OSAKA, Japan, April 23 — Yep, it was another great PRIDE show Dream Stage Entertainment put on tonight. When the fights started, the Osaka Dome was far from packed, but at the end of the night the building was jammed full with an excited and at times quiet crowd of 45,423 people. Damn, what a number for an MMA show.
All right, let’s talk about the fights. The first out of the night, Kevin Randleman versus Kazuhiro Nakamura, wasn’t as action-packed as the second bout of the night, Dean Lister-Ricardo Arona. But, from what I could see in the card’s opening fight, Nakamura is really growing as a fighter.
When Nakamura debuted in PRIDE, I thought, ahh, why does DSE bring in fighters who are training partners of big name fighter but have no experience? There are so many other experienced fighters in the world. But, now, Kazu Nakamura, one of the great fighters in the world I think, has moved onto the next round.
OK, Kevin Randleman has lost a lot recently. But he’s the guy who knocked out Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic and was a UFC champion. Look at his body. Nobody wants to face “The Monster” in the ring.
I’ll be honest with you: My pick for this fight was Nakamura. But after I attended that weigh-in for this PRIDE, my partner Stephen Martinez and I were thinking Randleman may just overpower Nakamura, and kill this young talented Japanese fighter. But Buddha smiled on Nakamura at the end of the fight.
“I didn’t feel any power difference between us, even [though] our bodies look very different,” said Nakamura to the media after the fight. “After five minutes or so, I could tell his power went down a lot. And we were totally, even power-wise. And I didn’t feel that much pressure from his punch. And I wasn’t afraid about the ground-and-pound either. I know my heart won’t be broke by being pounded. So there was nothing I was afraid about his power.”
“In the second round, when we were on ground, I saw Kosei Inoue and Mr. Nomura, a two time Olympic judo gold medalist at ringside,” Nakamura continued, “and that motivated me to go fight harder.”
(This man faced a former UFC heavyweight champion and he can still look around outside of ring?)
“In the second round, when I was pounding him, I feel Kevin becoming weak,” he said. “So I was thinking, Oh this fight could be stopped soon. But Kevin was shaking his head to say no, so I thought I have to go for the submission to finish. Then I went to keylock. I heard his arm make some noise but he escaped well from there.
“I trained in Brazil, in Ruas Vale Tudo. Trained with Pedro Rizzo. He taught me a lot of technique, and I felt I was really becoming strong.”
Rizzo trained Nakamura, eh? Rizzo may have given Nakamura good advice from his experience from UFC. But at the same time this young man still has an issue with his cardio. “I hustle a bit too much in round two,” he said. “Then I slowed down in round three. So that’ll be the part I’ll work on next time.”
As I mentioned early, the second bout of the night between Dean Lister and Ricardo Arona was full of action. Unfortunately, I had to miss some of this fight because Nakamura came to the post-fight interview. But I think Lister finally adjusted his mind/technique to the PRIDE level of show.
So many journalists and MMA fans criticized him here and there. And still, yes, he lost this fight, but I think he did a good job this time, and showed his skill very good. It was fun watching them exchange on the feet, and interesting watching their action on the ground.
Whether on the feet or ground, some sort of attack or defense was going on. If you don’t enjoy this fight, why do you enjoy mixed martial arts?
Lister’s post-fight interview will be posted soon on Sherdog.com, so please check out that video. He spoke about how he felt about this match before the fight and how he feels about it afterwards. Also, he talked a bit about the “dirty action” Arona did to his scar.
OK, here’s another thing everybody wondered about Arona and Lister (and also Alistair Overeem, who submitted Vitor Belfort). These three fighters from the 16-man tournament are supposed to compete in May’s ADCC World Championship. When they came to the post-fight interview, we asked about their entry for the ADCC. But each fighter said he couldn’t decide yet. So I asked DSE President Sakakibara about it. Also we asked some other questions to Sakakibara, so I want to wrap up this story with that information.
About ADCC, Mr. Sakakibara answered, “Before we match-made this Dean Lister and Arona fight, we asked the ADCC organization if we can match-make it, and they said ‘no problem.’ So we match-made these two fighters in today’s show. About those three fighters competing in ADCC, I don’t really mind Dean Lister fighting in ADCC. But we don’t want to Arona or Alistair to fight in ADCC because they’re fighting in June again. And we don’t want them to get hurt in any way.”
Hmm, so the dream grappling match between Lister and Arona in ADCC has likely disappeared. Too bad. And it seems that Overeem won’t be coming to California at the end of May.
Mr. Sakakibara talked a bit about the second round of this tournament, too. “There are four Brazilians among the last eight fighters. Two fighters from BTT, two from Chute Boxe. So in the next round, those four may have to ‘kill’ each other.”
Well, that’s the natural thing to say as a promoter. They don’t want all four Brazilians to gain entry into to the Final 4. I don’t think they’ll kill each other in the same team. So, among Arona, Rogerio Nogueira, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Wanderlei Silva, what kind of matches would you make?
Well, I don’t think two out of the four Grand Prix second-round fights will be Brazilian vs. Brazilian. But one fight out of four will be. I’d like to see Silva vs. Arona. Am I asking too much for the champion? How about Igor Vovchanchyn against Silva? It’s gonna be a battle.