So, Sakuraba didn’t prove himself in MMA competition? That’s a ridiculous statement. There is no denying he was a pro wrestler, and there is no denying his string of impressive victories.
Let’s look at some of his contemporaries. Kiyoshi Tamura was the first person to beat a Gracie in an MMA fight when he defeated Renzo Gracie. Granted it was a decision, but a fair one, and quite the accomplishment. Another one of his colleagues, HIromitsu Kanehara defeated Rick Lucero who was one of the earliest American BJJ black belts, with a Kimura. It was also the same way he finished Alex Ferrira, who was an ADCC silver medalist. He also handled himself very well against a murders row of opponents that outweighed him in the Pride era, oh and he defeated Jeremy Horn also. Masakatsu Funaki was one of the very best of the early to mid 90s era of MMA, and again a pro wrestler, you can’t take that away from him, or just try and negate any of his skills and accomplishments with the incorrect statement that everything he did in Pancrase was a work. The only work he had in Pancrase was against Minoru Suzuki. In fact, starting in 1998 Funaki and a few other Pancrase fighters would have the occasional fight with actual vale tudo rules, and he looked great in those, also. Volk Han gave Big Nog everything he could handle, and I think he was 43 years old when he did it. The point is that many of the shoot-style pro wrestlers of that era were for all effective purposes MMA fighters, even if they didn’t understand the positional philosophies of BJJ until later on. Also, Shooto was around since 1986, and many of those fighters trained under the same systems/umbrellas that the UWF fighters did, so there is no denying that the information was there. MMA was alive and well in Japan, long before the UFC hit the scene.
OK, so you’re saying that regardless of what the next TV deal is, your stance won’t change, and it’s because ESPN is starved for content and will overpay again.
We know we’re not going to get concrete numbers that show viewership numbers, PPV numbers broken down year by year, and it sounds like you’re saying nothing will budge you from your opinion.
In my opinion, an increase in what people are paying for the product is a pretty good indicator of how popular it is. If TV contracts are going up, and PPV buys are still strong even though it’s behind a double pay wall and cost almost double what it used to…I think that’s also a pretty good indicator that people are still into it.
Fighter salaries are up, the amount of live shows on UFC Fightpass is up…I get what you’re saying about there being several things that are worse now (less local shows etc) but there are tons of positive indicators also.
Sure…but I don’t think dude was saying every japanese wrestler was a joke…and you have to admit, there were several fights for top Pride fighters that were borderline executions.
Like 95% of the Pride fights were excellent, but there were like 5% sprinkled in that honestly felt about as bad as the Usman vs CM Punk example. Even if some of those dudes were legit judokas…black belts, on olympic teams etc…imagine throwing a dude with no MMA fights (or very few) in with Francis Ngannou.
I clicked through Wand’s record for a minute and after his first crocop fight he beat a guy in his only pro MMA fight ever…and the guy was a black belt in a style of karate that doesn’t allow head strikes: (Wanderlei Silva vs Tatsuya Iwasaki Pride Shockwave 2002 - YouTube)
People are bitching about the level of opponents Paddy is fighting. Imagine taking Conor and putting him in with a random karate guy who never fought MMA in his next fight.
Pride was awesome, but had some shit fights in there.
Sakuraba was in several fake fights, which is funnily the exact point homeboy was making: When you closely examine a lot of these JMMA/former Japanese pro wrestlers you realize they were all part of fixed fights. lol Your entire premise becomes immediately incorrect, fuck your wall of text. lol
I don’t deny that Pride had its share of fights that were pure spectacle. In fact, I would say that Pride was booked/presented like a pro wrestling org, which is a large part of why it was so entertaining.
And yes, you did have some guys like Dos Caras who didn’t need to be there (although he did have a win over Kengo Watanabe and Brad Kohler, so he wasn’t a complete joke). I’ll never say Pride was ever trying to book itself like a legitimate sport. Shooto is probably the only JMMA org that has always tried to adhere to a proper rankings format throughout its inception. Their problem, of course was not having the higher weight classes or depth of talent like a Pride.
There absolutely is a denying of his string of “impressive” “victories”. Watch this: The Vitor fight was fake, the Rampage fight was probably fake, and Ken Shamrock is a proven and continuously accused fight fixer who for sure took a dive against Sakuraba. Every Shamrock fight is suspect because of this (Royce Gracie fight, Kimbo Slice fight), as are Sakuraba’s (when he fought real fighters who weren’t just falling over, he got KO’d).
Ok. I’ll guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree then. Vitor has always been notorious for mentally collapsing in some of his fights. He was really laying into Sakuraba, and when he broke his hand he was defeated. That’s hardly a fake fight. Outside of his UWF-I and Kingdom matches, which no one is arguing that they were legit, none of his listed mma fights look anything close to fake. Not even to the point where a reasonable person might go, "Yeah, maybe. "
Dude, watch the Shamrock fight. Clear dive, I could understand if you wouldn’t want to admit the Rampage fight was fake, I could even understand you rationalizing (read: lying) to yourself and thinking the Vitor fight was real (even though he took numerous literal dives in that fight), but if you can’t even admit the Ken Shamrock fight was fake and a dive, then there’s no talking any sense to you. Like don’t even communicate with me if that’s the kind of wave length you’re operating on. Completely lying to yourself, and me, if you can’t admit that one.
PRIDE FC was good about keeping guys active. After fighting some murderers, top guys would sometimes get some lesser guys as warm ups. I think it kept them sharp.
That’s exactly what a guy like Conor needs. After injuries and a layoff, he doesn’t need to be thrown in with the top guys. He needs some tune up fights to knock of the rust, build his confidence, and sharpen his skills.
I believe it was Teddy Atlas who suggested this for Conor.
Pride gave fighters bums where if the fight wasn’t a literal fix in that the opponent was told to lose, it was still a fix in the traditional/less obvious sense that those fights would have not even been a little bit competitive and the lesser fighter didn’t even have a 1% chance of winning. Which is still a fixed fight as far as I’m concerned.
Three is a difference between taking a dive and mentally checking out of a fight when things don’t go your way. Vitor started strong in that fight and probably would have easily won if he hadn’t broken his hand. However, adversity hit and he mentally gave up. Plenty of fighters have been examples of being a great hammer but a terrible nail.
As for Shamrock vs. Sakuraba. I need to rewatch it and get back to you. I can’t comment intelligently on what I don’t remember. Even if it was fake (which I doubt, but I’ll watch it with an open mind), does that negate him defeating Royce, Renzo, Royler, Newton, etc? Face it, pro wrestling isn’t automatically a dirty word. It wasn’t always the WWE crap that we know today.
Wanderlei Silva - Reigning PRIDE FC Champion
Mauricio Shogun Rua - Future PRIDE and UFC Champion
Quinton Rampage Jackson - Future UFC LHW Champion
Dan Henderson - Future PRIDE and Strikeforce Champion
Kevin Randleman - Former UFC HW Champion
Vitor Belfort - Former UFC LHW Champion
Hidehiko Yoshida - Olympic Gold Medalist
Antonio Rodrigo Noguera - Legend
Igor Vovchancyn - multiple NHB Tournament Champion
Kazushi Sakuraba - UFC HW Tournament Champion
Not Pictured and didn’t make the cut for the poster:
Alistair Overeem - Future K1 GP Champion, Strikeforce Champion,
Who wants to see “Shitty Pro Wrestlers” like that compete in a Tournament… I mean it is so much better watching WMMA and midget fighters go the distance week after week after week.
