Issue 010
December 2005
After a couple of outstanding recent shows, Pride FC took down the pace down a gear. Following their recent Bushido tournament, expectations were high, and instead of wasting their energy before their New Years Eve extravaganza, they used this instalment of their long running event to bring in some new talent to the game. Featuring a clash between future heavyweight contenders Fabricio Werdum and Sergei Kharitonov, the event was headlined by the long awaited rematch between Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ and Josh Barnett and featured the returns of Quinton Jackson and Kazushi Sakuraba.
Opening the show was a clash between the former sumo wrestler Henry ‘Sentoryu’ Miller and the Brazilian giant Zuluzinho. The son of Zulu, the legendary opponent of Rickson Gracie, Zuluzinho weighs a massive 177kgs. Sentoryu came to this fight in better shape than he has looked recently, but he can’t cut it as a decent heavyweight due to his short stature.
Zulu’s height and size made this a tough contest for Miller. The ex-sumo wrestler managed to land a few blows to Zuluzinho’s face, though this was more due to the Brazilian’s non-existant boxing skills than any skill on the part of Miller. Zuluzinho walked through the punches (something of a trademark strategy of his) and attacked Miller with punches and knees. Suprisingly agile for someone of his size, he uses high knees extremely well, and it wasn’t long before he caught Miller with enough blows to send the stumpy sumo down. The ref jumped in before Zuluzinho could lay waste to the downed opponent at 1.31 of the first.
Chute Boxe star Murilo “Ninja” Rua made his return to PRIDE FC with a well-earned victory over Murad Chunkaiev of Team Golden Glory of Holland. If Rua expected an easy fight against the Chechnyan all-rounder, he was wrong. Even though Chunkaiev is a natural 185lb fighter and should be in Bushido, he came to fight and pressured Rua with fast hands and a reasonable ground game. Predictably, Rua dominated the clinches with heavy knees to the stomach, though his greater height certainly played a factor. The two engaged in plenty of wrestling, with both scoring takedowns, though Rua’s size and strength came into play on the ground.
That said, he still has good ground skills, and he used them by taking Chunkaiev’s leg and catching a heel-hook to finish the fight at 3.31 of the first round. Having lost his last two fights, this was definitely an easy welcome-back fight from the bosses at PRIDE.
The big screens throughout the arena were displaying an unusual slogan before the UK fighter James Thompson’s fight against the Romanian behemoth Alexandru Lungu. ‘Gong and Dash!’ was the caption showing as he walked to the ring, referring to Thompson’s habit of charging across the ring at the start of his fights. Facing for the first time an opponent matching him for size, Thompson wisely abandoned the strategy in face of the 6’4 175kg monster.
Lungu was making his MMA debut but is a well-known judo player and was said to have been training his boxing- something James found out when he was decked with a swinging right hook. Lungu smothered James immediately, but Thompson showed a side of his game we’ve not seen before. Using good ground technique, he defended a rear naked choke and regained guard from underneath the giant Romanian. Managing to stand back up, he wailed away with a barrage of punches and knees that had Lungu turning away in the corner of the ring. The referee jumped in after only 2.13 of the fight, as Lungu could no longer defend himself.
James said after the fight that he did not want to seem predictable, so did not charge across the ring as usual. Also laughing at his new nickname from Japanese fans (they lovingly call him Mega Punk) he reminded reporters his actual nickname is the Colossus. Sorry James, but if you’re fighting in Japan against guys that size, you’re probably better off sticking with Mega Punk!
Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson is another fighter who was being welcomed back by PRIDE bosses. Stuck in with the hopeless Japanese fighter Hirotaka Yokoi, Jackson needed an easy fight considering the battering he had taken from Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua in his last outing. Yokoi shoot in straight away, but with no chance of taking down the wrestler he pulled guard immediately. Jackson carefully defended any submissions by pushing into Yokoi, but the surprisingly flexible Yokoi pulled off a beautiful omoplata, putting Jackson on his back.
From the top, Yokoi managed to do nothing, while Jackson stayed busy by punching and even looking for submissions of his own. When Yokoi passed into side control, it looked like he might get somewhere, but Jackson reversed the position with ease and from here mounted his counter attack. A barrage of punches had Yokoi covering, and Jackson nullified the Japanese fighter’s defence further by pinning one of his arms with a shin.
The referee shouted ‘give up?’, but Yokoi was too senseless to even register it. Before the ref could get in there to break it up, Jackson had added a soccer kick and a stomp for good measure, leaving Yokoi out of it. In true ‘Street Soldier’ fashion, Jackson laid a beating down on Yokoi, but it was his other skills that night that hint at a return to form. Being swept from Yokoi’s guard aside, Jackons showed good submission defence and regained his guard easily. His smothering side control left him in a highly advantageous position to strike from, possibly a result of his recent training sessions with Randy Couture.
Pick a name, any name, as to who you think could beat the current PRIDE heavyweight champion. Not a very big list is it? If you pose this question to your average PRIDE fan, it’s a very short list of candidates, made smaller by Fedor’s recent handling of number one contender Cro Cop. One name that does keep cropping up though, is Sergei Kharitonov. At only 25 years of age, this Russian Heavyweight is seen by many as the heir apparent to Fedor’s throne. The only blemish on his 14-fight record is a decision loss to the ex-heavyweight champion Minotauro.
Fabricio Werdum is best known as Cro Cop’s BJJ coach. As far as Cro Cop’s skills are concerned, the man has done wonders, and when it comes to grappling, he’s not so bad himself. His seven fights have only seen one go the distance, and that was an inexplicable draw against the now-inactive UK light heavyweight James Zikic. With all his fights finished by either submission or KO, he’s not half bad. Only problem is, Kharitonov is all-bad, and I mean in the 1987 Michael Jackson sense, not MC Hammer.
Straight away, Kharitonov is nose to nose with Werdum. The confused-looking referee trying to give the pre-fight instructions looked tiny compared to these two, God help him. However, he had any easy night, and to be honest we had a predictably boring fight. Once again, a one-dimensional BJJ guy elected to completely disregard any notion of making a fight of it, and flopped to his arse whenever he couldn’t get the fight to the floor. Mind you, you can’t completely blame him, considering how much of a badass Kharitonov is when it comes to striking, especially after his recent demolition of Pedro Rizzo.
But at least Nogueira stood with Kharitonov. Werdum may have passed his much-vaunted submission grappling onto Cro Cop, but he sure as hell hasn’t picked up the legendary kickboxer’s striking skills. Nope, he shot, re-shot and shot again, with only minimal success. Kharitonov counter punched when he could, and would walk Werdum into the corner where he would pick off body shots and leg kicks, but most of the time Werdum made it impossible by refusing to engage. So desperate to get the fight to the ground, at one point Werdum even lay flat on his back and offered Kharitonov side control, but the Russian just disregarded him as if he was insane. Werdum must have been insane if he thought he could win a fight this way, and the judges rightfully gave it to Kharitonov. Come on BJJ people, learn how to fight properly!
A battle of judoka could have been proved to have been an interesting fight, had both fighters kept their gis on, but unfortunately, only the Yoshida Team member Makoto Takimoto elected to fight in his.
Korean judo fighter Yoon Dong-Sik decided to go without, but he obviously left his warrior spirit back home as well as Takimoto cruised to a decision in an uneventful fight save for some submission attempts from both men in round one, and a little stand up from Takimoto throughout.
The co-main event of the evening was the return of the legendary, charismatic and entirely over-the-hill Kazushi Sakuraba. Known for his drinking and smoking away from the gym, Sakuraba suffered a horrendous beating from Ricardo Arona in June this year, and was packed off to Brazil to get kicked into shape by the guys behind Chute Boxe. The bosses at PRIDE obviously pulled a few strings here and there, considering how many times Sakuraba has squared up with Wanderlei Silva (though none of them were successful!).
Sakruaba was to face another legendary, charismatic over-the-hill fighter in Ken Shamrock. Oh yes, we’ve heard about his return to the UFC and his position as coach on the 3rd series of TUF, but come on. The last time Ken Shamrock was the World’s Most Dangerous was, well, never.
Sakuraba came to the ring unusually business-like. There was no humorous entrance and no joking around- save for the roll of fat beginning to appear over the waist of his shorts, he looked pretty serious. His training with Chute Boxe obviously paid off, as after a few fleeting exchanges, he sent a crashing right hook right into the side of Shamrock’s head. The American got caught underneath the ear, and spun around with no idea of what was going on. Falling across the ring and half out of the ropes, Shamrock was out of it, and the ref stopped it before Sakuraba could follow up with much more of the same. Only thing was, while he was doing this, Shamrock had got his bearing enough to get back on his feet and start
protesting loudly.
Not only is he the World’s Most Dangerous Man, he is also the World’s Worst Loser, and this was proved none better by his behaviour post-fight.. Face it Ken, you got sparked. It happens to the best of us.
Sakuraba looked better than he had for a long time with Chute Boxe head honcho Rudimar Fedrigo in his corner. My only worry is that the people behind PRIDE start getting silly ideas of Sakuraba’s rapidly diminishing capabilities and start sticking him back in with dangerous fighters. The pot-bellied 37-year old can’t handle it guys, leave
him be.
The big sell for this show was the rematch between Cro Cop and Josh Barnett. Heavyweight champion of the UFC until he was stripped for being on steroids, Barnett jumped ship to Japan and has dabbled in both MMA and pro-wrestling. Worryingly, it doesn’t seem like he’s been training too much for MMA though, as his last few fights have been snoozers. Beating a tiny Yuki Kondo, a way-overmatched Yoshiki Takahashi and a pathetically unprepared Rene Rooze in the last three years shows Barnett’s priorities lie elsewhere. He may have armbarred Semmy Schilt but it took him the best part of 15 minutes to do so. Last time he faced Cro Cop, he tapped out almost immediately from a freak shoulder injury, claiming it popped out when he took Cro Cop down.
Characteristically, Cro Cop couldn’t have cared less, and after losing to Fedor only three months ago, its not suprising he was all-business in this fight. Choosing not to come straight out with his weapon of choice, Cro Cop held the famed left high klick back far longer than anticipated. Visibly smaller and looking slimmer than he has for a long time, Cro Cop avoided the scrappy punches of Barnett with plenty of neat lateral footwork, and did a fine job in disengaging from the clinch, digging in straight left hands from his southpaw stance whenever he could.
A few minutes in and Barnett found what he was looking for when he caught a kick from Cro Cop and ran the Croatian to the mat. Cro Cop popped up after a matter of seconds without trouble, but didn’t get to resume his stick and move strategy as Barnett chased him down into a clinch.
A low blow had Cro Cop glancing at Barnett with a severely pissed-off look on his face, but when Barnett tried a sloppy looking salto suplex, Cro Cop simply stepped over into mount. The American struggled his way out without much damage, but this didn’t bode well for him. Managing to stand, Barnett fought for the clinch again, trying to take out Cro Cop’s legs with short knees to the thighs.
The second round saw a repeat of this, until Cro Cop used a beautiful outside foot sweep to dump Barnett on his considerable behind. Passing from side control to mount and back again, it started looking like Barnett had nothing for him, and the Croatian ex-policeman easily won the round.
Fighting from clinch once more, Barnett made the fatal mistake of botching another takedown attempt, and Cro Cop started dominating from top position once more. Here, Cro Cop worked his way out of a few leg lock attempts, but it was on the feet Cro Cop won the last round. Really pouring on the pressure, he opened Barnett’s face with a succession of lefts and rights, all the while remaining and elusive target. A 3-0 decision was recorded, and Cro Cop put in one of his best performances in a long time.
...
