Oh baby, you fat
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
I was getting kinda excited for the Yoshida / Ishii New Years fight, if for no other reason than the hope that it could be a positive force for Japanese mixed martial arts. There’s still a good chance for this, but now here’s pictures from the press conference announcing the fight and goddamn, Yoshida looks like he’s fighting for a belt that will contain his massive fucking gut. Oh, and while Yoshida will probably be wearing his judo gi as usual to honor his roots (and hide his physique), Ishii has decided to go his own way:
Q: Ishii, will you wear you judo gi at the fight?
Ishii: I won’t wear it. I retired from the judo world, so I won’t even wear my gi during the walk-out.
This is probably on account of the judo world telling him to go fuck himself when he decided to choose MMA over the 2012 Olympics.
Old and busted vs new hotness (judoka edition)
Monday, September 14th, 2009
After announcing his intent to compete in mixed martial arts last October, there’s finally a rough date in place for Satoshi Ishii’s first fight - Sengoku’s New Year show. And while it’s not exactly the most relevant heavyweight bout in the universe, it’s one that should do huge business for Sengoku and could help breathe a tiny bit of much needed life into the Japanese MMA scene: Satoshi Ishii vs Hidehiko Yoshida.
Japanese people are gaga over Olympic athletes and both guys have gold medals in Judo, from 1992 for Yoshida and 2008 for Ishii. That’s why the country should go apeshit over this fight. Personally, I just see it as a 40 year old who’s best days are way way way behind him versus a newb, but that’s just because I’m interested in contenders and rankings while Japan is obsessed with Olympians and tentacles.
I’ll let you figure out the tentacle thing on your own, but here’s some metrics on Yoshida: he was one of the stars during PRIDE’s glory days and two of his previous New Years fights drew over 32 million eyes a peice. So to say Sengoku is hoping this upcoming New Years show goes well is an understatement. There’s even word that they’ll be changing the name of their company at the same time, hopefully to something more appropriately silly and capitalized like PRIDE, HERO’S or DREAM.
Review: Sengoku 9 live!
Monday, August 3rd, 2009
Ok, so welcome back for some more Japanese MMA craziness. Be warned, its another long one.
After the surprisingly awesome DREAM 10 show, I was stoked to see how the more `serious` Japanese promotion would handle affairs. I arrived just in time to Saitama Super Arena having ridden 6 hours on a bus to get there (Fightlinker style all the way!) to grab some food and settle into my seat for the pre-show shenanigans. I immediately noticed that the roof had been raised and the top tier of seating was available for Sengoku, where it had been blocked off for DREAM. More tickets, more interest perchance? It might have been me but there seemed to be a greater proportion of foreigners in the audience as well.
Like DREAM, Sengoku does not disappoint on the presentation front. A countdown appeared on the big screen as the lights went down, accompanied by a thundering heartbeat. The obligatory pyro flashed all over the place then, surprise, a motherfucking FOUNTAIN. In the arena. Whoever thought that one up (or, rather, worked out how to make it practical) deserves a medal. Gono`s zebra-print yukata and the flaming entrance gates also deserve honourable mentions. More awesome hype videos and the fighters` parade were greeted with almost religious zeal by the crowd. I really don`t want to flog a dead horse, bearing in mind what I wrote about DREAM but it probably bears repeating: Dana, you need to get your arse over here and see how to run a show. Seriously.
The crowds might be smaller than in Pride`s heyday but that just means that the chaff has been blown away. The hardcore fans are still around and the atmosphere was absolutely electric, somewhere between a crazy religious cult and a rock festival.
Sengoku signs more judo guys
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009I’m kinda unsure what’s sketchier: open-weight David & Goliath type fights or MMA fights involving judokas with barely any MMA training. It seems like DREAM is banking on the former to help it survive while Sengoku is going for the latter:
Hot on the heels of inking Japanese MMA golden child Satoshi Ishii last month, Sengoku parent company World Victory Road formally announced the signing of 2004 Athens Games judo silver medalist Hiroshi Izumi on Tuesday.
Izumi joins Sengoku’s list of elite judokas, including former gold medalists Hidehiko Yoshida, Pawel Nastula, Makoto Takimoto and recent prized signing Satoshi Ishii. More interestingly, WVR has also signed Georgian gold medal judoka Zurab Zviadauri, though he has yet to embark on his MMA career. It was Zviadauri who defeated Izumi in Athens in the 198-pound judo final, forcing Izumi to settle for silver.
No timeline has yet been given for the debut of Izumi, who will compete as a light heavyweight.
“Izumi has told me he’s been training MMA for about one month. When will he debut in Sengoku? We still haven’t come to a decision, yet,” said WVR director Takahiro Kokuho. “When I spoke to him about it before, however, he did tell me he’d like to compete as soon as possible.”
With Sengoku starting to sniff around DREAM’s television contract, it seems like their judo crazy scheme is paying off. But call me crazy, I just don’t get why anyone would want to watch guys who have been training MMA for less time than Kim Couture.
The power of Ishii
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
Some news from the land of rice and giant mecha robots: Sengoku might be on the edge of poaching DREAM’s TV deal. Such is the power of completely untested and unreliable judo gold medalists!
SENGOKU has 30 minutes regulaer program “SENGOKU Gold” in TV tokyo.but this program is end in September.it means SENGOKU is freehand from Autumn.(TV TOKYO is not big station)
TBS is now on air DREAM .but this rating is about 10%,TBS executive are not satisfied with this result,So theyare interested in SENGOKu(TBS men do not know deference between DREAM and SENGOKU!)ISHII SATOSHI ,judo goldmedalist is superstar,so they hope big rating by ISHII
The word is DREAM has tried the old “Hey old buddy, how about we work together” thing now but Sengoku rebuffed them basically because of the freakshow direction DREAM just took. It should be an interesting 6 months in Japan as power shifts continue and executives get more desperate.
The beautiful thing is that us fans will be the ones that win. Both companies are likely to take their bookings up a notch, meaning more good fights for us. And who knows … is Satoshi Ishii manages to live up to even a shadow of his hype then who knows how far he can drag MMA back into the mainstream eye?
(PS: am I the only one who sees the penis in Gryphon’s new header graphic?)
Satoshi Ishii signs with Sengoku
Monday, June 1st, 2009
In an attempt to know what the fuck I’m talking about regarding Japan and it’s fighters, I was following the whole Satoshi Ishii saga quite closely. Ishii won a gold medal in judo at the 2008 Olympics, which makes him a ‘BIG DEAL’ in Japan. He burned his judo bridges by announcing his intention to compete in MMA instead of preparing for another Olympics, and then burnt some more bridges when it was announced that he had signed with the UFC instead of a Japanese promotion.
But yesterday out of the blue Ishii announced that he had signed a 2 year contract with Sengoku. A whole bunch of reasons were provided - the standard “I want to represent Japan in Japan blah blah blah do good honor” - but I kinda wonder if this is really the result of the UFC still not having it’s Japanese shit together.
Whatever the case, the UFC’s loss is Sengoku’s gain. And honestly, Sengoku needs this more than the UFC does. Regardless of the fact that Ishii has been diligent in training with quality camps since his intention to fight in MMA was revealed, he’s still a total newb and I was giving him a 50/50 chance of flopping even against some of the UFC’s more embarrassing heavyweights. In Japan, Ishii will be nurtured (or not, Japan is strange sometimes with their Judo guys) and even if he loses, it’s no big deal because the Japanese don’t seem to give a shit about records.
All in all, it’s a better fit than the UFC. I just wonder why the hell we all had to go on that retarded Ishii merry-go-round just to end up back in the same place we started.
(Thanks to the Larsenator for the initial heads up!)
Lyoto Machida tells it like it is
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009
Inside the cage, Lyoto Machida takes a tactical approach to fighting that seems to neutralize his opponents’ strengths while attacking their weaknesses. Of course, this ability to break down opponents with relative ease carries over to fights he’s not even involved in. Here he is chiming in on this weekend’s Chuck Liddell vs. ‘Shogun’ Rua match-up.
“In my opinion, Shogun and Liddell will be the toughest fight of the evening. Of course I’m cheering for Shogun. I trained with him at Chute Boxe and he is a great person, but I believe this fight will be pretty strategic. If Liddell can keep it standing up, he will have advantages. But if Shogun can take him to the ground, he has advantages. I would say it is 50-50.”
That analysis is pretty solid in my book. The only problem I have is with his statement that the fight is 50-50. Liddell should have little problem keeping it standing as his takedown defense is impeccable, while Shogun’s wrestling has never been his strong suit. Anything can happen in a fight, but looking at all the factors here it would be unwise to bet the rent money on Shogun, even with Liddell’s recent losses in mind. Unless you’re one of the guys running Affliction Entertainment and you just love to lose money. If that’s the case, then by all means go right ahead.
UFC lands Akiyama
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
From the Out of the Blue Department of Fighter Signings:
The Ultimate Fighting Championship today announced that it has signed top-ten middleweight contender Yoshihiro Akiyama to an exclusive promotional contract that will see him step into the UFC Octagon for the first time this summer.
“I’m excited to bring Akiyama into the UFC and I can see him making an immediate impact in the middleweight division,” said UFC President Dana White. “Besides his great judo and submission game, he’s a finisher, and UFC fans are going to love watching him because he always shows up to fight.”
Press conferences in Japan and Korea will take place in the coming days; details to be announced shortly.
No opponent or date has been determined for Akiyama’s UFC debut.
This pretty much guarantees that the UFC is going east - FAR east - sooner rather than later. Will it be in Korea or in Japan? Akiyama fits into both regions … in Korea they love him and in Japan they love to hate him. I’m assuming his first fight will be at a stateside event, but with press conferences happening over the next few days, who knows what tasty nuggets of info Dana and the gang will let slip about their Asian ambitions?
For those of you who are UFC fans more than MMA fans, Akiyama is one of the biggest stars of the Japanese MMA scene … he is to Korea what Georges St Pierre is to Canada, which is extra fitting since he went through his own little greasing scandal as well. We knew the UFC was serious about busting into Japan sooner rather than later when they pseudo-landed Satoshi Ishii. Now it’s just a matter of time before a show gets announced.
I’m not really sure why I’ve got a boner over the idea of the UFC returning to Japan, but I do. There’s just something very zen about MMA in Japan … even if it’s way more dangerous and cheesy than it’s American counterpart, the general public treats it with a good amount of reverence. Or maybe I’m just looking forward to the insane promotional war that should break out the moment a UFC show is announced.
