I miss the old days of the Pride Fighting Championships, when matchmakers didn't give a bag of rat crap whether the fights they put together made any sense at all. Rather than rankings and weight classes, they seemed guided only by a warped sense of sadistic curiosity. Fights were like cruel experiments designed to answer questions like "Does suffering from gigantism make you a good fighter?", "Can a giant-muscular freak beat an Olympic judo champion?" and "How many times can Wanderlei Silva knock out Kazushi Sakuraba before he suffers permanent brain damage?" In case you're curious, the answers are "no", "yes" and "three."
Sadly, Pride has now slipped beneath the waves and taken its unique brand of combat sports vivisection along with it. I wouldn't be surprised if their matchmakers are now those mad scientists who are sticking spider genes into goats. It seems like the kind of thing they'd enjoy. If you think I'm kidding, google "spider goat" but be warned, you'll never be able to enjoy a cold glass of goat's milk again.
Getting back to my point, now that most fights are evenly matched it has become enormously difficult to write accurate predictions using traditional research methods. This is why I now pick winners by spending endless hours in a sweat lodge, consulting a ouija board while depriving myself of sleep, water and all food except for jalapeno peppers. Results so far have been promising although, as I write this, I think I am covered in ants. That can't be good.
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Melvin Manhoef
I love Sakuraba like a long-lost, partially-retarded, alcoholic, Japanese brother. If someone were ever to speak an unkind word about him, I would instinctively slap them hard in the face and then break into tears of anger. I don't think I'm alone in that respect, either. After all, we're talking about someone who has fought Mirko "Cro Cop" Filopovic, Kevin Randleman, Ricardo Arona, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Wanderlei Silva three times. I would change my name and move to Zimbabwe to avoid fighting any of those guys even once but Sakuraba comes into the ring every time, smiling like a 10-year old kid at a birthday party. Either he's drunk or he's crossed the line where brave turns to crazy. Matchmakers should offer him a fight against a starving Siberian tiger just to see if he'd take it. I suspect he would and, after climbing into the ring, he would look at it with the mild, careless demeanor of someone who's trying to decide whether a puffy cloud looks more like an ice cream cone or a pony. Honestly, I'm amazed that Sakuraba is still allowed to fight considering the enormous punishment he's taken. I heard that after one of his fights, part of his brain came loose and he sneezed it out. Now he can't pronounce the letter "b" and needs medication to regulate his body temperature. Manhoef has won 20 fights by knockout and once put a beating on Crosley Gracie that made the Devil himself sick to his stomach. Afterwards, Helio Gracie said "That's what happens when you don't have a first name that starts with an 'R'". There's a decent chance that Manhoef will literally maim "The Gracie Hunter" in this fight but, then again, matchmakers have been trying to maim Sakuraba for years and, so far, they have not been able to. My Guess: Sakuraba by submission.
Read the rest here ... http://www.fcfighter.com/news
LMAO at "That's what happens when you don't have a first name that starts with an 'R'".