Noah Southworth Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 Watched some of Pancrase 287, which took place over the weekend, to make good use of my Fight Pass trial. If you get the chance, watch the fight between Hatsu Hioki and Hiroshige Tanaka. It ends with a contender for scariest knockout of the year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted May 30, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted May 30, 2017 I always forget Pancrase is still going. Fucking 287! Am I right in thinking they're the longest running MMA promotion in the world now? Pancrase predates the UFC, right? Just checked and yeah, Pancrase 1 was in September 1993. So they're 2 months older than the UFC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted May 30, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted May 30, 2017 45 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said: I always forget Pancrase is still going. Fucking 287! Am I right in thinking they're the longest running MMA promotion in the world now? Pancrase predates the UFC, right? Just checked and yeah, Pancrase 1 was in September 1993. So they're 2 months older than the UFC. Was Pancrase always MMA though? I thought they were initially shoot-work, like RINGS and UWFi? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the_mole Posted May 30, 2017 Share Posted May 30, 2017 Some where in the early days but not now, you couldn't punch so guys like Bas Rutten had to use palm strikes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted May 30, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted May 30, 2017 Nah Pancrase 1 was legitimate enough. There were loads of works in Pancrase over the years but there were enough real fights that it still deserves its place in the MMA history books. It wasn't ALL works in Pancrase. Here's how Pancrase 1 looked, by the way... Ken Shamrock beat Masakatsu Funaki by submission via arm triangle (Rd 1 - 6:15) Kazuo Takahashi beat George Weingeroff by KO via headkick (Rd 1 - 1:23) Takaku Fuke beat Vernon White by submission via armbar (Rd 1 - 1:19) Bas Rutten beat Ryushi Yanagisawa by KO via knee strike (Rd 1 - 0:43) Minoru Suzuki beat Katsuomi Inagaki by submission via rear naked choke (Rd 1 - 3:25) I've seen little bits and pieces of the show but wouldn't mind watching the full thing. Looks decent and with all the fights being quick it'd probably fly by. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimufctna24 Posted May 31, 2017 Share Posted May 31, 2017 1 hour ago, wandshogun09 said: Vernon White I forget about Vernon. His fight with Liddell at UFC 49 was a personal favourite of mine when I first got into MMA. That and Frank Trigg vs Matt Hughes at UFC 52 were the first two MMA fights that I really loved. Not sure how it stands up today though. I haven't seen it in years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted May 31, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted May 31, 2017 Having recently watched it again for the Pride event reviews thread, his fight with Sakuraba at Pride 2 was excellent as well. The Liddell fight was exciting but it was pretty one sided from what I remember. White took a pasting but hung in there for a bit and showed heart, but then Chuck finally put him out with that right hand. What happened to Vernon White in the end? He's one of those guys that just seemed to quietly disappear. It's like he vanished when the Lions Den fizzled out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noah Southworth Posted May 31, 2017 Share Posted May 31, 2017 There were works in Pancrase and there were generally two kinds of works. The first was the kind where the fight would be real but the finish would be worked. This was usually in situations where it was felt that the best thing for business would be a certain guy going over. This could be because it was a title fight and they wanted the title on or off certain guys. Or it could be because a certain result was required in order to protect Pancrase’ image. Ken Shamrock was involved in a few of these instances. Shamrock was competing at UFC III but a week before that, he lost to Masakatsu Funaki in just under three minutes. It’s possible it was a complete shoot but the timing and brevity of the fight suggest that this was a ‘business loss’ done in order to protect Pancrase in case Shamrock didn’t do well at the UFC. The next instance was absolutely a business loss and had a story behind it. Ken Shamrock was facing Den Severn at UFC VI, which would have been the King of Pancrase versus the NWA champion. Pancrase didn’t want to risk their real champion losing to a ‘fake’ champion, so they wanted Ken to drop the Pancrase title to Bas Rutten. Ken refused, because he was the top foreigner at the time and didn’t want to lose to another foreigner and potentially give up his spot. So he loss to Minoru Suzuki instead, in about two minutes, in a fight where it was clear Ken’s goal was to get in and out as quickly as possibly without hurting himself ahead of his much bigger fight with Severn. There were other instances of title fights having ‘business finishes’, usually involving Masakatsu Funaki because he was the biggest star in Pancrase and he had no problems in putting someone over if he felt it was the right thing for business. His loss to Bas Rutten in a title fight 1996 is considered a business loss as Rutten was red hot and it was felt keeping him as champion was the right thing to do. Bas has said he’s never been involved in a worked fight, and that may be true from his perspective, but if Funaki wanted to ‘put him over’, he wouldn’t have needed to tell him. Funaki also did a business loss to Yuki Kondo in April of 1997, putting him over for the King of Pancrase title because they wanted to make him the new top star. It didn’t work as Kondo didn’t have the charisma or ability to be the top guy, and at the end of the year, Funaki beat Kondo for real to take the title back. The other kind of work wasn’t a total work, but it wasn’t a total shoot, in that there would be situations where the superior fighter would ‘carry’ his opponent for a while before beating him. This happened a lot in the early days, because there were only three top level fighters, Funaki, Suzuki and Shamrock, and it was felt that if they were the only fighters seen as being at the top, interest in Pancrase would drop because you can only watch the same three guys dominate for so long before it gets boring. So you’d get instances where they’d carry guys for a while before putting them away, so the fight would at least be seen as competitive and it didn’t like there were only three top fighters. This could backfire and the most well known instance of this took place in 1994, when Funaki was carrying Jason DeLucia; Funaki got caught in a kneebar and misjudged how far he was from the ropes and was forced to tap out. DeLucia himself has openly talked about this one, readily acknowledging that he was no match for Funaki and admitting that was supposed to get a few holds on Funaki before Funaki would decide to beat him. The only outright work, or at least fight that was almost entirely worked, was Ken Shamrock and Matt Hume in 1994. This is another one where the participants are quite open about what it was. Hume was ill at the time and rather than cancel, they just decided to have some fun before Hume would lose. I don’t know how much of the ‘fight’ went was on Pancrase or the guys themselves, but I can’t imagine Pancrase were too happy because this was quite blatantly a work, including a northern lights suplex. As to how many worked fights Pancrase had in total, the answer is not too many, because Funaki wanted Pancrase to be as legitimate as possible. Obviously, there were some worked finishes, and Funaki had no problem with those that did happen because he felt it was the right thing for business. But for the most part, Pancrase was completely legit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted May 31, 2017 Share Posted May 31, 2017 Stevie Ray vs Paul Felder confirmed for UFC Glasgow. That's gonna be a hell of a fight in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members lambyUK Posted May 31, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted May 31, 2017 1 hour ago, Noah Southworth said: There were works in Pancrase and there were generally two kinds of works. The first was the kind where the fight would be real but the finish would be worked. Is that actually possible? How can a fight be real (with the risk of someone being KO'd etc) yet with the aim of a worked finish? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noah Southworth Posted May 31, 2017 Share Posted May 31, 2017 16 minutes ago, lambyUK said: Is that actually possible? How can a fight be real (with the risk of someone being KO'd etc) yet with the aim of a worked finish? It’s very possible within the framework of the Pancrase style and with fighters likes Funaki and Suzuki. Whilst they allowed palm strikes and kicks to the head, Pancrase stressed technique and grappling over striking, especially when they were on the ground; it was frowned upon to strike to the head when you were on the ground with someone, because you were ‘meant’ to show your technique, display your grappling and submission skills, rather than be brutal. It’s part of the reason Funaki never went to the UFC, even when they badly wanted him. He didn’t consider it a sport, like Pancrase, in part because they allowed punching to the head. When you’ve got two evenly matched fighters competing within a framwork of grappling and technique, where striking is either discouraged or tacitly agreed not to be employed, it’s rather straightforward to be trying your best to be competitive whilst avoiding an accidental knockout. And you can try your best to outgrapple someone without going for a submission, or going for a submission and either leaving an opening for your opponent to escape or making sure they can reach the ropes. It’s obviously not easy to do without it being apparent, but the Pancrase style and the understanding of submissions being a rather primitive then, especially in comparison to what it is today, meant that for people like Funaki and Suzuki, who were great fighters for their day, it was very doable. There is a fight in the early days of Pancrase that follows such a pattern, and I wish I could remember who was in it because it is a very glaring example of a fight with a worked finish. It’s very competitive and they are clearly trying their best to ougrapple each other. But right before the finish, the entire feel of the fight changes, like the air is being let out of the tires. The feel of competition vanishes, and almost on cue, the loser falls into a submission and taps out. To their credit, it doesn’t look like an obvious work, but it’s just as obvious that the loser stops trying their best to defend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted May 31, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted May 31, 2017 Hey Noah, thanks for that, that was a great read. Given how wandshogun tends to win the MMA Poster vote every year and everyone knows his pedigree, I'm thinking of nominating you, jimufctna and Egg Shen this year. You've all been stars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted May 31, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted May 31, 2017 Yeah, Noah's ace. Really enjoy reading his posts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members ColinBollocks Posted May 31, 2017 Paid Members Share Posted May 31, 2017 You only realise how good this place is when you dare venture to other more popular sites. Wand always gets my vote because, not only is he knowledgeable and a good debate, but his threads are always incredible work. I know I wouldn't be able to keep up to date with the schedule if wand wasn't there to break it down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul2j Posted May 31, 2017 Share Posted May 31, 2017 Manuwa vs Oezdemir is official for UFC 214. Presumably Manuwa remains the standby for either a Cormier or Jones pull out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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