UPDATE: Thanks for reading my post about PRIDE 33. I’ve started a new blog where I can post regularly about PRIDE and MMA in general. Check out Fight Critic.
PRIDE 33: The Second Coming took place yesterday in Las Vegas. This was only PRIDE’s second show in the US; their other shows to date have been in Japan, their home country. I think PRIDE puts on some of the best MMA shows in the world and this one was no exception. Taken as a whole, PRIDE 33 was one of the most exciting MMA shows in recent memory. It was packed with brutal KO’s, slick submissions, and surprising upsets. While the production values on this show were down a bit from PRIDE’s usual effort, the quality of the fights more than made up for it.
Starting the Show
Nobuhiko Takada, hereafter known as Nobu and “President” of PRIDE, gave some opening remarks in extremely broken English, welcoming people to the 2nd US event for the promotion. Only problem I have with that is that I couldn’t understand half of what he said, and it took him five minutes to say it when I could have said it in dramatic fashion in no more than one. Then we’re shown a video highlight reel introducing some of the fighters fighting that night. The video ends with an incredibly confusing series of statements:
MMA is your world
The Cage is your world
This Ring is the Universe
I honestly don’t know what this means; it’s obviously a bad translation from Japanese. Since the world is only a small part of the universe, maybe they’re trying to say that PRIDE is bigger than cage-fighting (the UFC) and MMA itself? Who knows. What I do know is that if PRIDE is serious about finding mass market acceptance for their product here, they are going to need to get producers working on their shows who at the very least know English and at best, understand marketing and US popular culture very well. While I may find things like that quirky or even funny just because I know enough about Japanese culture to know how different it is from ours, most people will just be weirded out and turned off by it.
Jason Ireland vs Joachim Hansen
I’d never seen Jason Ireland fight but he put up a decent fight against “known finisher” Hansen; not sure that was expected. In the first round we saw Ireland land some good leg kicks on Hansen. Hansen was in complete control when they went to the ground though. Ireland gave up his back numerous times throughout the fight but Hansen was not able to really capitalize on it. The first round ended with Ireland reversing on the ground, getting on top, and showing some offense. Hansen probably wins this round.
Second round saw Hansen throwing some high kicks, a flying knee, and some hard knees from the clinch. They go to the ground and Hansen mounts Ireland eventually, then gets his back; at this point the action in the fight has slowed to a crawl. Hansen’s arm bar attempt goes the other way when Ireland doesn’t roll the way he’d like, but he still holds onto it until the round ends. Hansen clearly wins this round.
Third round gives us some more circling on the feet, they go to the ground with Ireland on top and Hansen goes for a triangle. Ireland held on while Hansen pummeled his head in the triangle, then Hansen transitioned to an arm bar. Ireland eventually taps out and that’s the fight. Jason Ireland showed some potential while fighting a top guy like Joachim Hansen, but Hansen was never in any real danger.
Frank Trigg vs Kazuo Misaki
I don’t know why PRIDE decided to change the way they produce the fighter intro videos but it seems they were feeding the arena audio into the TV feed. The volume of the fighters’ voices was too low and muddled to be understood. I hope they never make this mistake again; it’s looking like amateur hour which is not common with PRIDE production values.
Technorati Tags: dan henderson, mma, pride, wanderlei silva
PRIDE added Dennis Kang to the commentating team for this fight; I guess because he unexpectedly lost to Misaki in the final round of the Welterweight GP. First round starts with some exchanges on the feet, not much of a feeling out period. They go to a corner and clinch for a minute and Trigg eventually powers out of the position and takes Misaki down with ease. It’s obvious that Trigg has the strength advantage over Misaki. Trigg goes to side mount, then gets Misaki’s back. It would be rich for Trigg to finish him with a rear naked choke after having been submitted with one several times himself. The round ends with neither fighter doing much damage to their opponent but Trigg mostly in control. The first round goes to Trigg.
The second round starts with some feeling out on the feet then Trigg quickly takes Misaki down and moves to side mount again. This is when I am wishing the event was being held in Japan rather than Vegas; Japanese rules allow knees and kicks to the head of a grounded opponent. They make the side mount and north-south position WAY more dangerous for the fighter on the bottom. It also makes for awesome KO finishes to fights. After some more uneventful ground action, they get back to their feet and Misaki lands a stiff straight right, but there are no punches to follow it up. The round ends with Trigg in Misaki’s guard. A more even round overall, but probably goes to Trigg especially with the Nevada judges scoring the takedowns.
Third round is just more of the same: Trigg gets a couple of takedowns and controls on the ground; he lands some knees to the body. They stand up and go back to the ground again. Fight’s over and Trigg gets a unanimous decision 30-27. How did Hendo lose to Misaki last year at Bushido 12?
Travis Wiuff vs James Lee
I wasn’t excited about this fight when Kazuhiro Nakamura was facing Wiuff. Now with James Whatshisface fighting, I’m very uninterested. Luckily it doesn’t last long. Lee lands a stiff right hook and drops Wiuff. He lands another knee from the clinch before they go to the ground. He secures a guillotine choke and the fight’s over. James Lee, by submission, on short notice.
Sokoudjou vs Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
The odds on this fight were ridiculous. You could make $1600 for every $100 you bet on Sokoudjou. He is pretty much an unknown coming in to take on one of the top fighters at 205 pounds. Little Nog as he’s affectionately known has excellent hands and actually fights for the Brazilian Olympic boxing team. Maybe that is a fluke because he gets knocked out about 20 seconds into the fight by a vicious left hook from Sokoudjou. In fact Rogerio stays down for quite a while in what is one of the biggest upsets in MMA history. Sokoudjou wins, incredibly, by KO.
Video of Sokoudjou vs Nogueira
What’s funny is that the commentators themselves say that nobody in the fighting world expected Sokoudjou to win the fight. While that’s true, the question is why is PRIDE booking fights that are so incredibly lopsided?
Mac Danzig vs Hayato Sakurai
Danzig’s a good guy but Sakurai is a machine. He starts the first round with a veritable flurry of punches, kicks, and knees. The rest of the round Sakurai basically puts on an MMA clinic with a variety of strikes, impressive takedowns, ground control, and submission attempts. The second round is more of the same. I’ve got to give it to Danzig for continuing to come forward in the face of Sakurai’s onslaught. He can only last so long though and is KO’d by a missile of a right hook from Sakurai.
Michael Russow vs Sergei Kharitonov
This is another one of the odd fights on this PRIDE card; yet another unknown fighter taking on a top ten heavyweight fighter in Kharitonov. They start the fight with some exchanges on their feet but end up on the ground after Russow grabs a kick from Kharitonov. He passes to the guard and gets to side mount, then eventually mounts him. Nothing comes of it as they keep exchanging positions on the ground. Russow pulls an amateur move while in Kharitonov’s guard and gets caught in an arm bar. He taps out on Sergei’s leg but after the ref stops the fight he’s complaining about something. Either way, another lopsided fight comes and goes; Kharitonov by arm bar in the first round.
Alistair Overeem vs Mauricio “Shogun” Rua
Well this fight took me for a ride; Overeem came out really strong getting the better of the standup and clinch exchanges with Rua. This was surprising to me and his standup looked much improved compared to his recent outings. He also avoided a few of Shogun’s takedowns but eventually ended up on his back where he’s never been very good. Shogun stands up and dives forward to land a BOMB of a right hand, bouncing Overeem’s head off the mat and knocking him out cold. I thought this may have been the fight for Overeem to turn things around based on the first couple of minutes. But I guess I should know better by now than to second-guess Shogun. He really is the heir apparent to the #1 ranking for Light Heavyweights in the world.
Jerry Millen, PRIDE’s US face, comes in the ring to interview Shogun after the fight. He’s not a very good on-screen personality and asks lamer and lamer questions after each proceeding fight. I can see that PRIDE is following in UFC’s footsteps in constantly cutting away to show shots of drunk women in the crowd showing some cleavage. Showing Nick Cage is one thing but cutting back to the same blonde bimbo over and over is another. Hope they grow out of this phase fast.
Nick Diaz vs Takanori Gomi
I’ll come right out and say that I don’t like Gomi, who is the PRIDE Lightweight “Champion”. I put champion in quotes because he keeps losing fights where his title is not on the line. While this isn’t unusual for PRIDE “champions”, I think the practice is a joke. If you’re a champion, your belt should be on the line every time you step in the ring. On top of that, Gomi just comes off as an incredibly cocky guy who talks the talk but often comes in under-prepared and underestimating his opponents. I think he’s very talented but I would respect him a lot more if he seemed to take his championship a little more seriously.
They start the fight and Gomi immediately takes Diaz down to the ground and starts swarming him with strikes. Diaz maneuvers for some submissions while on his back but Gomi avoids and they’re stood up. Diaz starts to pepper Gomi but Gomi comes back with a huge left-right combination that drops Diaz to his back. He manages to avoid Gomi long enough to recover his senses. When they stand back up, Gomi looks very clearly tired and his hands are down by his sides. Diaz starts to land punches on Gomi at will and Gomi is just wobbling around not even attempting to cover up. This is extremely strange behavior because he is obviously getting hurt but acting as if he isn’t. Gomi lands a couple more shots but soon eats many many more in return from Diaz. He is practically out on his feet when the bell rings to sound the end of the first round.
Second round opens with more of the same exchanges on the feet; Gomi landing the rare heavy shot while continuously getting hammered by Diaz. Gomi opens up a couple of nasty cuts on Diaz’s face and they stop to check them. Fighting resumes and Gomi goes in for a takedown. As soon as he does though Diaz throws his leg over Gomi’s head and chokes Gomi out using a gogoplata in another shocking upset in a night full of upsets.
Gomi started the fight claiming to want to fight the UFC’s top welterweights: Matt Hughes, George St. Pierre, and BJ Penn. Problem is Nick Diaz got his butt kicked by the UFC’s top welterweights and just owned Gomi. Man, the cut below Diaz’s right eye is nasty; they slap a handful of vaseline on it to stop the bleeding so Jerry Millen can do another lame interview, “brutha”. “Where’d you find that strength at?” Why on Earth is bleached-blonde Jerry Millen talking like he’s from the projects in Oakland? Get him off the screen!
Dan Henderson vs Wanderlei Silva
Wanderlei calls out Lidell and the UFC in his intro video. Dan Henderson is introduced as “the ideal American”. What’s with PRIDE parlaying every fight into a hometown hero versus the foreigner? Just because the Japanese get off on it doesn’t mean we do too. There’s lots more unintelligible mumbling on the intro videos until we get the fight for the PRIDE Middleweight (205 lbs) Championship going.
Hendo comes out swinging and Wanderlei seems a bit timid. I don’t know if it’s because of the brutal knockout he suffered at the hands, or legs as it were, of Mirko Cro Cop a few months ago or if he was really fighting sick as the post-fight interviews have claimed. Hendo is getting the better of the standing exchanges, but both of them land heavy blows to end the first round. This was a close round but if I had to give it to someone it would be Hendo.
Wanderlei comes out a bit more aggressive to start the second round but Hendo seems to be controlling Silva in the clinch and getting the takedowns. Hendo gets to Silva’s guard on the ground and they maneuver for an advantage but Hendo is the only one doing some damage from the top. Henderson is staying very aggressive, which is nice to see after he was so defensive in his last two outings. The round ends with Henderson doing more damage from the top and he wins another round.
Third round starts and they stay on the feet a bit until Hendo goes in for a double-leg takedown which Silva rolls and reverses. They’re in a north-south spot where I’m sure Silva wishes he was in Japan so he could unleash some vicious knees to Dan’s head. Silva unloads some good shots on Dan in the corner but Dan comes back with a pretty spinning backfist that lands. Henderson lands a nice right that rocks Silva but Silva doesn’t back down and a second later he eats another hook, this time courtesy of Dan’s left hand. That’s it for PRIDE’s middleweight champion as he is KTFO.
Here is some video of the third round of Henderson vs Silva and the knockout.
Dan Henderson is the new PRIDE Middleweight Champion and oh did I mention that he was already PRIDE’s Welterweight Champion. He makes history to become the first MMA fighter to hold two belts in separate weight classes at the same time. Josh Barnett makes a silly comment during the replays about how Wanderlei hasn’t been KO’d in forever; problem being Cro Cop knocked him out just a few months ago, right before he knocked Barnett out in the same night. I have trouble believing Barnett forgot that night.
Well, this was an incredible event to watch from purely a fan’s perspective as there was surprise after huge surprise in every fight. Only one fight went to the judges’ scorecards all night and even that one was a surprising upset.
I think the fights from this event clearly set up some desirable upcoming matchups. Now that Wanderlei has lost his air of invincibility with two consecutive and convincing knockouts, it makes room for teammate Shogun to finally step up and take the crown of champion he has been diligently working towards. That means we need to see Henderson vs Shogun this year, hopefully sooner rather than later. We also need to see someone who wants the title more than Gomi win the Lightweight GP later this year and then beat Gomi again in a “title” match and be done with the whole thing. There are many contenders rumored to be a part of that tournament that have a shot at doing just that.
There is a separate discussion about what the outcome of the fights in this event mean for PRIDE as an organization and their event planning in the months to come. I’ll have to leave my opinions on that for another post though since this one has already probably set a record for length.
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[...] Nick Diaz tested positive for marijuana after his fight with Takanori Gomi in Las Vegas at the PRIDE 33 event. The Nevada State Athletic Commission handed down a six-month suspension to Diaz, fined him $3000, [...]