jimufctna24 Posted January 2 Posted January 2 (edited) @Dai Indeed, Takayama is quite possibly the best example of "fighting spirit". By the time he was booked to fight Sapp on NYE 2002, he was very popular due to his slugfest with Frye and I assume his pro wrestling background, but at the same time he was 0-4 in MMA. Meanwhile, while Sapp would come to be perceived as a joke later in his career, he was fresh off battering Big Nog in MMA and the two wins over Hoost under kickboxing rules (which Wand mentioned). The bout was a complete mismatch in both theory and practice, yet it still drew better business for Inoki's MMA promotion on NYE 2002 than the previous year's show had done, both in terms of attendance and TV viewership. @wandshogun09 There is little doubt that the events of late 2003 and early 2004 involving the Yakuza was what killed Pride FC. Whether you believe it was Mijatovic's working with the Japanese feds or Kawamata's telling all to the Japanese magazine that led to Fuji TV cancelling Pride broadcasts from their network, that was still the case. Even over 20 years later measures are still taken to ensure MMA organisations are not linked to the Yakuza. For example, it's still preferred that Japanese fighters cover up their tattoos, so they are not viewed as gang members. However, what you argued about poor matchmaking has a lot of truth to it. Japanese TV networks want Japanese fighters featured in winnable fights. It can be quite difficult to book Japanese fighters in winnable fights against top foreign talent, because as I posted earlier in the week, Japanese MMA is behind the times in terms of training and weight-cutting. They also have an outdated view on cross-training, believing that a fighter should represent his specific art (say Judo), rather than cross-train and become more well-rounded. And as you typed, Japanese matchmakers aren't exactly known to protect their talent. Edited January 3 by jimufctna24 Quote
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted January 3 Author Paid Members Posted January 3 I'll never get tired of talking about those old crossover days, alot of it was much crazier and asburd than anything we are seeing today in the whole crossover space. Fighters took on some ridiculous challenges. Quote
jimufctna24 Posted January 3 Posted January 3 Nice to see you posting again Ebb. As I have posted before, MMA has broadly evolved in terms of training and technique, but I still have a huge soft spot for the wild west days of the early to mid 2000s. I still find out crazy stuff about that time now that I was previously unaware of. Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted January 4 Paid Members Posted January 4 Yeah @Egg Shen where the fuck you been? Quote
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted January 7 Author Paid Members Posted January 7 just been laying low 😁 Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted January 9 Paid Members Posted January 9 You couldn’t force me to watch or listen to this shite at gunpoint… Quote
jimufctna24 Posted January 17 Posted January 17 Rizin have now uploaded the main event of their NYE show to their YouTube channel. If you're a sucker for big fight spectacles, and ultra-violent ones at that, then it's highly recommended. Quote
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted January 23 Author Paid Members Posted January 23 Get him in the UFC: Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted January 23 Paid Members Posted January 23 Official poster for Holloway vs Oliveira 2… Quote
Bruce85 Posted February 10 Posted February 10 Not sure if this is old news and I’ve missed it but I’ve just seen TNT sports is moving away from Discovery+ and will be in the new HBO streaming service from March. I watch all the UFC through the Discovery+ app on the ps5 but don’t watch any other content on there so I’m personally happy with this switch as I might actually watch HBO. Quote
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted February 10 Author Paid Members Posted February 10 Hmmm, i get TNT Sports/Discovery+ free through my phone contract, wonder how that'll effect that set up. Quote
Bruce85 Posted February 10 Posted February 10 1 hour ago, Egg Shen said: Hmmm, i get TNT Sports/Discovery+ free through my phone contract, wonder how that'll effect that set up. I had an email from Discovery+ saying my billing and package isn’t changing but TNT will now be on the HBO app and will still give me access to Disovery+. Quote
jimufctna24 Posted February 16 Posted February 16 (edited) I came across this article in my bookmarks earlier. It's a tribute to former Sherdog radio host Jordan Breen, published after his passing last year - https://sports.yahoo.com/mma/article/remembering-jordan-breen-a-mind-mma-couldnt-replace-and-a-man-it-couldnt-save-204617643.html. Warning, while the article is very informative, it is also a very bleak read. I listened to Breen' show often in the late 2000s and early 2010s. He was younger and more focused on the sport than the other Sherdog staffers, so he naturally appealed to me the most. I traded emails with him a few times, asking him some pretty mundane questions. but he was still quite friendly and put real effort into out exchanges. I can genuinely say that I was better informed after our exchanges. We even shared a laugh about the Cage Rage promoters. As the article states, he had an incredible ability to quickly gain knowledge on a subject and form an insightful opinion on. He also had balls of steel. He wouldn't shy away from disagreeing with peers, or calling out bullshit from others in the sport. It's a real shame those qualities are now going to waste. The current MMA landscape would benefit from his presence, as would I imagine other walks of life. Edited February 16 by jimufctna24 Quote
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted February 26 Author Paid Members Posted February 26 Fucking hell, not this bullshit again 😄 Quote
Dai Posted February 26 Posted February 26 Nine people for a wellness council, when you have a roster of 0, seems a little excessive. Could have saved some cash and not had a commentator and someone whose been popped for PEDs on a wellness council too. Quote
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