Nippon Joho: Analyzing Bushido 8
The “Crusher” & the bald man
Stephen Martinez Jul 20, 2005
Kawajiri got “crushed” by the heat
When PRIDE Bushido was injected with new life from the DSE office to focus only in light fighters, PRIDE president Noboyuki Sakakibara made clear that the pressure to carry the event forward was placed squarely on the shoulders of Gomi, Sakurai, Chonan and Minowa.
Among the Japanese press they were known as the “4 Aces” of PRIDE
Bushido. A new member who comes directly from SHOOTO has broken
this exclusive circle: current welterweight champion Tatsuya “The
Crusher” Kawajiri.
The Crusher got his first taste of top competition in his second PRIDE fight when he took on Brazilian Top Team fighter Luiz Firmino. Did the champion look bad with his performance? The fans probably figured this was the case, but if you get the chance to watch Kawajiri’s previous fights in SHOOTO you will notice Kawajiri is a slow starter.
“Buscape” controlled Kawajiri from behind with some nice takedowns and suplexes just to repeat them without any damage. It was quite funny to listen as fans in the crowd screamed in Japanese, “’Buscape,’ your fight style sucks!” As harsh as it sounds, this was the consensus inside the Rainbow Hall.
In the second round of the fight, Kawajiri, batteries charged, ran over “Buscape” by passing his guard, mounting him, scoring punches and the infamous six stomps while holding the ropes in the closing seconds. After the fight Murillo Bustamante pointed Kawajiri out because of the rope grab. Well, the last time I checked Kawajiri didn’t speak English or Portuguese, so he probably didn’t understand.
Kawajiri apologized and blamed the current heat wave in Japan and over-training for his poor performance.
“Hansen is a vicious, bald-headed man”
These were Masakazu Imanari’s words about his match against Joachim “Hell Boy” Hansen when asked by the Japanese media about his thoughts on the fight, which was just announced by PRIDE. Ironically, Imanari was not far from the truth.
When he mounted an early offensive by working leglocks, a vicious knee to the face by Hansen left Imanari stone cold. Hansen welcomed the end of the fight, walking away like a hit man who had just finished the perfect job.
This reminds me of Hansen’s first words when he stepped inside the Bushido ring back at Ariake in May. At this moment Hansen told the audience, “Americans, Brazilians, Japanese … I don’t care. I’ll fight anyone.” Wish I could rewrite this: “Americans, Brazilians, and Japanese … I don’t care. I’ll fight anyone and knee them in the face.”
Now no one can start that argument about the “knee miracle” he pulled over Caol Uno back in HEROs because he just did it again, clear and loud across Nagoya Hall. If there were any doubts about Hansen’s quality as top lightweight contender one needs to look back and check the quality of victories he holds — Rumina Sato, Takanori Gomi, Caol Uno and now Imanari have all suffered the Viking wrath.
Japanese under card fighters
PRIDE is giving the chance to perform to so many Japanese fighters. While PRIDE is only bringing in the best of the best at lightweight, welterweight and middleweight from the Japanese pool, many fans are left wondering why are they not doing the job?
Sometimes styles make fights but also rules affect, to some extent, how certain fighters perform inside PRIDE. Guys like Imanari, Kazuo Misaki, Taisho, Maeda are good fighters that are on top of their divisions in Japan, but when they step in PRIDE suddenly they can’t finish the job.
A clear example is the fight between Jutaro Nakao and Marcos Aurelio. Nakao is a veteran from SHOOTO and UFC, probably in the final run of his career. While I don’t fully agree about the unanimous decision for Aurelio, since basically a big part of his offense was to only takedown Nakao without major damage, one needs to realize not all fighters’ styles work with the PRIDE judging criteria.
In case you followed Nakao’s career you will realize he usually doesn’t try to avoid takedown since he likes to fight from his back and set up his trademark move, the triangle choke. Now place this with Nakao’s super passive approach to fight and you will understand why the decision was given to Aurelio, even if he was bleeding badly and never did any major damage to Nakao besides the takedowns.
This shows a system flaw in the scoring when judges favor takedowns too much. Sure Aurelio imposed his will over Nakao to bring him down, but judges need to realize that takedowns and staying inactive in the guard is causing major conflict in the ability to score a round.
One big surprise came in the first fight of the night when Daisuke “Amazon” Sugie faced “The Prince of the Cage” Josh Thomson. Sure Thomson made an amazing comeback with the beautiful kneebar coming from nowhere to submit Sugie in the middle of the ring. But also I can’t fail to mention Sugie’s perform, from the early takedown to side mount and later the armbar attempt.
For a guy that doesn’t sport an amazing record and basically is on the bottom of his SHOOTO division this was by far his best performance. Hopefully PRIDE will bring him back under better circumstances, as well as Thomson to fight soon in future Bushido editions.
In a future edition of Nippon Joho, I’ll talk about the upcoming PRIDE Bushido 73- and 83-kg. Grand Prix tournaments to be held at Ariake Coliseum in September, PRIDE’s desperate need to find a truly mainstream poster boy for Bushido, and some amazing SHOOTO bouts for the upcoming months.
When PRIDE Bushido was injected with new life from the DSE office to focus only in light fighters, PRIDE president Noboyuki Sakakibara made clear that the pressure to carry the event forward was placed squarely on the shoulders of Gomi, Sakurai, Chonan and Minowa.
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The Crusher got his first taste of top competition in his second PRIDE fight when he took on Brazilian Top Team fighter Luiz Firmino. Did the champion look bad with his performance? The fans probably figured this was the case, but if you get the chance to watch Kawajiri’s previous fights in SHOOTO you will notice Kawajiri is a slow starter.
What strategy did Firmino, aka “Buscape,” bring to this match? He
sure rocked Kawajiri very early in the first round with a punch and
I believe later he did it again with a front kick. But in between
what happened with all the hugging and stalling he did?
“Buscape” controlled Kawajiri from behind with some nice takedowns and suplexes just to repeat them without any damage. It was quite funny to listen as fans in the crowd screamed in Japanese, “’Buscape,’ your fight style sucks!” As harsh as it sounds, this was the consensus inside the Rainbow Hall.
In the second round of the fight, Kawajiri, batteries charged, ran over “Buscape” by passing his guard, mounting him, scoring punches and the infamous six stomps while holding the ropes in the closing seconds. After the fight Murillo Bustamante pointed Kawajiri out because of the rope grab. Well, the last time I checked Kawajiri didn’t speak English or Portuguese, so he probably didn’t understand.
Kawajiri apologized and blamed the current heat wave in Japan and over-training for his poor performance.
“Hansen is a vicious, bald-headed man”
These were Masakazu Imanari’s words about his match against Joachim “Hell Boy” Hansen when asked by the Japanese media about his thoughts on the fight, which was just announced by PRIDE. Ironically, Imanari was not far from the truth.
When he mounted an early offensive by working leglocks, a vicious knee to the face by Hansen left Imanari stone cold. Hansen welcomed the end of the fight, walking away like a hit man who had just finished the perfect job.
This reminds me of Hansen’s first words when he stepped inside the Bushido ring back at Ariake in May. At this moment Hansen told the audience, “Americans, Brazilians, Japanese … I don’t care. I’ll fight anyone.” Wish I could rewrite this: “Americans, Brazilians, and Japanese … I don’t care. I’ll fight anyone and knee them in the face.”
Now no one can start that argument about the “knee miracle” he pulled over Caol Uno back in HEROs because he just did it again, clear and loud across Nagoya Hall. If there were any doubts about Hansen’s quality as top lightweight contender one needs to look back and check the quality of victories he holds — Rumina Sato, Takanori Gomi, Caol Uno and now Imanari have all suffered the Viking wrath.
Japanese under card fighters
PRIDE is giving the chance to perform to so many Japanese fighters. While PRIDE is only bringing in the best of the best at lightweight, welterweight and middleweight from the Japanese pool, many fans are left wondering why are they not doing the job?
Sometimes styles make fights but also rules affect, to some extent, how certain fighters perform inside PRIDE. Guys like Imanari, Kazuo Misaki, Taisho, Maeda are good fighters that are on top of their divisions in Japan, but when they step in PRIDE suddenly they can’t finish the job.
A clear example is the fight between Jutaro Nakao and Marcos Aurelio. Nakao is a veteran from SHOOTO and UFC, probably in the final run of his career. While I don’t fully agree about the unanimous decision for Aurelio, since basically a big part of his offense was to only takedown Nakao without major damage, one needs to realize not all fighters’ styles work with the PRIDE judging criteria.
In case you followed Nakao’s career you will realize he usually doesn’t try to avoid takedown since he likes to fight from his back and set up his trademark move, the triangle choke. Now place this with Nakao’s super passive approach to fight and you will understand why the decision was given to Aurelio, even if he was bleeding badly and never did any major damage to Nakao besides the takedowns.
This shows a system flaw in the scoring when judges favor takedowns too much. Sure Aurelio imposed his will over Nakao to bring him down, but judges need to realize that takedowns and staying inactive in the guard is causing major conflict in the ability to score a round.
One big surprise came in the first fight of the night when Daisuke “Amazon” Sugie faced “The Prince of the Cage” Josh Thomson. Sure Thomson made an amazing comeback with the beautiful kneebar coming from nowhere to submit Sugie in the middle of the ring. But also I can’t fail to mention Sugie’s perform, from the early takedown to side mount and later the armbar attempt.
For a guy that doesn’t sport an amazing record and basically is on the bottom of his SHOOTO division this was by far his best performance. Hopefully PRIDE will bring him back under better circumstances, as well as Thomson to fight soon in future Bushido editions.
In a future edition of Nippon Joho, I’ll talk about the upcoming PRIDE Bushido 73- and 83-kg. Grand Prix tournaments to be held at Ariake Coliseum in September, PRIDE’s desperate need to find a truly mainstream poster boy for Bushido, and some amazing SHOOTO bouts for the upcoming months.
