Noah Southworth Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 The earlier PRIDE shows definitely have an air of nostalgia about them. And an air of something else as well with several worked fights taking place. But some of them were a necessary evil and to the credit of Quadros and Rutten, especially in Takada’s fights against Sturgeon and Coleman, they don’t outright say the fights are worked, but their commentary is different enough that you can tell they know what they’re seeing. They did taped commentary for some of the first PRIDE shows and this lead to a funny moment at PRIDE 4, during the famous, at least in Japan, Alexander Otsuka fight against Marco Ruas. Bas Rutten is doing commentary and is acting stunned and surprised when Otsuka wins. Yet who is front and centre in Ruas’s corner? Bas Rutten. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted April 30, 2017 Author Paid Members Share Posted April 30, 2017 yeh, i think the commentary was recorded later primarily for the US released DVD's. Before they got the UK releases i used to import the region free US DVD's from amazon. I'm not really sure when the commentary went live. The worked fights in Pride thing is interesting. There's a couple of classic cases (Takada/Coleman the prime example), but i bet there's worked fights in there that no one's ever suspected. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted April 30, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted April 30, 2017 I think the live commentary might've kicked in with Pride 10. I haven't seen it in a while but I'm sure Stephen Quadros and Eddie Bravo open up the show from ringside on that one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noah Southworth Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 2 hours ago, Egg Shen said: The worked fights in Pride thing is interesting. There's a couple of classic cases (Takada/Coleman the prime example), but i bet there's worked fights in there that no one's ever suspected. There are only a few fights in PRIDE that I’d say were outright works. Takada’s wins, for example, were all works. I think the majority of dodgy PRIDE fights were worked more in the sense that things were staged to heavily stack the odds in the favour of one fighter over the other rather the fights themselves being worked. Whether that was giving one fighter more advanced notice than his opponent or simply putting him against someone who was overmatched, I think that was the style of working that was more prevalent in PRIDE rather than the outright working of fights. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted April 30, 2017 Author Paid Members Share Posted April 30, 2017 Seeings that there's reports of guys being offered to take dives in fights i'd say there's plenty were not so much works but more one guy threw the fight to allow the other to win. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noah Southworth Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 Gary Goodridge, for example, as often told the story that he was offered money to throw his fight against Naoya Ogawa but refused because the money offered was not enough. Whilst Goodridge has insisted his loss to Ogawa ended up being legit, the fact he said he turned the offer down because the money wasn't enough does suggest Goodridge was open to throwing fights if the right money came along. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimufctna24 Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 I believe Takada vs Coleman at Pride 5 was a work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted April 30, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted April 30, 2017 I guess Rampage vs Sakuraba is one of the most well known cases of Pride officials trying some underhanded shit like that. Rampage has always said he didn't throw that fight but they definitely tried to get him to. From the way he tells the story they never outright said "we need you to throw this fight" but he said they made it clear he'd make more if he lost. Think he said they told him he'd make $12,000 if he lost to Sakuraba. He asked them what he'd make if he won and they told him $10,000. Something like that. Then he obviously knew what their game was. He's always maintained he declined and the loss was legit. But like with that Goodridge example, maybe he'd have done it if the offer was higher. As it stood it didn't matter. He lost anyway. I watched the fight again a year or two ago and I'm pretty sure Rampage is being honest when he says it wasn't a work. It was clear he was really going for the kill. Sakuraba just proved too crafty for him. It was pretty early on in Rampage's career too. Think it might've been his Pride debut actually, can't be bothered checking that. If they'd fought again a year or two later when Rampage started putting everything together and Saku started declining, I think Rampage would've beat him. Timing wise, he just caught Sakuraba right at the tail end of his prime and before he'd hit his. It's a great fight from what I remember of it as well. If you've got nothing better to do and you fancy getting a quick Pride fix, I'd definitely highly recommend Sakuraba vs Rampage. One of the better one round fights you'll see. Especially from that era. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tamura Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 3 hours ago, Noah Southworth said: Takada’s wins, for example, were all works. If the rumours are true one of his losses too, only it was supposed to be a Takada win until Tamura accidentally knocked him out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted April 30, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted April 30, 2017 (edited) If my memory of that fight is accurate then I'm not sure the Tamura fight was a work. From what I remember Tamura was fucking him up with leg kick after leg kick the whole fight then just knocked him out. It was basically an extended squash match with Takada getting no offence in. If it was a work then it was a very very shit one even before the KO as Takada looked terrible from the off. Maybe Tamura agreed to a work then just decided to fuck Takada up anyway. Tamura was a nasty bastard like that. The beef between him and Sakuraba stemmed from him supposedly being a massive dickhead bully when Sakuraba was breaking in in the Japanese pro wrestling dojos. Then when they both got into MMA years later, he avoided fighting Sakuraba and waited until he was pretty much completely spent and his body was knackered. If they'd met anytime between say 1997-2001 I think Sakuraba would've embarrassed him. Edit - wait, hold up. Only just clocked your username. Any relation? Edited April 30, 2017 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noah Southworth Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 The Takada-Tamura fight was a shoot. There was no need to protect Takada at this point, because he was retiring. And as wand said, a work would have looked a lot different even before any accidental finish. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted May 1, 2017 Author Paid Members Share Posted May 1, 2017 I always find it crazy how guys like Takada would try and work fights within a shoot promotion. Takada was the amongst the biggest names in the promotion, heavily involved in management/promotion but he was a fraud, it's mental how people accepted it. The line between MMA and Pro Wrestling in Japan is a very blurred, you just can't imagine it happening anywhere else. Takada fought to a draw with Crocop at Pride 17, i can't recall the fight but i need to see it because i can't imagine Takada would have had any success against a prime era Crocop. Takada's shoot record was 2-5 going into that fight. Despite them shady beginnings, as time went on and it all seemed to be played straight, it's insane when you think of how many Japanese pro wrestling legends fought in legit MMA fights against huge names and had disastrous results. It was like the CM Punk thing over and over again yet the fans always rallied behind the wrestlers. I remember watching the OTT Japansese hype packages before the fights showing highlights of guys wrestling and training for fights, i'd never understand what was being said but you could sense they always loved to play on the 'against the odds' aspect of it all...then the wrestlers always got destroyed. Barmy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noah Southworth Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 The worked Takada fights weren’t the cost of doing business as much as they were the cost of being able to do business. A lot of fight fans hated the mixing of pro wrestlers with real fighters, and you saw a lot of both of these things throughout the entire run of PRIDE. Those fans especially hated it when Takada ‘beat’ Coleman, especially because it was no secret beforehand what the deal was and what was going to happen. But in those days, without Takada, there was no PRIDE. And whilst Takada didn’t have to win all of his fights, he had to win some, and because there was no chance of him beating a real fighter, that meant giving him bought and paid for wins. It was ugly but it was a necessity. In those days, there was no line, at least to the Japanese fans, between Pro Wrestling and MMA. They were considered the same thing, regardless of whether the combat was ultimately real or fake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted May 1, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted May 1, 2017 Don't bother with Cro Cop vs Takada, Ebb. Just don't. It's fucking terrible. I can't even remember how long it lasted, just that it felt 5 times longer. And was basically just Takada flopping to his back constantly so Mirko couldn't kick his face off. Smart for his health, of course, but it made the fight awful to watch. This was one of Cro Cop's first fights transitioning into MMA so he didn't seem to know what to do when Takada kept lying down, so that made it even worse. Just crap on all fronts. It was such a bad fight they cut it from the Pride 17 DVD. Which, considering they were two of the biggest names on the card, says a lot about how shit it was. Here's a Cro Cop quote, talking to the Japanese media post-fight... "How I'm feeling, I don't want to say the word. He shouldn't get the chance to fight in my village in Croatia in front of twenty people...much less here with fifty thousand people. I don't believe this is happening. I don't believe this is happening. He's the biggest coward I ever saw and I will never fight him again. Ever. He's going to ruin my reputation. I'm a fighter. What was he trying to do? He make me embarrassed in front of so many people. He's a coward and Fujita and Sakuraba shouldn't wear Takada Gym on their shorts. If he hasn't got the fight he shouldn't enter the ring, that's all. I want to fight Fujita and fighters like Fujita. And Sakuraba. They are real fighters. Not like this...what is it? What was he? I don't know what was his idea when he challenged me to fight. If he didn't want to fight he shouldn't enter in the ring." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimufctna24 Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 Here's a quote from Sturgeon's manager at the time: Quote "We had all the details worked out for Kyle to lose against Takada around the 10 minute mark. I remember getting a call from in Japan the night before the fight. He informed me that the Brazilians were egging him on to beat Takada anyway and deviate from the plan. I informed him that KRS (who owned Pride before Dreamstage) had made it very clear that if Sturgeon doesn't do the job, he won't be coming back home" I've never seen the fight, but at one point Sturgeon is meant to have threw a high kick too hard, and floored Takada. Sturgeon had to dance around so that Takada could recover his wits. Takada ended up winning by submission. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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