TOKYO — What a crazy couple of days it was heading into Team Sherdog’s New Year’s Eve experienced with PRIDE “Otoko Matsuri” MMA extravaganza.
Still, the show is fresh in the memory of many fans and while many might feel disappointed because their favorite fighters didn’t win, I have to give full credit to PRIDE for putting together a great show.
On paper it looked upside-down in the matchmaking department, but in the end it delivered very good results and answered many questions.
Let’s start with my Top 10 thoughts regarding “Otoko Matsuri,” otherwise known in the States as “Shockwave,” and why in the end the show give us more questions that hopefully will be answered in 2006.
1) Referee Yuji Shimada seriously lacks a sense of humor
We all know Charles Bennett (Pictures) is a very colorful character. His antics and in-ring performance could be considered annoying or funny by many fans. On the other hand, Bennett might not sport the most amazing MMA record out there. But one thing is for sure: he knows how to deliver a show and regardless of the outcome you know something wacky is going to happen when “Krazy Horse” fights.
Now this leads me to chief PRIDE referee Yuji Shimada, who basically smacked Bennett around in the ring in front of thousands of fans in Saitama Arena and many more millions watching at home. Why? Just because Bennett was fooling around with the camera as he played his goofy persona.
I understand referees need to make the fighters understand they are “The Law” inside the ring, but there are lines not to be crossed and this means refs should avoid aggressive physical contact with a fighter to make him understand your point.
I don’t really understand how Bennett’s actions inside the ring can be judged “against the rules” or a “lack of respect” towards the referee — everything Bennett was doing is just playing his role to entertain fans and as far as I remember PRIDE’s main objective is to act as entertainment. Besides, there are better ways a referee can make a fighter follow him. In PRIDE just give him yellow cards and keep taking 10 percent from his pursue until he understands.
To finish, I got flashbacks of Phil Baroni (Pictures) hitting referee Larry Landless (Pictures) in the UFC or Gilbert Yvel (Pictures) shaking that poor referee’s brain back in Fight Festival. And while these two cases are not similar in context with what happened between Shimada and Bennett, the results could be the same when a referee crosses the line.
2) Kondo needs to stay as far away from PRIDE as possible
When fans of the Japanese MMA scene talk about the best Japanese fighters right now, Yuki Kondo (Pictures)’s name is sure to pop up somewhere in the top five. If you talk about the all-time Japanese fighters, Kondo’s name definitely should pop up somewhere in the top 10.
I understand Kondo is first and foremost a Pancrase guy and Pancrase happens to be one of PRIDE many rival organizations in Japan. Yet I fail to understand how such a big organization like PRIDE, which hasn’t really produced native fighters and relies heavily in “small” organizations like Pancrase and SHOOTO to bring talented Japanese fighters to face the “foreign domination” on the big stage, just goes ahead and basically robs fighters from decisions in order to follow politics and favor the “company name.”
Plain and simple, Yuki Kondo (Pictures) was robbed against Kazuhiro Nakamura (Pictures). What really makes me feel sad is the fact that Kondo is an ideal solution to PRIDE’s problem, what with their lack of local talent.
While Kondo will be representing Pancrase until the day he dies, all the other attributes he brings to the table play perfectly within PRIDE’s scheme: he couldn’t care less about weight differences; he has solid striking and ground game; and he’s popular among fans.
The current King of Pancrase light heavyweight champion sports an unfair record of 1-5 inside PRIDE, where at least two decisions, including this last fight with Nakamura, should have been awarded to him.
About Nakamura there is not much to say. He’s a young and talented fighter with a very bright future inside the PRIDE middleweight division. It’s just a shame his record needs to be built at the expense of someone like Kondo.
3) Aleksander Emelianenko (Pictures)’s role in PRIDE
Aleksander Emelianenko (Pictures) might not be a top-five contender in the heavyweight division, but he’s quickly becoming that heavyweight fighter to keep an eye in the future.
Call it good matchmaking or a solid manager’s decision, but I really like the way Aleksander’s record is being built. While he’s not fighting the cream of the top in terms of heavyweights (besides “Cro Cop”), Aleksander has been building solid wins against fighters that were thought to be his equal or superior at the moment they faced him.
Is his destiny to become the Murilo Rua (Pictures) of the heavyweight division and play protector to Fedor’s belt like the Brazilian did before with Silva? Or will his destiny be to become the Mauricio Rua (Pictures) of the heavyweight division, raising to the top just to be stalled by his brother’s championship?
I think Aleksander’s destiny is to become a big player in PRIDE’s heavyweight division, but never to the level of Mirko Filipovic (Pictures), Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (Pictures) and his brother, current champion Fedor Emelianenko (Pictures). On the flip side, I would love to see him fight the likes of Fabricio Werdum (Pictures) or Sergei Kharinotov, just to see if he can crack the top five PRIDE heavyweights.
(My pipe dream will also be to see him step in the UFC Octagon against the likes of Tim Sylvia (Pictures).)