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WVR 3/5 Tokyo show rumors
By Zach Arnold | January 29, 2008
A couple of months ago, MMA Predictions posted an item stating a rumor that Roger Gracie would face Hidehiko Yoshida at the first WVR event on 3/5 in Tokyo at Yoyogi National Stadium Gym I. Eventually, the story picked up steam on other web sites to the point that everyone has taken the news item for granted.
However, there’s discussion today that WVR is considering Yoshida vs. Josh Barnett for their debut show as the main event. Will the fight be signed, sealed, and delivered?
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Roger Gracie is most likely Yoshida’s next opponent.
Besides, isn’t Barnett supposed to fight Aleks on M-1 show in Chicago this April?
I have read that Francisco Filho might also be possible on some places. They were rumored to fight at Shockwave 2006.
Francisco Filho in MMA???
Wow, talk about a “who cares” fight.
Sounds like the kind of fight that Barnett is interested in taking nowadays.
“Sounds like the kind of fight that Barnett is interested in taking nowadays.”
Why not? It’s good and easy money, and Yoshida isn’t exactly a push-over, so I don’t see the problem with this fight. And I bet there is still bad blood between Dana White and Barnett, so of course Barnett would have to do fights like this.
Accordingly to people within Roger’s camp, Roger hasn’t even started training for it yet.
Well the FD has heard some of the same as Zach and there is nothing to indicate that a JB vs. Aleks fight is going to happen besides one side saying something.
If you check Josh’s Homepage or Myspace nothing is said about fighting Aleks at all.
FD
@Chuck
I never said that Barnett shouldn’t take the fight. And Yoshida isn’t a push-over, but when was the last time he was competitive against a top HW fighter? Try never. Barnett doesn’t ‘have’ to take fights like this, he chooses to.
It is very unfortunate that they are going with the ruleset they announced. The unified rules should not be spread…
@Paul
What do you mean? Their rules are not the same as the unified rules. They allow stomps and knees to the head of a grounded opponent and they do not allow elbows.
But the round times are the same, which I don’t like.
@mmafan
Yeah, he trains grappling. This is from an interview with him from around the time of the rumored Yoshida fight in Pride:
Already training ground?
In fact, since I started in the K-1 and was practicing with the Maurice Smith, now train a little ground. At the time he was at the height of the Vale Tudo and already gave me some touches of ground. Today I have two athletes from my team (Ichigeki), the Great Almeida (64kg) and Pedro Iriê (81kg) who came of Judô and Jiu-Jitsu and are learning the party standing with us. Both have fought MMA.
So your idea would do more or less as the Cro Cop, begin training to avoid the ground and keep the fight on its territory …
Exactly. As you said I have no intention of following career in MMA, but I want to kill this curiosity to climb in the ring fighting in the rules of MMA.
The question is… If Barnett fights, does he automatically go back into the Top 10. He has already not competed for a year. I kind of think that for him to get back into the Top 10, he actually has to fight at least somebody remotely credible at this time.
Honestly, if he wants to do his Pro Wrestling stuff in Japan, that is his choice…. But he should make it known that he is no longer a full time fighter so people can put their efforts on watching fighters who actually care to move up the ranks still.
No, I don’t think he necessarily does…but frankly he’d been fighting a lot of top level guys before PRIDE went on hiatus. It’s tough for him to even fight these so called “top 10″ fighters he’s supposed to be fighting when he’s blackballed from the biggest MMA organization going.
Apparently he *might* fight Aleks or Fedor, which are certainly top level opponents - which with the current state of the UFC’s HW division is a lot more of a test than fighting Cheik Kongo or Heath Herring.
Barnett is hardly blackballed. He has certain demands that the UFC and others have chosen to pass on.
About the Barnett - Aleks fight, if it doesn’t get made I can’t say it would be much of a loss. Aleks against any well versed sub guy is bad booking. They should match Aleks up with another slugger, say a Mark Hunt. Whenever Barnett does fight again, I don’t see too many scenarios where he would be fighting stateside.
You think Barnett cares if he’s on some internet fan’s top 10 list?
I dont get why yoshida is trying to run a major show against K-1/pride team now. I think the death of pride shows that mma community in japan should be smart and united, theres not alot room for big stage shows at the moment. I was reading some translation the other day that tanigawa is upset with some fighters like misaki on this card?
“You think Barnett cares if he’s on some internet fan’s top 10 list?”
Amen. Professional fighters don’t give a shit about making MMAweekly’s, Sherdog’s or some random internet fan’s top 10 list. Their concern is mostly with earning potential. Professional athletes are mercenaries for the most part and that’s not going to change for MMA. It’s like that in mostly every sport. Live with it. This may seem like a game to you and me but this is a job for them and their window of opportunity to earn money at this job is short.
Honeslty, many of them do care about the rankings.
I can’t say whether most will admit it, but I have heard some gripe about not getting enough credit.
“Honeslty, many of them do care about the rankings.
I can’t say whether most will admit it, but I have heard some gripe about not getting enough credit.”
Yeah, because many fighters (this also goes to boxers, pro wrestlers, etc.) have egos the size of no less than the state of Montana. But they shouldn’t worry because MMAWeekly, Sherdog, etc. don’t pay their bills, nor do they even give out any sort of title belts (like Ring magazine does). I’ll only take those ratings seriously (than take them at face value as I do now) if they gave out title belts and try to legitamize themselves like Ring magazine does.
I doubt fighters look at the ratings and go “okay, I am ranked number eight, and (so and so) is ranked number three, so I should fight him so I can get at least a ranking of four if I win”. It doesn’t work that way. They fight who promoters tell them to fight, regardless of internet sites’ rankings.