Vanderlei Silva vs. Minowa has got to be the biggest Pride mismatch EVER, and its the main event of Bushido!
The most notable things that Minowa has accomplished (aside from fighting in 49 fights)was fighting to draws with Chris Lytle and Travis Fulton. Just about every top or even B+ level fighter he has faced he has lost to. (Rampage, Almeida, Tamura, Philo, Schilt, Tanner, Kondo, etc.) Why feed him to Silva now?
Check out thegreek.com lines for crap's sake:
Minowa +1250 (Bet $100, win $1,250)
Silva -2250 (Bet $100, win $4.44)
After the excellent pair of shows with the Middleweight Grand Prix, why did they decide to follow that momentum up with an event shown only in Japan, a lackluster February card, and then Bushido 2 which has excellent potential but is headlined by this crap?
What are the Dreamstage executives thinking? Wouldn't it be smart to continue full steam ahead right into the heavyweight grand prix?
What about Silva vs. the fat, no name karate guy who had never fought MMA before?
With some of their questionable matchmaking the last couple of years, it's tough to tell WHICH mismatch is the biggest one. Here's a 'starter' list:
Rampage v. Matsui
Schilt v. Shoji
Silva v. Oyama
Sakuraba v. Macias
sapp vs. tamura
crocop vs. dos caras
silva vs. matsui
belfort vs. matsui
coleman vs. satake
im sure there are plenty more that are absent from my mind right now
Goodridge vs Yatsu
the japanese like to see the mismatches it seems. or they just like to see people get beat the fuck up!!
How about Shannon "the Cannon" vs Sak?
Before the outcome of Coleman vs. Takada, I would have listed that one too. :)
Max
"Before the outcome of Coleman vs. Takada, I would have listed that one too. :)"
We all knew (here on the UG) Takada would win, and that it would be worked, before the fight even took place.
BTW, Minowa is a great fighter. It's not really a skill mismatch (Vanderlei is more skilled, but not so much that it's a mismatch of skills), but it's definitely a size mismatch.
At least they didn't have Silva vs Sak 4
The 2 Goodridge vs. Yatsu fights and the Silva vs. fat karate guy with 0 fights were Pride's most irresponsible mis-matches where Pride is very lucky that Yatsu or karate dude didn't get seriously injured. Well...Yatsu spent like a week in the hospital, but he didn't die at least.
Pride on quite a few occasions has put a pro-wrestler with no MMA skills whatsoever against a pro fighter.
Some other mis-matches that come to mind are Sakuraba vs. Gilles Arsene. Arsene fell into the fetal position and stayed there the whole fight. But Sakuraba just played with him so there wasn't really that much danger...but it was still a bad mis-match.
And Sapp vs. Tamura....Tamura is skilled, but it's not fair to put a 180 lb guy against a 360 lb guy.
The UFC under Zuffa has never had any match-ups like the above mentioned....well, except for Tank Abbot's fights. :)
If Minowa fought at his weight (he is listed on sherdog at 181, he could probably make 170), he would be top 10 i think just as Tamura would be top 10 at 185.
Suprised no one mentioned Sak vs Gilles Arsenne
Kbreezy,
Solitary Zen did mention that fight.
At least Sak isn't someone that will pound you to death like Big Daddy or Sapp.
Wasa-b,
I'm pretty sure he fights at 170 in Pancrase and his record isn't too impressive there either.
oh my bad Zen, I didnt see it.
I'm going to put 10 bucks on Minowa anyway just because the odds are so good. You never know, Silva might pull a Lindland and KO himself.
Schilt vs Shoji.
"I'm pretty sure he fights at 170 in Pancrase and his record isn't too impressive there either."Nope, Minowa fought either at open weight or in the light heavyweight (200 lb) weight classes. He never fought below that, to my knowledge, even though he naturally weighs right about the same weight as the Pancrase middleweight limit (approx 181 lbs). Even still, Minowa earned two title shots at light heavyweight (lost both, however).Minowa is a tough fighter who would have a much better record if he fought guys his size. Tamura, however, was his size (maybe a little bigger, but not much) and absolutely mauled him. Plus, Minowa's record looks like shit because he was the tomato can in Pancrase when he first debuted. He went like 1-8-1 or something like that in his first 10 fights. He's improved drastically.Hell, Minowa took down Schilt with ease and nearly armbarred him in the first 2 minutes. After that, he was stuck underneath the big dude for 13 minutes and got pounded on for a decision.Minowa and Takumi Yano are probably the only two fighters I can think of who purposely put themselves in bad positions to entertain the crowd. When he fought Kenji Akiyama in 2001, he even went so far as to headbutt Akiyama's fist. No shit. Akiyama would throw a punch, and Minowa would headbutt his fucking fist. Minowa is insane.
lol@Minowa headbutting Akiyamas fist, that's crazy
It's like you expect more?
I heard the same "No, really, he's awesome" stuff about Kanehara and Tamura.
i said yoshida/silva before the fight happened.