Alistair Overeem and Fedor Emelianenko held a reunion of sorts inside two MMA arenas, albeit one day and one continent apart on December 30 and 31, at the expense of Brock Lesnar and Satoshi Ishii, respectively.
The Pride Fighting Championship heavyweight veterans—with Overeem’s career surging toward a UFC title while former king and still The Last Emperor Emelianenko struggles on after a steep decline—carried the torch of their defunct MMA promotion (now owned by the UFC’s mother company Zuffa) into their year-end main event fights.
And with the torch still burning bright, they razed their respective opponents to the ground, both in the very first round. Eerily, they finished their adversaries within almost the same amount of time: Alistair at 2:26 and Fedor at 2:34 for a mere eight-second difference.
The Pride FC vets made canvass-osculators of the 2000 NCAA wrestling champion Lesnar and the 2008 Beijing Olympics gold medalist Ishii just before 2011 kissed goodbye.
Here are the transpacific reports from Sherdog.com:
Alistair Overeem vs. Brock Lesnar, UFC 141, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Lesnar bounces on his toes to begin (the first round) as Overeem crouches and approaches with caution. Lesnar wades inside and ducks under an overhand right. Overeem hops away from a Lesnar single leg but he’s cut above his right eye.
Stepping in, Overeem lands a solid knee to the body, then shoves him into the fence. More knees up the gut land on Lesnar and the ex-UFC champ is composed but moving backward. Lesnar is throwing single left crosses and gets jacked with another big knee. A kick to the liver sends Lesnar to the floor, covering up.
Overeem stands over his crouching, covering opponent, socking Lesnar with heavy right hands until ref Yamasaki steps in. The TKO finish comes officially at 2:26 of round one.
Fedor Emelianenko vs. Satoshi Ishii, Dream’s “Genki Desu Ka! New Year! 2011,” Saitama, Japan. A stiff left hand and an incomplete takedown attempt off of a caught kick were all Ishii had before eating a crushing right straight and hook that sent him straight backward like a freshly chopped tree.
With Ishii crumpled against the ropes, referee Yuji Shimada stepped in for the stoppage as the stoic heavyweight great loomed above, showing no inclination to even follow up.
The stoppage could not have come at a more perfect time, as “The Last Emperor” knocked out Ishii just one minute shy of the stroke of midnight, punctuating an otherwise rough 2011 and saving event frontman Antonio Inoki’s New Year’s Eve countdown to close out the show.
Overeem and Emelianenko enter 2012 riding the crest of victory. It remains to be seen if their auspicious year-end will lead to Overeem successfully snatching the UFC heavyweight championship belt, or Emelianenko clawing back into the top 10 of the world heavyweight rankings (it’s debatable on which is the more quixotic quest).
The departed soul of Naoto Morishita, former president of Pride FC’s mother company Dream Stage Entertainment, must be very proud—even prouder than Dana White.
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