Has anyone ever seen this anime? I normally hate anime, but this MMA oriented cartoon is cool as hell. *cough*bittorrent*cough*
I think this is the one based (loosely) on Naoyuki Taira . . . can anyone confirm??
who is naoyuki taira?
i know there is a wrestler character based on inoki. another who is similar to saggat in street fighter.
Never seen the Anime before but I've read a few of the Manga.
They get a bit tiresome after a while, but it is funny watching some of the greatest fighters in the world (they are all in there, esp. the tournament issues) being bashed by Baki.
Naoyuki Taira is the founder a Japanese BJJ school called "Strapple" = Strike and Grapple (I trained with them for some time). The group trains out of Gold's Gym. When I joined there was an flyer on the wall about Taira explaining how that Anime was loosely based on him. . . . (if I'm thinking of the right anime that is!)
EG
I like Baki. Every month a manga comic comes out called RAIJIN. Its actually meant for japanese people trying to study english. So they would have Hokuto no Ken, Baki, City Hunter and another comic(which name escapes me now) in english, and then in Kana. It comes with a CD and some other useful english phrases. I read it cause I cant read the actual japanese ones lol.
From what I read, Baki thrashes a Rickson Gracie clone in one of the episodes, and also in the game he beats on former Olympian turned worker Naoya Ogawa and also NOAH Pro Wrestler Kenta Kobashi.
Yeah - in the manga Baki has fought Rickson, Wallid, Zulu and numerous other MMA fighters.
The point is though - he doesn't use much grappling or MMA.
If I remember correctly the original story was that he bacame so good at grappling nobody could defeat him.
So he decided to fight people only using strikes (or something like that).
My mistake, Hajime no Ippou beat Ogawa, Fujiwara, and Kobashi. Baki just beat Giant Baba and Stan Hansen and Rickson and Street Fighter's Sagat.
Evil Gaijin is correct. Baki is modeled after Naoyuki Taira. Back in the early 90's, when nobody knew of BJJ, Taira, a shootboxer with Daidojuku karate, Sayama's shooting (now known as shooto), boxing, and sambo backgrounds, was one of the most complete fighters in Japan. At that time, Taira's fighting style was really really entertaining, just like Sakuraba in his prime. He KOed his opponents with flying high kicks, backspin kicks, and sometimes threw his opponent with damn beautiful German suplex (Throws are allowed in shootboxing). The yound Taira was really like Baki. In 1994, Taira went to Denver to watch the 2nd UFC, saw the defeat of Minoki Ichihara by Royce Gracie, and cried. After that he started learning BJJ under Carley Gracie.
ttt for hinerin again for the info. btw, what Taira match is a real good example of his skill?
Taira is very good.He has a good BJJ student named Mitsuyoshi Hayakawa.
As far as I know, the only Taira' s fight clip available on the net is against Taro Minato in 2001 (Rings MMA match). Taira just schooled Minato with his Black Blet BJJ techniques.
http://www.sherdog.com/fightfinder/matchvids.cfm?matchid=2574
I think Taira's prime was his shootboxing days in the late 80's and the early 90's. He fought some famous figures like Dale Cook and Manson Gibson, but these matches are hard to find now. Taira also competed at All Japan Seido Karate tourney and did pretty well. After he started learining BJJ, he almost killed Jan Lomulder with the fury of fists (bareknuckle) from the mount in a NHB match. He had his last shootboxing match in 2002 at the age of 39, and threw his opponent over the top rope and KOed him.
http://sportsnavi.yahoo.co.jp/fight/other/live/200209/22/020922_a06.html
Thanx guys. Before this I knew nothing about Taira except that he was a guy whom Grappler Baki was based on, and that he worked for goof pro-wrestler/ bad MMA fighter, Yuki Ishikawa's group, Battlarts and did some K-1 fights. I was thinking it was odd for some 30+ guy to be coming in 2nd place for the pro-wrestling tourney:). So basically, the story of Taira is the downside of promoting MMA like pro-wrestling; although it may not be a bad idea to build fighters up and hype fights and tell us the story of the fighters, promoting MMA like wrestling means that some great fighters, and even legends like Taira, are left in the dust if fighters only call out other fighters in their organization, and the organization only acknowledges good fighters in their promotion.
ttt
Hinerin, just OT, do you know any good Shootboxing sites in English?
Does Naoyuki Taira have a school or gym? If he's even half as good as Baki is in the comics, he's bloody awesome!
Stripple. His website is wwww.grappler-taira.com. I dont't think Taira has ever fought gorillas who eat their own eyeballs.
Taira actually debuted in puroresu for Michinoku Pro.I have this match on tape,he wrestled Jinsei Shinzaki,aka Hakushi.
I heard he was good in BattlArts against Nagai. Dunno about his M-Pro work though.