"There is no Open Weight gold in the Olympics, just the World Championships :)
Anyways, All Japan Champs were held last week and everything is decided. 100kg is Inoue and +100 is Suzuki. Most people expect Japan to do well after the great showing in 2003, but I'm a little more sceptical. Inoue is favorite for -100 but +100 is wide open. A healthy Mikhailin may even upset Inoue, depending on if he moves down to -100 or not. "
I was referring to 100+ thanks.
I hope japan does well.
"About the Japanese the in MMA: Actually they're quite good. The main problem is that they desperately try to push guys to fight in the heavier weight-classes which don't belong there. Yoshida should go back to his 1992 competition weight and fight at most 205. AT MOST. Even at 205 he is carrying a lot of extra weight. Same with Sakuraba and Yokoi. The list goes on and on.. "
totally agree. This is a reasonable assessment of Japanese MMAers in the heavier weights.
I get extremely irritated when people call Tamura or Kondo a can simply because they lost against people 50+ lbs. heavier.
anyways...
Japan is the third strongest MMA country in the world behind Brazil and the US. No doubt about it.
If MMA had such a huge following in the US as it did in Japan, then we would see a near monopoly on champs.
The main reason Japanese MMA is weak is that Japan is a piss-poor country for sports outside of baseball, sumo, and judo.
Judo actually is quite useful in MMA, if you get good fighters (mostly the Europeans, the Americans are quite weak). The main obstacle in Japan is a disdain of MMA by the judo crowd. Back in the late 1990's, the opinion of MMA by people in judo was that they were basically professional wrestlers. Their status was much like how American Olympic wrestlers look at their Pro-wrestling counterparts.
Yoshida came in about 10 years too late actually. Way past his prime, not trained for MMA, no hope of ever representing Japan in judo again (there were about 10 guys above him for his slot at that point) but he did well. I have rolled with Yoshida before many times during the 90's. He's very strong and he's a good player. I don't think his fights were works, but then again I don't think he needed works against Frye, Satake, and Tamura.
If wrestlers 10 years past their prime like Ghafari got smashed so easily, why did everyone think Yoshida would destroy all opposition. Regardless, Yoshida was the most highly ranked judo player from Japan in MMA. There are about 50 Japanese judo players right now who are just as good and younger, who could do well. But they don't. One of the main reasons is this old-boy network in Japan which supplies these ex-judo players jobs at companies with judo clubs, as well as stipends from the Kodokan or the government for past Olympic medals.
Very few people on here understand the inner-working of Japanese judo. Few people understand that Ogawa, for instance, is considered the most athletic Japanese Olympian ever. He also is despised by the Japanese judo bureaucracy for quitting judo and not taking training seriously. When he quit judo his status fell so low as to be doing some "shady" type business. Pro-wrestling is a continuation of what most judo players see as undesirable behavior (similar to American amateur wrestlers).
"I just couldn't imagine living there and not being perpetually broke."
It's easy to make money in Japan.
"I get extremely irritated when people call Tamura or Kondo a can simply because they lost against people 50+ lbs. heavier."
They also do this because there's less shame in losing to someone much smaller than you.
They also do this because there wouldn't be almost any Japanese fighting heavyweight if everyone fought at an appropriate weight. How many Japanese would watch an entire card without a single Japanese fighter?
yeah, the "old boy's network" is preventing a lot of Japanese judo talent from entering MMA. Yoshida is trying to change that though. He was mentioning that because of him, more Japanese judokas would go pro.
this is similar in Kyokushin. I'm sure people like Kiyama (kyokushin champ) would do very well in MMA, but the network won't allow it.
The biggest problem with the Japanese MMA scene is their closemindedness and stubborness to new things.
Your father makes a good point that japanese mmaers don't like to train outside of japan. When minowa went to BTT it was a big deal because few japanese did things like that. Brazilians and Americans go overseas to train all the time.
Japanese fighters also lack aggression IMO. They are too "nice" in the ring. They don't like to hit a downed opponent etc. and tend to rely too much on technique rather than aggression which is important for MMA.
Japanese fighters are also ignorant of the fact that weight matters. If people like saku, minowa and Kondo would just fight at their natural weights, they would do very well. They just have to accept the fact that genetically, they will never be as large as White/black people.
"They also do this because there wouldn't be almost any Japanese fighting heavyweight if everyone fought at an appropriate weight. How many Japanese would watch an entire card without a single Japanese fighter? "
I'm not sure about that. I don't the japanese are as nationalistic as people think they are. UFC's card has 12 US fighters and 2 foreign fighters usually. In Japan it's 12 forigners and 2 japanese. Quite the opposite. the japanese enjoy seeing good MMAers.
And also K1 has for a long time been dominated by European fighters. They have no problems with that and it continues to be the most popular combat event in japan even if there are very few decent japanese fighters. The most popular K1 fighters are people like Lebanner, aerts and Hoost. Musashi is actually not well liked by the japanese. Many feel he is a "pussy" and "excuse maker" Recently however, his stock has been rising and they've been more keen to accept him
"you make a very good point, however about anti-asian sentiment in Japan. Japanese people have some of the most serious identity issues in the world. They are asian, but they claim to be "honarary whites" and look down on Chinese Korean etc. where their culture came from."
Well, they don't consider themselves Asian in the way outsiders think of them as Asian. Quite a few see their cultural leanings toward the West, which shares a high level of prosperity and modernity. If you ask Japanese what their favorite countries are in the world, you will get US, Italy, France, Canada, Germany, Spain, etc. You won't hear any Asian countries at all. You also won't hear Russia, which is despised by the Japanese for controlling Sakhalin. About 75% of theft in Tokyo is commited by Chinese. This is widely known by the populace at large. Koreans are considered "generally up to no good."
You overestimate the links Japan has historically had with Asia. After the invasion of Korea in the 16th century, Japan was closed off to Asia for 250 years. The only contact were Japanese pirates and traders. Even the language (aside from the Kanji) is completely different from Chinese and the other Asian languages (except for Korean, Mongolian, Turkish, Finnish, and Hungarian, with which it has distant similariies).
Anyways, I don't see Japanese-mainlandAsian ties growing anytime soon, except for possibly trade. The last attempt at getting close to their Asian neighbors (well, colonizing their Asian neighbors!) ended in disaster.
". Few people understand that Ogawa, for instance, is considered the most athletic Japanese Olympian ever. "
well that's because he started judo in high school and two years later he won the all japan championship. He's considered the most talented judoka.
Yoshida as a MW did beat him one year which was surprisng considering the weight difference.
Koga who was about 70 kg faced in the finals one year I believe. Amazing.
I'm surprised w/ Ogawa's talent he still continues to look like an amateur in his fights. His goofy punches and lack of submission skills are embarrassing.
In the goodridge fight he went for sub after sub against an opponent that basically gave up... His strikes from mount were more like massage thumps.
Just to set things straight I meant Russia have best Judo in MMA today. I dont know/dont care about pure judo compettions. And that Sweden, not Japan has the best girls. Altough I am sure there is a few in Japan I would like to nail as well...
"You overestimate the links Japan has historically had with Asia. After the invasion of Korea in the 16th century, Japan was closed off to Asia for 250 years. The only contact were Japanese pirates and traders. Even the language (aside from the Kanji) is completely different from Chinese and the other Asian languages (except for Korean, Mongolian, Turkish, Finnish, and Hungarian, with which it has distant similariies). "
Japanese were almost exclusively using Kanji up to the Meiji restoration.
Japan's philosophical leanings such as Zen Buddhism stem from Chinese Chan buddhism. Zen is just a mispronunciation of Chan.
Confucianism, a chinese socio-politcal system remains a dominant ideology even in modern japan today. There is no doubt about this.
I don't think the japanese try to hide the fact that many aspects of their culture come from china.
japan does not have the best girls. If you go there, you will see that they have good makeup skills and great fashion sense. In general japanese women have radish legs, short stubby legs. They have terrible teeth. Black and yellow w/ a little grey mixed is not uncommon. Jack-o lantern teeth is the norm.
Ogawa doesn't train seriously. He didn't even train judo seriously. Japanese judo training is outrageous and counterproductive. One of the main reasons I think they have been doing poorly in the heavier weight classes is that they're overtraining guys which shouldn't be overtrained. I was constantly tired after training with the top clubs. I kept losing muscle mass and getting banged up. I also didn't find the heavyweights as tough as the Europeans. Maybe I went during the wrong decade. If I went in the 60's, it would have been different. Even then, Geesink won gold in the first Olympics which had judo in it.
Koga is amazing. There's nothing more to say about that.
A big problem with Japanese MMA is that the average height and weight for men is quite low. The average would be around 5'7 140 lbs. You're only going to get 1% or so of all men who are above 200 lbs. Doesn't make a good foundation to build strong hopes for any sport which has a +220 weight category.
"Well, they don't consider themselves Asian in the way outsiders think of them as Asian. Quite a few see their cultural leanings toward the West, which shares a high level of prosperity and modernity. "
Prosperity and Modernity have nothing to do w/ culture. It's just a natural progression towards a better life. The japanese thought system with its emphasis on collectivization and hierarchy has great similarility to Confucian ideology.
I don't see many similarities between western and japanese culture, except for the fact that japan is industrialized. But that is the difference between ancient and modern, it has nothing to do with culture.
When europe adopted chinese inventions and technology, they weren't getting sinicized, they were just adopting better technologies.
"Yes japanese guys are generally smaller, but they are getting bigger, i wouldnt be surprised within the next generation that they have really good HW coming out "
They will get taller, just like Asian americans are a bit taller than fob asians, but still far shorter than whites or blacks.
It's just genetics. On the credit side they live longer lives even though they don't excecise and smoke/drink heavily.
I personally think good HWs are rare in any country. Look at sad state of HW boxing. Look at HW in MMA. Basically 3 great fighters, Fedor, nog and crocop... and the rest of them are far below the level of the top 3.
Would it be harder to become a top HW in Japan because of the guys training with you would be alot smaller?
Japanese fighter generally dont move abroad to train do they, like US/Bra/Euro fighters?
Just a thought....
"Japanese were almost exclusively using Kanji up to the Meiji restoration."
Japanese has 3 writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Hiragana is the native Japanese script which is used for tenses, inflection, grammar, etc. Katakana is for foreign loan words. Kanji are the Chinese characters which they share along with China and Korea (even though in Korea this has been replaced with Hangul almost everywhere).
Hiragana combined with Kanji and Katakana has been the main writing method for over a thousand years. Even the world's first novel, the Tale of Genji, was written in Hiragana. Literary Chinese was written in pure Kanji, but this much different from Modern Chinese. That was the linua franca of East Asia. Except for literary Chinese, Japanese writing with hiragana has been the base of Japanese writing pre and post-Meiji.
"Japan's philosophical leanings such as Zen Buddhism stem from Chinese Chan buddhism. Zen is just a mispronunciation of Chan."
Zen is actually not even the most popular form of Buddhism in Japan. I am also sure you are aware that Buddhism originally came from India, through SE Asia and Chinese, through Korea, and into Japan. The Japanese (correctly) view Buddhism as more Indian than Chinese. Nonetheless, during WWII, Shinto became the state sponsored religion because of Buddhism's connotation with the Chinese (whom the Japanese were actively fighting at the time).
As an aside, Japanese are rather polytheistic in their religious choices. Buddhism is usually for funerals, Shinto is for births and other such major functions, while almost every well-off Japanese wants a "Christian" wedding a'la the West. Many families have both a Shinto wedding and a Christian wedding. There is no Shinto equivalent in China.
"Confucianism, a chinese socio-politcal system remains a dominant ideology even in modern japan today. There is no doubt about this."
The Japanese socio-political system was always quite different from the Chinese in that the Chinese had a unified system where the Emperor commanded while the Japanese had a (usually powerless) Emperor and (formally but not in actuality) military ruler (Shogun). These vast differences between the Japanese and Chinese culturally, socially, and politically were well expressed by the first Western missionaries and travellers who visited China and Japan at roughly the same time.
"I don't think the japanese try to hide the fact that many aspects of their culture come from china."
Depends on the time period. Prior to Meiji, the Japanese looked up to the Chinese much like they look up to the West now. (A lot can be said of many Westerners looking up to Japan in certain ways now) After Japan realized that China was not a powerful country, but was in fact weak and backwards, this admiration turned towards scorn. Japanese looked up to the West (and itself), while looking down on China and the rest of Asia. One can say that Japan is still somewhat in this stage now.
"Would it be harder to become a top HW in Japan because of the guys training with you would be alot smaller?
Japanese fighter generally dont move abroad to train do they, like US/Bra/Euro fighters?
Just a thought.... "
yes. that's why Minowa trains in Korea where there is a bigger stock of large people.
wtf is this again? battle of the trolls?
But you rarely see a japanese fighter i Bra/US/Eur training for a fight, right?