Shootfights are fixed matches. It’s not a real style. However, Funaki was a wrestler and a Catch wrestler. His grappling was okay, but he was no master. Also, he was involved in many Shootfights.
I think it was a shame Rickson didn’t fight Sak or Rutten. I believe those fights would have been competitive especially against Sak.
Gotcha.
It is unfortunate that we don’t really know which Pancrase fights may have been works and which were real. I do generally believe the theory though that the Pancrase fights that were worked were mostly one sided: one of the popular guys, especially Funaki and Suzuki, letting foreigners get wins because they drew crowd interest.
I know I’m going off topic here, but I’m personally interested in how Funaki would have done in UFC 1 if he’d been in the ring instead of Ken. I know Ken was stronger, but Funaki was a much more polished grappler at that time.
93 Funaki vs Royce is very interesting to me.
royce by sub
Maybe. It’s still an interesting fight to me.
Funaki had a better chance in there with Royce than Ken though in my opinion
They fought each other 4 days earlier in japan. So kobe’s elevation to denver’s in 4 days. Fuckin hell.
so many works in pancrase i cant condsider too many legit or the sport credible and it sure aint MMA IMO
Why in the hell did I not buy one of those back in the day?!
What we really need is a REWARD HUNTER shirt!
Wow, I’d never noticed that until you said this but that’s crazy. Ken and Funaki did both fight on Pancrase 3 four days before. Mo Smith KO’d Suzuki on the card as well.
This is one of the things that led me to believe that Pancrase was much more worked than people think. Ken was BRAGGING about his submission knowledge after his fight with Patrick Smith in the interview. He said something like “that man doesn’t know anything about submissions” and then he goes on to look like an absolute clueless white belt against Royce. THEN in subsequent interviews he explains how inexperienced he was when he fought Royce. He had four “fights” by the time that he fought Royce and all four had ended in submissions. That, TO ME, means that Pancrase was not giving fighters true fight experience.
I wouldn’t say he looked like a clueless white belt. That leg lock entry was super sloppy by modern standards, sure. But maybe not by 1993 standards.
Yeah… my experience with elevation was about equal… i went from vegas 2k area to laramie’s 7.2k… holy shit did it suck the first few months lol. Cant imagine doing something so strenuous 3 days after competing in japan.
He had Royce’s back and didn’t do anything with it iirc.
If you watch old pancrase there’s no back attacks like jiu jitsu. Not a lot of hooks. A lot of turtling with no regard for their necks lol. A lot of taking the back and diving for legs lol. Also leans towards a lot of works that their not going for obvious and effective stuff when they have guys in vulnerable positions.
Did Relson teach you street fight techniques too? I heard he is the meanest Gracie to fight on the steet
You are thinking of Kimo
first up vote for u
It was.
He was also used to fighting with boots on and using the extra grip they provided to bullrush straight through people with takedowns.
He is - I think rightly - annoyed that they specifically made him take off his boots because they provided an ‘unfair advantage’ but let Royce go in there in the gi.
He said he was not adept at the ground game after the fight with Royce.