I did enjoy both these guys facing each other. Minowa is the type of fighter that, win or lose, always brings entertainment to the table, beginning with his techno introduction and people chanting “Oi Oi Minowa” to all the craziness once he was inside the ring.
On the other side there is nothing more to say about Sakuraba’s performance and true showboating in PRIDE. His introduction on New Year’s Eve is perhaps one of the best I ever witnessed, as Sakuraba came to the ring dressed like popular Japanese character and comedian “Razor Ramon Hard Gay.” But after this I was left with a little bit of disappointment after the finish.
I never got to see any “special” moves Sakuraba might’ve picked up from training sessions at Chute Boxe headquarters in Brazil. In fact I never got to witness any significant display of Sakuraba magic inside the ring. It was Minowa who pushed the fight, as he came forward to meet Sakuraba. But sadly, and not a big surprise here, the Japanese legend managed to out-grapple the colorful Minowa.
Now what’s the reason for all my rants about this match? First I don’t feel there was any need to place these two together in PRIDE, especially with how popular both are right now between Japanese fans. It was quite sad to realize one of these fighters would need to lose, therefore damaging their value with the fans.
Second, this match didn’t show me exactly how it could effect or change both fighters’ positions inside PRIDE. I understand this was a special match due to New Year’s Eve, but it doesn’t change or improve their respective position inside PRIDE “rankings.”
Third, did anyone else notice Sakuraba is becoming quite slow these days? Like a lack of fire? Before it was so fun to watch him fight because Sakuraba would take the time to make fights fun to watch. Now I feel like the fire is no longer there and we are left with just memories from past victories and the image of a hero that is no longer there.
8) Sorry to burst your bubble about Arona
Not really an easy task to be the messenger of the devil but for all those Ricardo Arona (Pictures) fans out there I got a little bit of news about this PRIDE “Otoko Matsuri” show: Arona didn’t win his fight against Wanderlei Silva (Pictures).
Not breaking news I guess. But maybe too many fans out there who think Arona deserved to win the decision or that PRIDE judges played favorites need to re-watch the fight and explain how Arona could win a fight when the only thing he did was score some takedowns. He didn’t do any major damage with punches and definitely had no major submission attempts.
In fact, the only damage Arona did was because of a head butt during a takedown transition that opened a cut on Silva’s nose.
Because of Arona’s own faults he lost a good chance at becoming the new PRIDE middleweight champion and move Silva from stalling the division. His eternal refusal to use any semblance of his world famous grappling skills to finish a fight and instead play with takedowns and sporadic punches while on the ground won’t win title belts, especially against the champion.
I guess Arona thought, “Why change it if it works?” in regards to the tactics he used against Silva in August. No one told this to Silva, who actually didn’t deliver one of his best matches but did more than enough to survive Arona’s sporadic ground attack and negated several attempts from Arona to take the fight down to the mat.
Now there is nothing left for Arona except to join Shogun among the first and second fighters in PRIDE behind Silva and pray to God someone shows up to dethrone the eternal champion.
9) Mark Hunt (Pictures) reminds of “Juggernaut”
To all the comic book fans out there I guess it’s easy to grasp the idea. For those who’ve never read an X-Men comic before “Juggernaut” is used to describe or name the fictional character who is literally or metaphorically a force regarded as unstoppable, that will crush all in its path.
Mark Hunt (Pictures) reminds me of the unstoppable Juggernaut. I can’t even begin to count how many high kicks “Cro Cop” landed on Hunt’s head, how many low- and mid-kicks landed on Hunt’s body or how many punches tried to crush his face. But Hunt just kept coming forward for more and more.
So what’s Filipovic’s excuse this time about the result? I hear backstage “Cro Cop” was suffering from a high fever coming into this match. Could this be true or is it another smart cover up to protect the Croatian’s image with the fans?
I’m not for conspiracy theories this time and unfortunately neither “Cro Cop” nor Hunt showed up to the pressroom to give interviews, but I guess everyone was wondering what Filipovic’s strategy was coming into this fight. Why wear shoes? Was he sick or not? Was he really in poor condition?
It seems “Cro Cop” relies too much on getting a knockout within the first minutes. After that, and when things don’t go his way, he breaks down mentally and starts to act strange, almost like he doesn’t want to be there anymore. Walking away from his opponent and refusing to engage just until there is no other place to go.
It was also interesting to see how many high kicks and punches “Cro Cop” threw and how frustrating it must have been for him to watch Hunt absorbing everything and coming forward for more.
Hunt is someone to keep an eye on in 2006. I just wish PRIDE gets him to fight more often and doesn’t wait until December again to see him back. I also wish to see him take a couple of fights before getting thrown in with the wolf (aka Fedor).
Someone who comes to mind and I believe could make an interesting match-up in terms of action while delivering another entertaining stand-up battle is Brazilian Pedro Rizzo (Pictures).
10) PRIDE defeats K-1 in Japan TV ratings war
Preliminary numbers showed a mix of real matches with freak shows pulled a 15.3 rating for PRIDE while K-1 landed a 14.8. Though these numbers might sound great to fans outside Japan, these are not the ratings Nippon and TBS TV executives were expecting from these two shows, especially with all the money they were throwing out there to get some matches together (Ogawa vs. Yoshida).
Also, consider last year’s ratings, which saw K-1 pull a 20.1 while PRIDE did 14.5. For PRIDE, its rating didn’t really increase compared to last year, while K-1 suffered a big loss in points.
It is also worth mentioning both Dream Stage Entertainment President Nobuyuki Sakakibara and K-1 matchmaker Sadaharu Tanigawa expected ratings between 20-25 for both shows.
This demonstrates what is going on in the Japanese market and the fight industry today. While business is still good, the MMA boom is very much in a low right now in Japan; this is shown as K-1 and PRIDE ratings are down compared to previous years.
The moral victory goes to PRIDE this time, but both promotions are placed in a difficult position to put together big matches in 2006 and pray to get big numbers in order to get television executives and sponsors to throw out cash next year.