While kidnapping princesses in Japan last month, UFC president Dana White spent some time with MMA legend Kazushi Sakuraba (and a translator, and another Japanese dude who was apparently just there to hang out), and talked to Saku about his days in PRIDE. The resulting video is above, although as Dana tells us, there was a lot that Sakuraba asked him not to include. Some thoughts and observations, in no particular order…
– Is it me, or does DW seem really jet-lagged in the intro? Dude is running on fumes.
– The sociopathic matchmakers at PRIDE wanted Sakuraba to fight Fedor Emelianenko at one point; that was the only fight he ever turned down. And no, Sakuraba wasn’t paid extra money whenever he fought a 205-pounder or a heavyweight.
– White can’t help crapping on PRIDE a bit for their handling of Sakuraba. “Imagine if they promoted fights the right way, and did it the way it should have been done,” White says. “Sakuraba is a fighter and an attraction that they could have took all over the world…if Sakuraba was at 170 and, at that time we’re talking the 170-pound division was Matt Hughes, Carlos Newton, Pat Miletich. All those guys that competed at 170 at that time, imagine Sakuraba coming into Las Vegas to take on one of those guys. They could have done big things.”
While kidnapping princesses in Japan last month, UFC president Dana White spent some time with MMA legend Kazushi Sakuraba (and a translator, and another Japanese dude who was apparently just there to hang out), and talked to Saku about his days in PRIDE. The resulting video is above, although as Dana tells us, there was a lot that Sakuraba asked him not to include. Some thoughts and observations, in no particular order…
– Is it me, or does DW seem really jet-lagged in the intro? Dude is running on fumes.
– The sociopathic matchmakers at PRIDE wanted Sakuraba to fight Fedor Emelianenko at one point; that was the only fight he ever turned down. And no, Sakuraba wasn’t paid extra money whenever he fought a 205-pounder or a heavyweight.
– White can’t help crapping on PRIDE a bit for their handling of Sakuraba. “Imagine if they promoted fights the right way, and did it the way it should have been done,” White says. “Sakuraba is a fighter and an attraction that they could have took all over the world…if Sakuraba was at 170 and, at that time we’re talking the 170-pound division was Matt Hughes, Carlos Newton, Pat Miletich. All those guys that competed at 170 at that time, imagine Sakuraba coming into Las Vegas to take on one of those guys. They could have done big things.”
– Dana apparently isn’t aware that Sakuraba did indeed fight Carlos Newton in PRIDE, and that it was awesome. White also never watched Sakuraba vs. Akiyama. When Dana says this, Sakuraba thinks he’s joking. Clearly, the UFC president isn’t a real fan.
– Somebody who speaks Japanese should do a transcript of this video. I’m guessing that White only got about 15% of what was actually being said at that table.
– The last 30 seconds of the video are great — Saku hasn’t lost his pro-wrestling ability to oversell an armlock — although we did shed a single tear when Dana sunk the rear-naked choke.
We here at CagePotato.com aren’t the types to say “We told you so,” which is convenient, because we couldn’t even gather enough interest in BJ Penn vs. Frankie Edgar III to mock it beforehand. The fight ended predictably; Penn continued to be no match for Edgar, and “The Prodigy” hinted at yet another retirement from MMA after it was over. Given the trilogy’s one-sided nature and predictable ending, we’re tempted to call it the most pointless trilogy in our sport’s history. But doing so would do the following trilogies a grave injustice:
Bryan Robinson vs. Andrew Reinard
Third Fight: Tuesday Night Fights, 01/24/2002. Scoreboard: Robinson, 3-0.
A quick glance at the record of every ironman in MMA will reveal multiple victories over fighters who can best be described as “victims” and “warm bodies.” Reinard is Exhibit A: You can watch his entire three-fight career in only forty-eight seconds.
[Author Note: Robinson vs. Reinard is a stand-in for every pointless trilogy that other MMA ironmen have been involved in. Coincidentally, Robinson himself accounts for seven (?!?) of Travis Fulton’s career victories.]
(Okay, but can he beat a motivated, featherweight Penn? Photo Courtesy of Getty Images.)
We here at CagePotato.com aren’t the types to say “We told you so,” which is convenient, because we couldn’t even gather enough interest in BJ Penn vs. Frankie Edgar III to mock it beforehand. The fight ended predictably; Penn continued to be no match for Edgar, and “The Prodigy” hinted at yet another retirement from MMA after it was over. Given the trilogy’s one-sided nature and predictable ending, we’re tempted to call it the most pointless trilogy in our sport’s history. But doing so would do the following trilogies a grave injustice:
Bryan Robinson vs. Andrew Reinard
Third Fight: Tuesday Night Fights, 01/24/2002. Scoreboard: Robinson, 3-0.
A quick glance at the record of every ironman in MMA will reveal multiple victories over fighters who can best be described as “victims” and “warm bodies.” Reinard is Exhibit A: You can watch his entire three-fight career in only forty-eight seconds.
[Author Note: Robinson vs. Reinard is a stand-in for every pointless trilogy that other MMA ironmen have been involved in. Coincidentally, Robinson himself accounts for seven (?!?) of Travis Fulton’s career victories.]
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Wanderlei Silva
Third Fight: Pride: Total Elimination 2003, 08/10/2003. Scoreboard: Silva, 3-0.
Move along. We don’t need to re-open this wound.
Jeremy Horn vs. Chael Sonnen
Third Fight: UFC 60: Hughes vs. Gracie, 05/27/2006. Scoreboard: Horn, 3-0.
Three fights. Two submissions. Zero interest. It’s hard to believe that the UFC once had such humble plans for Chael Sonnen.
Ken Shamrock vs. Tito Ortiz
Third Fight: UFC: The Final Chapter, 10/10/2006. Scoreboard: Ortiz, 3-0.
A trilogy that saw a slightly disinterested relic from a bygone era get mercilessly picked apart by a hungrier fighter in his prime. In other words, it was the Penn vs. Edgar of its era.
Olaf Alfonso vs. John Polakowski
Third Fight: WEC 24, 10/12/2006. Scoreboard: Polakowski, 2-1.
These two guys easily engaged in the most competitive, entertaining trilogy that made this list. If Polakowski didn’t waste the first three years of his career fighting Alfonso, he may be known to MMA fans for more than this.
Depending on how you view TUF exhibitions, Diaz vs. Maynard may simply be a “pointlessly marketed as a trilogy” rematch. That the UFC wanted us to view their fight at The TUF 18 Finale as a trilogy made it eligible for this list. The “TUF exhibition + Unwatchable ‘second’ fight” formula sealed its fate as an inclusion.
Did we omit an especially pointless grudge match? Are you dying to make the case for Sylvia vs. Arlovski, even though it was technically a quadrilogy? Leave your thoughts in the comments section, or hit us up at our official Twitter account.
Thanks to everybody who entered last week’s UFC Fight Night 33 fight-picking contest! I kind of enjoyed the free-for-all style that we tried this time, and I think we’ll do it like that from now on. Anyway, we’ve just sifted through your entries, and while there were a bunch of basically-correct guesses, a couple were more correct than the others. They were…
– Simon Cossette, for predicting a unanimous decision win for Ryan Bader against Anthony Perosh. With his entry of (30-27, 30-27, 30-27), Simon nailed two of the three judges’ scores, and missed the third one (30-26) by a single point.
– Lasha Lasha (?), for being the only person to predict that Soa Palelei would beat Pat Barry by first-round knockout. In fact, L.L. was the only person to predict a win for Palelei, period.
Those two talented fight-pickers have just won an official Sakuraba t-shirt from Scramble. So Simon and Lasha, please check the “other” folder of your Facebook messages today, as we’ll be sending you instructions on how to claim your prize. Thanks again to Scramble for hooking us up with all these shirts. If you need any Christmas gifts for the MMA/grappling fan in your life, swing by Scramble today!
Thanks to everybody who entered last week’s UFC Fight Night 33 fight-picking contest! I kind of enjoyed the free-for-all style that we tried this time, and I think we’ll do it like that from now on. Anyway, we’ve just sifted through your entries, and while there were a bunch of basically-correct guesses, a couple were more correct than the others. They were…
– Simon Cossette, for predicting a unanimous decision win for Ryan Bader against Anthony Perosh. With his entry of (30-27, 30-27, 30-27), Simon nailed two of the three judges’ scores, and missed the third one (30-26) by a single point.
– Lasha Lasha (?), for being the only person to predict that Soa Palelei would beat Pat Barry by first-round knockout. In fact, L.L. was the only person to predict a win for Palelei, period.
Those two talented fight-pickers have just won an official Sakuraba t-shirt from Scramble. So Simon and Lasha, please check the “other” folder of your Facebook messages today, as we’ll be sending you instructions on how to claim your prize. Thanks again to Scramble for hooking us up with all these shirts. If you need any Christmas gifts for the MMA/grappling fan in your life, swing by Scramble today!
We still have a couple of those awesomely official Kazushi Sakuraba t-shirts from Scramble laying around, so how bout we put ’em up for grabs in one more fight-picking contest? This weekend in Brisbane, Australia, hard-hittin’ heavyweights Mark Hunt and Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva will meet in the five-round main event of UFC Fight Night 33. Also, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua returns against James Te Huna, Pat Barry slugs it out with Soa Palelei, and Ryan Bader faces Anthony Perosh. (Are you noticing an Oceania vs. The World theme, here?)
To make things a little more interesting for this contest, we’re going to tweak the rules a little bit: Instead of having you submit predictions for the main event only, we’re going to allow you to submit a prediction for any fight on the card. The two closest guesses will win the Saku shirts. Your picks should be in this format…
We still have a couple of those awesomely official Kazushi Sakuraba t-shirts from Scramble laying around, so how bout we put ‘em up for grabs in one more fight-picking contest? This weekend in Brisbane, Australia, hard-hittin’ heavyweights Mark Hunt and Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva will meet in the five-round main event of UFC Fight Night 33. Also, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua returns against James Te Huna, Pat Barry slugs it out with Soa Palelei, and Ryan Bader faces Anthony Perosh. (Are you noticing an Oceania vs. The World theme, here?)
To make things a little more interesting for this contest, we’re going to tweak the rules a little bit: Instead of having you submit predictions for the main event only, we’re going to allow you to submit a prediction for any fight on the card. The two closest guesses will win the Saku shirts. Your picks should be in this format…
Mark Hunt def. Antonio Silva via KO, 3:31 of round 3 or
Pat Barry def. Soa Palelei via submission (guillotine choke), 1:58 of round 1 or
Bethe Correia def. Julie Kedzie via split-decision (29-28, 29-28, 28-29)
In other words: Winner’s name first, and include the method of victory, time of stoppage, round of stoppage, or the judges’ scores if you think the fight will go all five rounds; we’ll need that in case of a tie-breaker. Please submit your picks to the comments section by Friday night at midnight ET. Winners will be announced the following Monday. Only one entry per person, please. Any questions, let us know in the comments. Good luck everybody, and visit ScrambleStuff.com to keep on top of Scramble’s latest sales and one-of-a-kind grappling/MMA gear.
The crazy thing about last week’s UFC 167/Scramble fight-picking contest was the fact that so many of you were basically right, even though the fight couldn’t have been any different from what we expected. Yes, Georges St-Pierre won by decision…again. He also took the longest sustained beating of his entire career. Who could have predicted that? Certainlynotus.
But despite all the “GSP by decision” entries that came in, only one fight-picker predicted that St-Pierre would win by split-decision: Daniel Rogoff, who also got two of the judges’ scores exactly right. Congrats, Daniel, you’ve earned an official Kazushi Sakuraba t-shirt from Scramble! We’ve already sent you a Facebook message about how to claim your prize; please check your “Other” folder today.
Since only one person guessed the outcome correctly, we’re going to go back on our word a little and only award one t-shirt today instead of two. To make up for it, we’ll give you guys one more chance to win a Sakuraba t-shirt by the end of the month. Stay tuned, and thanks again to Scramble for making this happen.
The crazy thing about last week’s UFC 167/Scramble fight-picking contest was the fact that so many of you were basically right, even though the fight couldn’t have been any different from what we expected. Yes, Georges St-Pierre won by decision…again. He also took the longest sustained beating of his entire career. Who could have predicted that? Certainlynotus.
But despite all the “GSP by decision” entries that came in, only one fight-picker predicted that St-Pierre would win by split-decision: Daniel Rogoff, who also got two of the judges’ scores exactly right. Congrats, Daniel, you’ve earned an official Kazushi Sakuraba t-shirt from Scramble! We’ve already sent you a Facebook message about how to claim your prize; please check your “Other” folder today.
Since only one person guessed the outcome correctly, we’re going to go back on our word a little and only award one t-shirt today instead of two. To make up for it, we’ll give you guys one more chance to win a Sakuraba t-shirt by the end of the month. Stay tuned, and thanks again to Scramble for making this happen.
As you might have heard, Georges St-Pierre and Johny Hendricks are going toe-to-toe this weekend at UFC 167 in a welterweight title fight. According to the oddsmakers, GSP is a -225 favorite against Hendricks — the champ’s narrowest line in over four years. But how will the fight end exactly? Shoot us your prediction in the comments section, and the two closest guesses will each win a shirt. Your entry should be in this format…
As you might have heard, Georges St-Pierre and Johny Hendricks are going toe-to-toe this weekend at UFC 167 in a welterweight title fight. According to the oddsmakers, GSP is a -225 favorite against Hendricks — the champ’s narrowest line in over four years. But how will the fight end exactly? Shoot us your prediction in the comments section, and the two closest guesses will each win a shirt. Your entry should be in this format…
St. Pierre def. Hendricks via unanimous decision (49-46 x 2, 48-47) or
Hendricks def. St. Pierre via TKO, 1:32 of round 2 or
St. Pierre def. Hendricks via submission (armbar), 3:08 of round 4
In other words: Winner’s last name first, and include the method of victory, time of stoppage, round of stoppage, or the judges’ scores if you think the fight will go all five rounds; we’ll need that in case of a tie-breaker. Please submit your picks to the comments section by noon PT on Saturday. Winners will be announced the following Monday. Only one entry per person, please. Any questions, let us know in the comments. Good luck everybody, and visit ScrambleStuff.com for all your rainbow spats and video-game inspired rashguard needs!
