an alternate angle shows Henderson, both of whose arms had very much been invited to the party (and attended against their better judgment), super duper verbally submitting, which causes Shimada to dash in, and then in the first instant in which the hold was relaxed enough for Henderson to actually tap, he did so to be extra sure all of this would end before his arm got wrecked (it was well on its way; this was really quite a juji).
Plenty of good stuff on this relatively minor year-ending show! One wonders, as one so often does, what Dave Meltzer had to say about it.
January 6, 2003:
Remember 石井 和義 Ishii Kazuyoshi, K-1 founder who learned the trade in Fighting Network RINGS? Well the news isn't good:
"The entire foundation of sports entertainment in Japan was thrown for a loop when the most powerful man in the Japanese industry, K-1 promoter Kazuyoshi Ishii, 49, was indicted on tax evasion charges on 12/26. He and two other high ranked officials of the company, also indicted in the scandal, resigned the next day.
Besides being president of K-1, Ishii was involved in joint promotions this past year with both Pride and All Japan Pro Wrestling. The arrest came just weeks after the most successful show in the company’s history, and in a year where Ishii’s promotional wizardry peaked with the creation of the Bob Sapp phenomenon.
Indicted along with Ishii were Takeshi Sato, 43, the President of Inter Media Corporation, a company under the K-1 umbrella handling its advertising, and Sanshi Terakubo, 67, who handled the accounting for the parent company.
The Tokyo Tax Administration Agency charged parent company Kei-Wan with under reporting more than $1 million in income between 1996 and 1998, thus owing the government more than $500,000 in taxes. The indictment claimed that Ishii would instruct Terakubo to doctor the books. Investigators also found about $850,000 in cash hidden in Ishii’s hotel room.
With its 1/26 show in Kochi canceled when the building canceled rental due to the scandal, K-1 doesn’t have another show scheduled until a middleweight show on 3/1 at the Ariake Coliseum.
The plan announced was to restructure the company and put a committee in charge, which when it comes to a sports entertainment promotion, historically has been the kiss of death. Kumiko Goto was named the new President of K-1, and thus far nobody has been chosen to replace Ishii as the President of the sister Seido Kaikan company. The main man in charge of booking and putting together the shows is Sadaharu Tanigawa, who is the color commentator on the television shows. He and referee and former K-1 fighter Nobuaki Kakuda will handle the booking. The other members of the main power structure will be Naoki Nakamoto, Kumiko Shibuya (who will handle contract negotiations) and Masaru Ono, who will handle company finances.
It is believed that no matter how successful financially K-1 had become, Ishii was always worried about its long-term popularity because of his background in learning the pro wrestling industry from Akira Maeda, whose second version of the UWF in the late 80s was the hottest thing in Japan for two years, before collapsing quickly. Ishii admitted as much as his excuse when acknowledging his actions to police, and he was not taken into custody.
Ishii’s background in martial arts dates back to joining a karate dojo in 1969. He set up his first Kyokushin karate dojo in Osaka in 1975, and then opened up his Seido Kaikan karate dojo in 1980. He got involved in promotions in 1988 running the seventh annual All Japan karate championships, and revolutionized that sport by moving matches to a boxing ring and adding gloves to the competition. In 1991, after the UWF folded, Ishii was part of the management team of Maeda’s RINGS promotion, a pro wrestling group that claimed it wasn’t pro wrestling but a newly created martial arts sport.
After learning pro wrestling promotional tactics, he held his first K-1 Grand Prix tournament in 1993 at the Yoyogi Gym in Tokyo, where Bronko Cikatic knocked out Ernesto Hoost in the championship match. K-1 quickly grew in popularity and people like Andy Hug and Peter Aerts became national celebrities by 1995. The 1997-2000 period was its heyday, which included expansion with successful shows in England, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and in recent years, two annual shows in Las Vegas.
It started losing steam over the past two years for a number of reasons, the biggest being the same problem that has faced pro wrestling, a reliance on same drawing cards for too long ,resulting in few new fresh match-ups, and in a shoot sport, those stars’ abilities were on the decline. Because of his fear of a business collapse, well before the company cooled down, he started doing interpromotional matches with Pride, working with Antonio Inoki, starting with the original Mirko Cro Cop vs. Kazuyuki Fujita match on August 19, 2001. While Ishii was constantly attempting to make new stars, such as Brazilian Francisco Filho and Cro Cop over the past five years, the overall popularity was threatened by the sudden death of its biggest star, Hug, in 2000, from leukemia. The ratings for the big events became less consistent without the dominance of the popular TV stars and the loss of Hug. However, in the past few months, the company rebounded to its strongest point ever behind the Sapp vs. Hoost program, which resulted in the most anticipated Grand Prix tournament in history on 12/7, selling out the Tokyo Dome in advance and drawing an all-time record 28.4 rating, making it the most watched sporting event in Japan during 2002, with the exception of games involving the Japanese national team in the soccer World Cup and four games in the Japanese Baseball League World Series."
and, because of a significant PRIDE FC presence, thereupon:
"Flash report at deadline from the Inoki Bom Ba Ya show on New Years Eve at the Saitama Super Arena. Live crowd was a sellout of 35,674.
1. Jan “The Giant” Nortje (a 6-9, 315 pound kickboxer) destroyed Tadao Yasuda, winning in :57 of the second round when the masked Makai Club members threw in the towel. Match started slow with Nortje getting a yellow card for stalling. He got aggressive, and rushed Yasuda throwing. Yasuda went to tie him up sumo style, but he was unable to take him down. Nortje ended up getting Yasuda down near the corner and unloaded with punches, kicks and stomps just as the first round was ending. Yasuda was said to have been saved by the bell. In the second round, the two tied up and as Nortje was looking to overpower him in the corner and get in a bad position, Yasuda’s corner threw in the towel. It was a very strange finish, probably on purpose to avoid Yasuda getting humiliated but Yasuda didn’t seem happy about the towel being thrown in. Said to be a so-so match. .
2. Mike Bernardo gained his revenge knocking out Gary Goodridge under K-1 rules in 2:12. Goodridge came out throwing everything he had, probably realizing the fluke lucky shot, that he did get in the first fight, was his only chance. Bernardo slipped and went down, but when he got up, he started with punches and leg kicks. He knocked Goodridge down once, then, smelling revenge, let the hard punches fly, putting him down a second time with a left and right combination, ending the fight. Said to be an exciting fight and the best one on the undercard.
3. Daniel Gracie (real name Daniel Simoes) defeated Shunsuke Nakamura in 2:14 of the second round. Nakamura is a rookie with New Japan Pro Wrestling, who placed third in 2001 in the Japanese collegiate national freestyle tournament. They are looking at him for the combined shooter and pro wrestler role and are grooming him to be a future superstar. Nakamura took Gracie down, but Gracie managed to punch him from laying on his back hard enough to open a cut over one of his eyes. The match was stopped as Nakamura’s cut was checked, but he was allowed to continue. Nakamura took him down a second time, but Gracie was quite happy, being more experienced at submissions, to be on his back. Gracie went for a heel hook late in the round but couldn’t complete it. In the second round, Nakamura scored another takedown, but working from the guard, Gracie got an armbar for the submission. Even though he lost, it’s okay for a rookie pro wrestler to look good against a name guy in losing, so the feeling was he helped himself because people saw him as a competitive fighter.
4. Wallid Ismail won a unanimous decision over Yasuhito Namekawa, who formerly was with RINGS, after three rounds. The match was mainly on the ground with Ismail on top, and not that exciting. Namekawa even got a yellow card for stalling in the second round. Ismail got a mount in the third round and scored the best blow of the fight, a hard knee to the head. Namekawa went for a triangle late in the round but couldn’t get it. Ismail was the clear winner, but Namekawa was said to have been competitive.
5. Quinton Jackson of Pride in only his second kickboxing match, scored his second straight upset win under K-1 rules in the rematch with Cyril Abidi. Jackson won a one-sided unanimous decision after three rounds. Jackson was more aggressive, and won the fight due to superior conditioning. Jackson never had Abidi in trouble, but Abidi was tired as the match wore on and couldn’t do much on offense. Said to be kind of boring.
Antonio Inoki came out for a segment which included him doing leg wrestling (I have no idea what that is) and beating Great Sasuke, two masked men in red and white masks (a spoof on the Red vs. White team theme on the NHK musical show that was airing head-to-head) a somewhat well known TV comedian and even Mark Coleman. Coleman responded that Inoki isn’t human. Inoki put over one woman, and then they brought out Sachio Nomura, who is the wife of a very famous former baseball manager who was fired after he got in trouble on tax evasion charges. Inoki slapped her in the face. Unlike here, where it would be considered criminal assault on a woman, there it’s considered a high honor.
6. Mirko Cro Cop (Mirko Filipovic) kept his undefeated streak against pro wrestlers alive with a unanimous decision win over Kazuyuki Fujita. This match had super crowd heat and a great storyline from the start. Brian Johnston, who was supposed to be Fujita’s corner man in their first meeting on August 19, 2001, suffering a life-threatening stroke just before the match, while backstage. He wasn’t given good odds to live, and the doctors at first thought at best he’d survive as a vegetable. Crowd went nuts when, without a cane, he walked to the ring on his own power to second Fujita, holding the hand of Kendo Kashin. Inoki helped him to the apron and Fujita was wearing the ring robe that Johnston wore in New Japan Pro Wrestling. They were trying to play on the storyline that “the living miracle” (Johnston’s nickname) in the corner would coach Fujita to a win. His only loss was via blood stoppage, at a time he had mounted Cro Cop, in their first meeting. Cro Cop followed the Fujita win with a quick knockout last New Years Eve that cost Yuji Nagata the Wrestler of the Year award and cost New Japan an incalculable amount of prestige, honor and money. He was then given the nickname the “pro wrestler hunter” as he knocked out Ryushi Yanagisawa, and then, before the biggest live gate in history and setting a Japanese PPV record, added Kazushi Sakuraba to his victims. Johnston returning to lead Fujita to victory would have been an awesome storyline, but Cro Cop has improved so much when it comes to working on the ground that he looked to be a strong favorite. First round was slow, as neither did anything effective (Cro Cop tried a high kick, but missed) until the 3:40 mark when Fujita scored a takedown. Cro Cop was more effective punching from the bottom than Fujita from the top, but no serious damage was done in the round. Second round saw Cro Cop threw a few low kicks before Fujita took him down. Both mainly through weak punches from that position. After a stand-up, Fujita went for another takedown, but Cro Cop sprawled and it was bad news for Fujita. Cro Cop trapped his head and threw 11 hard knees to the head. Even though Fujita appears impervious to blows that would kill a normal man (true story, his skull is twice as thick as a normal person so he physically can take unreal punishment), he was feeling those knees. Luckily for him, the bell sounded, ending the round, but the fight had turned. In the third round, Fujita went for a takedown, but Cro Cop sprawled and again started hammering him with knees. Fujita was able to get away, then went for another takedown, Cro Cop sprawled and delivered knee after knee. Fujita was able to get the takedown toward the end of the round, but couldn’t do any damage on top. Fujita’s left eye was swollen and Cro Cop won a clear unanimous decision.
7. Hidehiko Yoshida continued his winning streak over Masaaki Satake in :50 via submission with a guillotine choke in a one-sided bout. It was billed as being Satake’s retirement match, but in his post-match interview, he said he was going to fight again. Satake tried a cheap back spin kick when Yoshida went to shake his hand right at the bell. Yoshida avoided the kick, and Satake knew his slim chance was gone.
8. Bob Sapp defeated Yoshihiro Takayama in 2:16 with an armbar and ref stoppage. Sapp was punching with his right hand without appearing to have any damage, and broken bones don’t heal in three weeks. So much for the legitimacy of that injury. It was a very heated, exciting and brutal match that the fans loved and had it taken place in the U.S. in a sport with similar popularity, the media would have crucified everyone involved for letting it happen. They traded hard punches standing with a flurry like the Don Frye fight (unfortunately for Takayama, this was said to be a condensed version of that match). They locked up and both went for takedowns, and with Sapp having about a 100-pound weight advantage, he ended up on top. He destroyed Takayama’s face with hard punches from the mount, bloodying his nose and leaving him looking like one would imagine a human-like creature from a different solar system would look. Sapp then maneuvered to the side and put on a perfect armbar. Takayama wasn’t going to tap, so the ref stopped it. The show ended with Sapp putting Inoki on his shoulders and carrying him out of the ring with Inoki’s music playing. Overall this was said to be a very successful event.
The NHK-TV- traditional New Years Eve musical special that is the Japanese television equivalent to the Super Bowl in the U.S., recruited Keiji Muto for counter programming as a special guest and he was brought out just as Sapp and Takayama were ready to go to the ring."
Dave goes deep on THE SMASHING MACHINE (2002):
"A revealing look at a nine-month period in the lives of two of the best MMA heavyweights of modern times called “The Smashing Machine” debuts as an HBO movie on 1/12 and is a must see for any fan to get a true insider view of the sport.
The movie, filmed from the summer of 1999 through the spring of 2000, follows the careers of Mark Kerr and Mark Coleman, two former NCAA champions and Olympic caliber wrestlers. Friends since 1988 when Coleman, a senior at Ohio State, beat Kerr, a freshman at Syracuse, they wound up as two of the leading rivals for Kurt Angle in 1996 as all three were on a collision course to represent the U.S. at 220 pounds. Kerr in the trials came very close to beating Angle. Coleman, who placed fifth at the trials, was a favorite going in, having made the team at the previous Olympics and placed seventh in Barcelona. There is little doubt that had either of those two made the team, and medaled in the Olympics, the WWF would have came calling with the same $250,000 contract Angle originally laughed off. In the same situation, there is little doubt Coleman, who loves pro wrestling and is a natural at it, wouldn’t have done so. What Kerr would have done is immaterial, because he most likely would have been a Mark Henry caliber failure.
Their friendship came full circle. Coleman became a star in UFC first, and recruited his wrestling buddy because he thought he’d be able to make good money at it. But as the Pride Grand Prix tournament, held in 2000, looms, the two went in as the favorites. Neither wants to fight each other, but the $200,000 first prize makes both realize they may have to.
When the movie starts, Kerr is the top ranked heavyweight in the world and the rising superstar of the ascending Pride promotion, after leaving UFC for a better money offer. Coleman was the former king, beset by a series of crushing losses and knee surgery. During the period, both men train a little together, but due to geography, mainly apart. By the end of the movie, their roles reverse. For wrestling fans, this is also the period where Pride went from a struggling promotion to a national phenomenon that totally changed the face of Japanese pro wrestling.
The movie gives a realistic portrayal of the world of MMA. The violence and brutality is depicted vividly, as are the side effects of that violence that fans never see. The movie follows Kerr’s battles with drug addictions that nearly ended his life and ultimately destroyed his career.
Both men also struggle with the realities of being in a sport that the public doesn’t understand, and both clearly have mixed feelings about, not unlike those of many fighters, but none who will speak publicly about it. Kerr, in the beginning of the movie, says, “I don’t know why I’m in it.” He talks about the euphoria of winning a big fight being an orgasmic high to which nothing can compare. His father, who he doesn’t get along with, is against him fighting, even using the human cockfight reference to UFC.
Coleman, who started in UFC in the summer of 1996 after failing to make the Olympic team, recognizes that age is creeping up on him and is just taking one match at a time. Fighting started for him as a quest, to prove wrestlers were the toughest athletes in the world. Kerr’s reasons for starting ended up as Coleman’s primary motivation years later. He had no money and it was a way to make a good living by using the skills he’d honed his whole life as a top amateur wrestler.
Coleman blew through all competition in UFC, winning two straight eight-man tournaments, including handing Don Frye his first ever defeat. He followed it up by defeating the top man in the sport at the time, Dan Severn, for the world heavyweight title. Thought at the time to be unbeatable, his belief in his invincibility turned out to be his worst enemy. He turned human midway through the fight where he defended his title against kickboxer Maurice Smith. He had gone into the match feeling he’d beat Smith easily, and showed him little respect as a fighter because he wasn’t a wrestler. Coleman noted that there was no worse feeling in the world than to be in the ring, totally exhausted, and unable to defend oneself, which he learned a valuable lesson about as he lost the title in 1997 in one of UFC’s most famous matches ever. His career was going nowhere after blowing out his knee, and coming back losing his next two fights, including the shot that has aired in a million replays since when Pete Williams kicked him in the face and knocked him out, due to stamina problems against opponents he was handling for the early portions of the fight. Coleman no longer fights to prove anything about the sport of wrestling, and realizes just how stupid his narrow-minded early thoughts were. Married, and with two children, fighting for him is nothing more than a tough way to pay the bills. So much so that, while not covered in the movie, right in the period the movie starts, he took a huge payoff to lose a Pride fight to Nobuhiko Takada.
Kerr’s career started in 1997, winning a tournament in Brazil, and gaining the name “Smashing Machine,” and followed it up with two more tournament wins in UFC. Kerr became feared so quickly that in his second UFC tournament, his opponent, Canadian Dave Beneteau, who was unharmed in his first round win, refused to face Kerr, citing his infamous “executive decision,” which infuriated UFC officials and largely spelled the end of his career. As UFC was losing cable coverage due to negative publicity, Kerr jumped his contract and signed a lucrative deal with Pride, becoming the first in what would be a long line of superstars that would jump ship. At this point, Kerr is exactly where Coleman was two years earlier, the No. 1 ranked heavyweight in the sport, and considered every bit as unbeatable. And like Coleman, he’s about to get the same lesson of believing in his hype.
The movie opens with Kerr coming back from a Tokyo Dome match with Hugo Duarte and being checked out. During the fight, both his rotator cuff and knee were injured and it becomes abundantly clear where his problems with pain killers are coming from. In one graphic shot, Kerr shoots an injectable opiate right into the vein in his left biceps. When an older woman in the waiting room questions him, thinking his sport is brutal, Kerr, who talks both soft-spoken and reasoned, far different than one would expect from either a fighter, or a drug addict, he has a difficult time defending it.
Kerr, estranged from his family and the rest of his former friends, has only one person in his life, girlfriend Dawn Staples. His best friend, a college wrestling teammate who he tried to get to join him in UFC but decided to work for world.com at the time seemed to be a safer occupation, accepts the strange nature of their relationship. He calls Mark. Mark almost never calls back. But his friends are fully aware he’s got problems. Everyone around him knows. At this point in his life, he fears losing his girlfriend more than he fears losing a fight, something that has never happened to him. Staples is already concerned about his drug problems and lack of focus as he headed to Japan to face Igor Vovchanchyn. She notes that he didn’t train hard for the fight, and two weeks beforehand, both had gone out and drank heavily.
The film depicts that the fighters themselves harbor no ill feelings in most cases toward each other. The day before they did battle, Kerr and Vovchanchyn were joking around in a Tokyo hotel lobby posing for fan photos. Kerr dominated the early part of the fight with his wrestling skill, but his lack of training bit him in the ass as he tired. He held on, until Vovchanchyn was able to escape from the bottom, and the Russian knocked Kerr out with a series of knees to the head. In doing so, the smaller savage man who hardly appears dangerous visually in the least, unknowingly violated a newly created rule regarding kneeing a guy on all fours. Vovchanchyn, who doesn’t know either English or Japanese, is apologetic about his mistake later. Kerr is initially ruled the loser, and then went to Kazuyoshi Ishii and complained that the ref made a bad call. Ishii said he’d take care of it, and officially, the match was ruled a no contest. After spilling each others’ blood, Kerr and Vovchanchyn two joked around in the dressing room and took photos together. But when everyone was gone, the dark side was shown, with Kerr, in tears, by himself, and later asking a Japanese doctor if he had any opiates.
Coming back from the long flight from Japan, in his car on the way to his home in Phoenix, Kerr is on the cell phone trying with his prime concern to get more injectables. At this point Staples threatened to leave him if he didn’t clean up. Kerr openly realized he had a drug problem. The saddest part to those who have been around wrestling that have seen this movie, is Kerr was far more coherent than many wrestlers who don’t realize it.
At the same time, Coleman’s life in his home town of Columbus, OH, living in a small duplex with his wife and two daughters, revolves around playing with his kids and training with protege and current pro wrestling tag team partner Kevin Randleman. He and his wife joked about when they met, when he was working as a night club bouncer and she and her friends came to the door, he let them in without checking their ID. She lied to him about her age, claiming she was older. He wanted to date her, so he lied as well, claiming he was younger. It wasn’t until they flashed his age on the big screens at his first UFC that she realized he’d shaved some years off.
Both were scheduled to fight on the November 21, 1999 Pride event at the Ariake Coliseum in Tokyo, which ended up being a turning point in the promotion’s history with the creation of a new superstar, Kazushi Sakuraba, when he defeated Royler Gracie via ref stoppage. Kerr was actually the promotion’s big star at the time. He was scheduled to face Enson Inoue, but a few weeks before fight, he overdosed and the doctors told Staples they weren’t sure he was going to get out of the hospital alive. Apparently he went crazy, taking anything he could get his hands on, and collapsed on the floor in his house. The paramedics called to the scene weren’t able to keep him awake. When he finally was released from the hospital, he put all his drugs, and there were enough bottles and needles to fill a hefty garbage bag, and took them to a dumpster, and checked into rehab.
Coleman had a different kind of battle awaiting him, in the form of 6-foot-9, 275-pound Ricardo Morais. In a scene right out of a pro wrestling vignette introducing Leviathan or some other freakishly large monster, Morais is in a swimming pool in Japan with mentor Renzo Gracie. The two are acting like the Grand Wizard standing behind Ernie Ladd, laughing about how his big monster will show so mercy and laughing about the four mouths Coleman had to feed in a sinister and kind of scary manner. But Coleman was able to ground and pound the Brazilian giant, who was so supremely confident going in, and after the fight sat in the corner of his dressing room, too shocked to speak.
As Kerr got out of rehab, it was his girlfriend who suddenly had the problem. She was afraid that, off drugs, maybe Kerr would find out he didn’t really love her. She had alcohol problems in her past, which included a stint in A.A., and had became a bad influence on him. Refusing to give up drinking and drugs herself, she promised to at least never do them around him. It was a promise she quickly broke. Her days consisted of going out to lunch with her friends and drinking. Then continuing through happy hour, and all night long. Kerr’s sponsors told him she was a bad influence on him and had to get away from her. He told her he wanted out of the relationship.
Pride introduced the famous 2000 Grand Prix tournament, the biggest MMA tournament in history, spread over two shows at the Tokyo Dome. Neither Coleman nor Kerr, considered the co-favorites were happy about the prospect of likely having to fight each other.
Kerr went to Los Angeles to train under Bas Rutten. After some killer workouts (it’s interesting to note that Kerr’s training partner he was abusing at will at the time was current UFC heavyweight champ Ricco Rodriguez), he went to the Tokyo Dome in great shape and hammered Inoue. Coleman tapped out his first opponent, famed K-1 fighter Masaaki Satake, setting the stage for the biggest eight-man tournament in history a few months later.
In preparing for the May 1, 2000 finals of the Grand Prix tournament, things were different. Dawn was back in the picture, and went to Los Angeles with Kerr. But she was going down fast, and upset that he was training so much, started making demands on him. She was miserable, feeling he was tuning her out and not paying attention and the two were fighting constantly. Kerr couldn’t sleep, and she was coming to the gym and cutting short his workouts, prompting Rutten to say the two need to be separated. A few weeks before the tournament, she insisted they leave Los Angeles. Rutten was overly dismayed, because Kerr was, despite the obstacles, on track, but was afraid without him to drive Kerr forward, Kerr wouldn’t get in the needed peak condition for such a difficult undertaking. Kerr and Rodriguez continued to train in Phoenix, but he didn’t have the necessary tunnel vision. Kerr was drinking again by this point, justifying it by saying at least he wasn’t shooting himself up anymore. One night, just before he was to travel to Japan, he had to call the police because she had gotten so out of control. She grabbed one of his handguns, but fortunately, it wasn’t loaded. She then grabbed a razor blade, and attempted to slit her wrist.
The movie climaxes with the Grand Prix tournament as the two friends worried about having to face each other, which everyone expected to happen in the semifinals. Ultimately, the Grand Prix proved to be a happy ending for one, and a bitter pill for the other. But the biggest shocker of all was the end of the movie, and what happened just a few weeks after the tournament.
This isn’t “Wrestling with Shadows,” where there are so many little things in the movie you can watch it a dozen times and pick something up each time. But it’s well worth going out of your way to see. It shows the realities of the fight game that only those close to the fighters ever see. And it shows both sides of the sport of MMA, the fighters, who are hardly what most people think they are, and the fights, which have repercussions that the people who know who the fighters really are, usually don’t acknowledge. You’ll finish the movie with respect for the skills and conditioning required to be at the top level, the knowledge that the toughest people in the world in their daily lives face the same problems as everyone else, paying bills and struggling with relationships and vices. But you’ll also end up having mixed feelings about the new direction over the past ten years that this sport is evolving into."
from OTHER JAPAN NOTES (often so rich a section):
"Bob Sapp piled up the fan voting honors in the annual Nikkan Sports pro wrestling awards for 2002. Sapp won the MVP award, garnering 2,271 votes to 992 for Yoshihiro Takayama and 406 for Yuji Nagata. Sapp also won Most Outstanding (which is ridiculous) with 1,208 votes to 1,206 for Takayama and 799 for Hidehiko Yoshida. For match of the year, and this is very interesting because it speaks volumes as to what is considered by the Japanese casual newspaper reading fan of what pro wrestling is, the winner was Sapp vs Ernesto Hoost on 12/7 in a K-1 match with 1,062 votes. It should be noted that match had a huge advantage in that tons more people saw it than any match all year. Sapp vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira on 8/28 under Pride rules was second with 1,039 and Don Frye vs. Takayama was third with 854. The highest ranking worked match was Nagata vs. Takayama from the 5/2 Tokyo Dome with 475 votes out of more than 4,600 cast. Fighting spirit award which is similar but not exactly hardest worker was Shinjiro Otani with 891, Satoshi Kojima with 849, and Kenta Kobashi with 674. Best technical wrestler was Osamu Nishimura with 1,417 followed by Naoya Ogawa with 1,089 and Kendo Kashin with 549. Joanie Laurer was voted womens MVP. To me, that match of the year would be like Fernando Vargas vs. Oscar de la Hoya winning the Match of the Year for pro wrestling, but it also tells you had fans view things there."
and
"The current plan is for two four-man tournaments, a heavyweight and a middleweight (over and under 198 pounds) to be held in Pride next year on Tokyo Dome shows set for 8/3 and 10/4.
Don Frye is scheduled for shoulder surgery on 1/3. While Frye had mentally decided earlier this year to retire, after the loss to Hidehiko Yoshida, he is making it clear he wants to fight again, and is looking for a rematch. I don’t see that happening because there is no benefit to it for Yoshida.
Ricco Rodriguez was on Live Audio Wrestling on 12/28 and said that Dana White had proposed a series of three interpromotional matches with Pride, which would have featured a Matt Hughes vs. Hayato Sakurai rematch, Chuck Liddell vs. Vanderlei Silva and he vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. DSE turned down the proposal and he claimed it was because DSE was mad at him for leaving them for UFC a few years ago."
January 13, 2002:
Dave gets word, and makes some bold predictions!
"Regarding the 12/23 Pride show, which airs on U.S. and Canadian PPV on 1/11, it’s a better than average show, but not a must see. Rodrigo Gracie vs. Yuki Sasaki is a good technical ground match. Volk Ataev vs. Alistair Overeem was a good match. Kevin Randleman vs. Murilo Ninja was even better. Dan Henderson is the man. I wouldn’t consider his match with Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira close to match of the year, but he was given up 40 pounds (233 to 193 that night), took the fight with less than two weeks notice against the best fighter in the world, and did some cool submission escapes and hung tough standing for 16:49. By the way, and you read it here first, Fedor Emelianenko is going to beat Nogueira and win the heavyweight title. And if and when that happens, they need to match up Fedor vs. Sapp for the title at the big summer show because Sapp should beat Fedor, and then build to Sapp vs. Mirko Cro Cop and the monster ratings will keep coming."
and
"An interesting note regarding Mark Kerr before the movie on a year in his life airs on 1/12. While the movie portrayed Kerr leaving UFC for Japan for more money, it didn’t accurately portray the circumstances, which were that Kerr had an existing UFC contract at the time. A nasty court fight ensued, in which the judge released Kerr from his UFC contract under the most questionable of rulings. Kerr claimed in his court filings that he didn’t know how rough UFC was before signing a contract (as the movie showed, before ever having his first UFC fight, he had participated in a tournament in Brazil where he got the “Smashing Machine” nickname from; and those rules were far more brutal than UFC rules). He said that after competing, he found out that mixed martial arts was nothing but human cockfighting and how can a contract be enforced that would force him to participate in an outlawed event. Then, after being released from his contract, he went to fight for Pride."
January 20, 2002:
R.I.P. Naoto Morishita:
"What is officially being labeled a suicide, the death of Dream Stage Entertainment (Pride) president Naoto Morishita is just the latest in a string of events that is changing the face of the industry at record speed.
Morishita’s death at the age of 42 comes just two weeks after K-1 President Kazuyoshi Ishii was forced to resign his post after being indicted on tax evasion charges. This leaves the future cloudy of the two companies that, from an appearance and business standpoint, appeared to go into 2003 as the strongest entities in this rapidly changing industry. The circumstances and speculation surrounding Morishita’s death combined with Ishii’s arrest have left this aspect of the industry in Japan, which was at an all-time popularity peak this past month, reeling with an image problem and there is fear that a lot of sponsors will pull out. The traditional pro wrestling industry in Japan went through a similar problem in 1964 after the gangland style slaying of Rikidozan. At the time, many arenas, because it became apparent the pro wrestling industry was heavily tied into the Japanese Yakuza, would no longer allow shows. It took a few years before the image was cleansed, although there has always been some form of Yakuza involvement in aspects of pro wrestling in that country and it is a subject spoken about openly. .
According to Dream Stage Entertainment executive Nobuyuki Sakakibara, 39, Morishita, described as passionate and hot tempered, had an argument with his mistress (Morishita is married with a two-year old daughter, although the idea of major executives having mistresses is more accepted within that culture than in American culture). The two were staying at the Hilton Hotel in the Shinjuku section of Tokyo, a few hours after Morishita presided over a press conference that laid out the company’s plans for the new year.
Supposedly angry about a break-up, he went into the bathroom at about 12:15 a.m. When he never came out of the bathroom, the woman, whose identity has been kept secret other than she was in her 20s, opened the door at about 12:30 a.m. and found him lifeless, after apparently hanging himself with a belt from his hotel bathrobe. She immediately called the hotel front desk, who called an emergency rescue team. They arrived at 12:45 a.m. and officially pronounced him dead.
The police themselves have made no public comment other than confirming the belief it was a suicide, but there was no suicide note, nor did he leave a will. The circumstances of death were strange enough that speculation has run rampant as to what the real story is throughout the pro wrestling and MMA world because of the well-known Yakuza involvement throughout the industry in Japan. While there is no proof otherwise, it is pretty clear that most within the industry are skeptical of the released story and Naigai Times, a sports newspaper on 1/11 had a headline reading, “Morishita killed?,” examining that as a possibility. Even the NTV News (the leading network newscast in the country) hinted that people believe there was more to this story than in the police report.
Original Japanese newspaper reports claimed Morishita killed himself because of company debts, similar to the suicide death last year of FMW President Shoichi Arai.
Within the industry, it seems few are accepting the suicide as the cause of death. The question always brought up is why would he attend the press conference to talk about such major plans, and appear in such a good mood talking about them and remain in a good mood, according to those who interacted with him for several hours after the press conference? Among the plans the company had was a debut in the United States with a live PPV show from Las Vegas over the summer, and confirming holding two major tournaments at the Tokyo Dome. Also cited were friends of Morishita. who claimed he had told them he was planning on breaking up with the woman, so it would make no sense he would commit suicide over such a break-up.
Dream Stage officials tried to quell stories that the suicide was due to company financial problems. They claimed the company ran in the black last year. That could be true, but it was also clear that money was getting tighter. The company in recent months had cut back on the salary structure for talent, some as much as 30 percent, as well as wanting to cut back on other expenses. In August, the company lead accountant quit, apparently due to an emotional breakdown. Recent shows were run this year with the idea the company needed to run profitably, which is why they cut back on a lot of promotional efforts in the U.S., because of the feeling the U.S. market had no potential to be profitable in the short-term, but Morishita did talk highly of the U.S. potential on PPV. Many fighters had their contract money cut back substantially.
Pride TV announcer Stephen Quadros described Morishita as a fun guy with a great sense of humor who was well liked by the fighters. Morishita appeared once on an English language Pride show, which was the September 24, 2001 show, a few weeks after 9/11 with them holding a ceremony. The contrast between his public handling of the atrocities and Vince McMahon’s were amazing (even if Don Frye and Bradshaw gave the same interview). Even though it was not in their country, Morishita made an impassioned speech in Japanese on the show, respecting that many of the fighters, and not just the Americans, as well as the Japanese public, were so saddened by the events.
“It’s more a personal tragedy than a business tragedy because everyone liked the guy,” said Quadros on Wrestling Observer Live. “Business wise, I think the organization is definitely going to jump right back on the horse.”
Morishita was born on June 10, 1960 in Nagoya. After graduating college, he joined Eiden Electrical Appliances as a salesman. He then set up his own commercial company, which was the force behind the set-up of SkyPerfecTV, which became Japan’s leading PPV company. Pride became the biggest hit on PPV in Japan, starting with its initial show on October 11, 1997 with the first Rickson Gracie vs. Nobuhiko Takada match at the Tokyo Dome, which drew a whopping 8.0% buy rate in a very limited universe of a few hundred thousand homes, on a show that combined both worked and shoot matches (including a worked match involving soon to be WWE superstar Nathan Jones).
When KRS fell into financial problems after promoting many poor shows, Morishita’s Dream Stage Entertainment company took over the struggling company in May 1999, attempting to capitalize on its potential as a PPV entity. The belief was the expanding universe would make that a stronger revenue stream as time went on. The company started producing more expensive shows, with special effects and the most elaborate ring entrances. While the company often used pro wrestlers as drawing cards, there was also an attempt to push the fighters with colorful entrances and personalities like an old-school Japanese organization would push them in pro wrestling.
The company exploded in popularity a few months later when Kazushi Sakuraba was awarded a win over Royler Gracie via a controversial referee stoppage on November 21, 1999 before a sellout crowd at the Ariake Coliseum in Tokyo, becoming the first Japanese fighter to stop a member of the Gracie family. The win made Sakuraba the group’s second native superstar draw, after Takada, who had the huge name from pro wrestling with the defunct UWFI, but who was unable to ever win a real fight.
The company became one of the major players in the game the next year with its World Grand Prix tournament in 2000, which still has to go down as the most competitive open weight division tournament in the history of MMA (which was ironically just featured over the weekend in the U.S. with the premiere on HBO of the moving “The Smashing Machine.” They also signed Ken Shamrock away from WWF for a $350,000 per fight deal, hoping his name as a drawing card, along with the return of Royce Gracie, would lead to them recapturing the huge American audience that Gracie and Shamrock’s early UFC matches drew. That proved not to be the case, as Pride never was able to break through past the hardcore MMA fan audience in this country.
In 2001, they lured Don Frye, the most popular foreign pro wrestler in Japan, away from New Japan with a huge contract offer, to add another famous pro wrestler to its list of drawing cards. Sakuraba by this point had became an even bigger superstar and drawing card on May 1, 2000 when he became the first man to defeat Royce Gracie under MMA rules in their legendary 90:00 match on May 1, 2000 when Gracie’s family threw in the towel.
After winning the most grueling match in modern MMA history, Sakuraba went back into the ring that same night and faced Igor Vovchanchyn, giving up 40 pounds, and was actually winning the fight for about 10:00 before succumbing to exhaustion. But the performance in those two fights turned Sakuraba into a major draw, and his subsequent wins over Renzo and Ryan Gracie drew sellouts at the Seibu Dome (32,919) and what the company established as its home base, the Saitama Super Arena (26,882).
The company has been on fire since Sakuraba’s win over Royler, and became the dominant pro wrestling promotion in Japan by 2001, and became the first promotion without predetermined outcomes to win the Observer’s Promotion of the Year award that year. The highlight of the year was an all-time record for an MMA event headlined by a rematch where Sakuraba failed to get revenge on Vanderlei Silva, who had defeated him quickly earlier in the year. The show drew 53,246 fans to sellout out the Tokyo Dome on November 3, 2001.
The company was able to create four foreign superstars who carried things this year in Silva, Antonio Rodorigo Nogueira, Mirko Cro Cop as the “Pro Wrestler Hunter” and Bob Sapp, as well as a new native superstar in 1992 Olympic judo gold medalist Hidehiko Yoshida. The Tokyo Dome records were shattered on 8/28 when they combined with K-1 to run a show at Tokyo National Stadium. The event drew 71,000 fans and set both a world record gate of more than $7 million and a Japanese PPV record with 125,000 buys in a universe of less than three million homes. The headline event was Sakuraba’s loss to Cro Cop. The show also fully established Sapp as a Japanese cultural icon in his loss to Nogueira and made Yoshida a superstar in a controversial win over Royce Gracie. The company was behind the Inoki Bom Ba Ye show on New Years Eve, that despite being a night not conducive to drawing big numbers, was the highest rated pro wrestling event in the country in 13 years.
It is unknown how the decision making in the company will end up shaking out other than it is believed Antonio Inoki will gain power, and there is talk of making Nobuhiko Takada the president, although that would be more a figurehead position. .
Just hours before he died, Morishita told the press about the 2003 schedule. The first show of the year would be on 3/16 at the Yokohama Arena headlined by the Nogueira vs. Fedor Emelianenko world heavyweight title match. The next show would be 5/25 at Osaka Castle Hall. The plan was to run a show over the summer in Las Vegas.
There would be three major events this year. The plan was to run two different eight-man tournaments using only major names, divided into over and under 198 pounds. The first round matches are scheduled for August, and the semifinals and finals in each weight class are scheduled for October, plus they were planning a Tokyo Dome type of event for November.
Morishita also made a very intriguing negative comments toward current golden boy Yoshida. Morishita was unhappy that Yoshida didn’t understand the idea of being a professional fighter, citing his 50 second win over Masaaki Satake on New Years Eve. Morishita said that as a professional, you have to entertain the fans, who paid big money for tickets, and they deserved a longer match. It was an interesting comment, because the match itself raised suspicions. Morishita was also critical of the tax evasion problems that beset Ishii.
Morishita noted that it had taken the company three years to get licensed in Nevada, and the commission scrutinized the company’s financial status, examined the company stockholders and the bank accounts before issuing the license. He said that starting in the spring of 2003, they would be available in more than 40 million homes on PPV in the U.S. This would indicate belief that a deal with InDemand was imminent. Up to this point, Pride has mainly been available to homes with satellite dishes on U.S. PPV except for a few cable companies that took the shows on an individual basis.
Morishita’s funeral was scheduled for 1/16."
I will note, too, that this is the year-end awards issue, and PRIDE takes promotion of the year easily, and several PRIDE fighters occur on lists that one would think of as, like professional wrestling ones; both Bas Rutten (5th) and Stephen Quadros (10th) appear on the list of best on commentary.
January 27, 2002:
"Kazushi Sakuraba said that he would fight on the 3/16 Yokohama Arena show as a tribute to Naoto Morishita."
and oh hey:
"U-Style on its 2/15 debut at Differ Ariake announced a line-up that is all guys with shooting backgrounds and few with working backgrounds. It’s mainly guys Kiyoshi Tamura trained in his U-File camp. They are using old UWFI rules, with points and such, but considering the names involved, I’m guessing these will be shoot matches instead of worked matches. I guess we’ll know when the time comes. The show is just about sold out."
and:
"More than 2,000 people attended the funeral of Naoto Morishita on 1/16 in Tokyo. Among those attending were Don Frye, Mark Coleman, Kevin Randleman, Vanderlei Silva, Kazuyuki Fujita, Yoshihiro Takayama, Kazushi Sakuraba, Tatsumi Fujinami, Great Sasuke, Yuki Ishikawa, Hidehiko Yoshida, Nobuhiko Takada, Yoshiaki Yatsu, Michiyoshi Ohara, Kiyoshi Tamura, Kazuyoshi Ishii, Keiji Muto and Gary Goodridge. Silva spoke at the funeral, talking about how important Morishita was in making him a success in life. Antonio Rodorigo Nogueira wasn’t there, but sent a message saying he’d defend the title in honor of Morishita. Frye said Morishita dealt with him with respect at all times and Goodridge talked bout all the work Morishita did in setting up his wedding (Goodridge was married last year in Japan). Nobuyuki Sakakibara, who has taken over as the public leader of Dream Stage Entertainment after Morishita’s death, said they would have to restructure the front office and talked about plans going forward for the 3/16 show at the Yokohama Arena. He also said that because it was Morishita’s vision, they would be continuing with plans for the Grand Prix tournaments scheduled for August and October. Still, there have to be some major organizational decisions since Morishita owned 50% of the stock and he was excellent at procuring sponsors for the events. They have to figure out what to do about that, since the stock would go to his wife and young daughter. Another 30% of the stock is owned by Eiden Electronics, which invested largely due to the involvement of Morishita."
February 3, 2002:
"Kazuhiro Nakamura, a judo protege of Hidehiko Yoshida, is expected to debut on the 3/16 Pride show in Yokohama." [I am stoked for it!—ed.]
February 10, 2002:
"The 3/16 Pride show will be airing on a same-day tape delay in the U.S. and Canada. They are advertising Kevin Randleman, Quinton Jackson, Dan Henderson, Kazushi Sakuraba, Kazuyuki Fujita, Sanae Kikuta and Carlos Newton as appearing. Jackson has been told his opponent is Ricardo Arona, which is a very interesting fight, but Pride changes gears so often that until it’s officially announced, don’t put money on it."
February 17, 2002:
In passing:
"K-1’s problem is image, with the indictments against Kazuyoshi Ishii, its creator, promoter and most visible personality. Pride has an image problem due to the alleged suicide death of Naoto Morishita, who owned half the stock in the company and whose influence was very much responsible for the popularity gains over the past few years."
and, attendance comparingly:
"SHOOT PROMOTIONS
PRIDE UFC
1998 15,618 5,800
1999 9 ,162 2,800
2000 29,968 2,169
2001 25,139 5,779
2002 30,091 7,259
These figures, because you’re talking about such a small number of shows per year, aren’t quite as telling as numbers for groups that tour.
Still, with Pride, you can see the big turnaround in 2000, which stems directly from Naoto Morishita and Dream Stage Entertainment taking over the promotion from KRS. But going forward, that means little due to the death of Morishita. This past year’s business increased 19.7% at the live gate, although much of that was due to the Shockwave show drawing 71,000 fans.
For UFC, you can see how much it did decline in popularity over the last two years of ownership by Bob Meyrowitz’ Semaphore Entertainment Group, which sold to Lorenzo Fertitta’s Zuffa just before the first show of 2001. It should also be noted that one of the UFC shows this year, known as UFC 37.5, was a hastily arranged TV taping for Fox Sports Net’s “Best Damn Sports Show Period,” featuring a classic Chuck Liddell vs. Vitor Belfort match that almost nobody saw (or it would have done well in Match of the Year balloting). Taking that show out of the average, you get a more realistic average of 8,291 and 60% sellouts after 2001’s average of 6,173 and 60% sellouts, an increase of 34.3%.
In the case of UFC, the live gate isn’t as important as PPV, although UFC became the first major PPV promotion in history to actually have shows that took in more money for the company from the live gate than from PPV with the some of the bigger shows early in year. But UFC is clearly the only major promotion that enters 2003 at a significantly stronger level of popularity then when it entered 2002.
Both groups set all-time attendance and gate records this year. Pride’s 71,000 fans paying $7 million at the Shockwave show on 8/28 for the Mirko Cro Cop vs. Kazushi Sakuraba match at the Tokyo National Stadium broke all existing industry records for live gate and was Japan’s biggest PPV show ever of any kind. The UFC on 11/22 for the Ken Shamrock vs. Tito Ortiz match in Las Vegas that drew 13,055 paid and $1,540,940 was bigger than any live gate for a pro wrestling event in the U.S. aside from a few of the Wrestlemanias."
and
"Announced for the 3/16 Pride PPV officially is Antonio Rodorigo Nogueira vs. Fedor Emelianenko for their world heavyweight title. This isn’t a money match, but this is Nogueira’s toughest true test to date as Fedor appears to be a stronger wrestler than Nogueira who can do damage on the ground, and is well versed in submissions as a world class sambo fighter. Also twin brother Antonio Rogerio Nogueira faces Kazuhiro Nakamura, who is the 23 (turns 24 next week) year old protege of Hidehiko Yoshida. Nakamura was the 2001 Japanese national champion in judo in the 220 pound weight division. Also, Quinton Jackson has been talked with of late as facing Kevin Randleman, although as mentioned last week when he was talked with about Ricardo Arona, it means little until it’s announced because they change directions frequently. Although Kazushi Sakuraba in the past has talked about fighting on the show, his knee isn’t close to ready. What he’s saying now is that he’ll wait until the end of February, then decide whether he can gut it out, but there is no way he’ll be at anything close to his best. In his last fight, just after blowing out the knee, he looked unimpressive."
February 24, 2002:
"Pride announced the rest of its major shows for this year, all of which at this point are scheduled for same-day airing on PPV in the U.S., with a show on 5/24 from Osaka Castle Hall, 8/10 from the Saitama Super Arena (first round of both a heavyweight and an under-198 pound tournament) and the finals of both tournaments on 11/9 from the Tokyo Dome.
Don Frye is looking to return on the 5/24 show. He had both his shoulders scoped in January, to remove bone spurs, bone chips and scar tissue, and has just started light weight training. He hadn’t been able to do any training since late November when he suffered the dislocated elbow by not tapping when caught in an armbar in the Hidehiko Yoshida match. Frye is looking for a rematch with Yoshida to the point he’s offered a part of his purse for the fight as a side bet to get Yoshida back. From the Japanese standpoint, having the rematch will be difficult because Yoshida now has more to lose than to gain with another fight."
March 3, 2002:
"The futures of K-1, W-1 and Pride all remain in question due to the various scandals that have enveloped the Japanese industry.
The next shoe to drop after the arrest of Kazuyoshi Ishii on several different tax evasion charges was the announcement on 2/21 by Fuji TV Network President Koichi Murakami saying the network would no longer sponsor the events. Murakami, who said the network would televise the 3/30 show from the Saitama Super Arena, headlined by Bob Sapp vs. Mirko Cro Cop, said future televising of the product hadn’t been decided. He noted there was a clause that nullified the contract between the network and the promotion if either side was arrested.
This may be more of a breaking of the contract with Ishii to negotiate a new deal with Sadaharu Tanikawa and Nobuaki Kakuda, who are now heading K-1. However, if it was just changing of an existing deal, the President of the network wouldn’t have called a public press conference. He did say there was a possibility down the line the network would sponsor future events and many believe this is simply a contract restructuring.
Those close to the situation say the charge that Ishii allegedly forged the signature of Mike Tyson on a contract as a way a contract to defraud millions in taxes was too dishonest for the network to want to be involved with the company as business partners.
Fuji network actually not only televised, but served as the event promoters on the most elaborate events the company promoted. Without that kind of sponsorship backing, there is no way the company could have afforded the elaborate trappings that have become what K-1 is known for. The feeling is if the company just produced kickboxing matches without the special effects, its popularity would decline greatly with the mainstream who now expect that as part of the big show atmosphere.
Tanikawa and Kakuda felt it necessary to rush into a match with the company’s two biggest draws, Sapp and Cro Cop, because a monster television rating would help its cause right now when it needs it most. There is fear a cancellation by Fuji, which brought the company into prominence as a prime time television spectacle almost a decade ago, would cause a domino effect in regard to both other sponsors and television deals.
One of the dominos is the controversial W-1 division of the K-1 company. The entire W-1 idea was based around the idea that the Fuji Network was willing to put pro wrestling in prime time if it was put on shows built around Bob Sapp and other mainstream fighting stars in dream matches. Keiji Muto, taking a page from what he believed were the lessons learned from the rebirth of popularity of U.S. wrestling after it appeared dead in 1996 (but not studying it closely enough), that the key is prime time exposure of wrestling to the mainstream audience. The day after Murakami’s press conference, it was announced that W-1 canceled its next scheduled show on 4/19 at the Saitama Super Arena. While not announced publicly, the reason was that Fuji network wouldn’t broadcast the show. The main sponsor behind the company is the network, which had agreed to run monthly shows, including occasional prime time specials built around Sapp’s match at the big shows. Now that a proposed show on 2/23 (never announced publicly) in Nagoya didn’t take place, as well as the cancellation of the next show, it has made people question the future of the promotion. This comes on the heels of a putting together a huge money losing event on 1/19 at the Tokyo Dome, which is believed to have sold fewer tickets than any such event in the 13-year history of wrestling events in the building.
With the exception of one or two people in the company, most in All Japan felt the alignment with W-1 would be a negative in the long run, and at this point it looks to be the case. All Japan had solid momentum last year with strong growth, but now has a WCW-like perception among fans as a company that is making stupid decisions that are changing the wrestling product in a way their audience doesn’t want it to be changed. We saw with WCW that once that snowball starts rolling, it is very difficult for it to stop.
Pride, which has a great show as far as quality fights for insiders on 3/16 at Yokohama Arena, is still up in the air. But the show lacks the dream matches to attract the mainstream fans, although Yokohama Arena isn’t as hard to fill as the Saitama Super Arena or Osaka Castle Hall, where the upcoming shows are scheduled. While future dates have been announced for shows, that hasn’t stopped rumors that this will be the last show. At the very least, it is believed the company will have to structurally reorganize and a new parent company would have to be formed when Dream Stage Entertainment shuts down. The Pride name in Japan has both its pluses and minuses right now. The company promoted many huge and well received shows over the past three years after getting off to a rocky early start But the death, and questions surrounding the so-called suicide death of Morishita have muddied up its image. While the Pride name doesn’t mean much in the U.S., it has never been more visible on a casual basis due to the television commercial for its video game."
and
"I had a chance to see the U-Style debut show from 2/15 at Differ Ariake. It’s funny reading MMA reports by reporters who weren’t sure if the matches were legit or not. Aside from the ring mat specifically stating “pro wrestling,” it was clearly UWFI style as was advertised from the start. As something new (as in an old style becoming new), it was really fun to watch. For all the reasons the groups that used this style all went out of business with the rise of legitimate matches, it’s a tough road long-term. It was Kiyoshi Tamura’s first worked match in more than three years (since RINGS went to the all-shoot format) at a style where he was the best there ever was at. Now that he’s 33 and it’s an athletic style, and perhaps a little rusty, he wasn’t as good as in his heyday, but the crowd still loved his match with Zero-One’s Wataru Sakata as they went back-and-forth with submissions and some great standing flurries, including a cool series of kicks leading to a knockdown by Tamura. The live crowd went nuts when Takehiro Murahama would bounce off the ropes (which one would figure should have been a giveaway to those looking to see if it was a shoot or not). It’s so funny that the biggest crowd pops for this and Pride matches are when pro wrestlers do pro wrestling moves that don’t work in real fights like dropkicks or crazy flying kicks."
and
"Tsuyoshi Kosaka will be competing at the World submission fighting championships on 3/17 and 3/18 in Sao Paolo, Brazil."
March 10, 2003:
"Kiyoshi Tamura appeared on the W-1 special on the Fuji Network this week saying that if a good offer is made, he will fight on the next show. Tamura, who is one of the most gifted in-ring pro wrestlers ever and actually a damn good shooter at his weight (he doesn’t get the respect he deserves because he’s fought so many men so much larger than himself and lost), has never been involved with traditional pro wrestling. He started in the old UWF, went to UWFI, and when UWFI did the feud with New Japan, he refused to participate. He then went to RINGS, and of late has worked as the top star with Deep as well as had three high-profile Pride matches."
and
"There is a lot more talk of the Pride changes we’ve been writing about. The Nagai Times said the TV broadcast partners and staff are already aware that Dream Stage will close down after the 3/16 show. Some of the staff will be brought into a new organization that will be created, while others won’t be."
and
"Since the death of Naoto Morishita, there has been no talk at all regarding Pride coming to Las Vegas this year."
and
"Tito Ortiz and Chuck Liddell were in separate scenes taking their lumps from Jet Li in the recently movie Cradle 2 the Grave, which was released on 2/28. I believe Pride announcer Stephen Quadros was the fight coordinator for the film." [Neat!—ed.]
March 17, 2003:
"It’s being reported throughout Japan that the end of Dream Stage Entertainment, whose Pride events won Promotion of the Year the past two years, is imminent.
As has been expected, the 3/16 Pride show would be the final show under the Dream Stage Entertainment banner. The plans are that a new company run by Nobuyuki Sakakibara would open on 5/25 with the Osaka show. The company claiming there is nothing to the change except for a change in ownership paperwork regarding the widow of Naoto Morishita. Other media sources are questioning whether that 5/25 date will take place saying due to reorganizing under Sakakibara that the next show would be 6/8 at either Yokohama Arena or Saitama Super Arena.
Starting a new office requires new financing, and without a different way of doing business, the problems will eventually match up. The suicide of Naoto Morishita has left a bad image of Pride, which has hurt it from garnering new sponsors. In addition, the success of Pride came partially from Morishita’s ability to land sponsors.
However, the Pride name is well recognized in Japan from its big shows, and the PPV providers in Japan especially want it to continue at its former level because eight of the top ten grossing events in PPV history in that country were promoted by Pride. The record setting Mirko Cro Cop vs. Kazushi Sakuraba show on 8/28 drew about triple the number of buys of the worked pro wrestling record setting show (a New Japan show headlined by Riki Choshu vs. Atsushi Onita in a barbed wire match)."
and
"For those hoping to see the real Kazushi Sakuraba on the 3/16 Pride, the truth is he hasn’t been training at all because of all his injuries so they are sacrificing him again because he’s the biggest drawing card."
A grim closing note! Also it appears that Dave never did his own report on PRIDE.24, but instead merely passed along word, which is disappointing, but only lightly, as we really have a lot to consider in the excerpts (excerpted [excerptingly]) above. And so ends our recapitulation of 2002! Thank you for joining me for it! Onwards to 2003 when next we meet. Until then, please take care.
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