Comments on: Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Kiyoshi Tamura set for Dynamite!!

By: Chuck

Chuck — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 06:22:28 +0000

rainrider,

UWFi was a pro wrestling company. Sure they were shoot style, and the rule sets for the fights said as much, but UWFi was purely a worked company. RINGS had shoot matches here and there, but not UWFi.

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Kiyoshi-Tamura-1451

http://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Kazushi-Sakuraba-84

There are the MMA records of both men by Sherdog. Notice that their “fights” against eachother aren’t there, nor anything from UWFi. And I was wrong about Saku’s first actual MMA bout being in UFC (it was under Shoot Boxing. When did they ever have matches with ground work allowed?).

By: rainrider

rainrider — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 09:54:15 +0000

If you remember Jens Pulver VS Denis Hallman, that was the most boring MMA fight ever in major promotions.

Both guys knew they were equally skilled and the loser would leave town.
So they stalled the fight for 25? minutes.

What if they lived together in the same house and fought each other for 3 times a year? Wouldn’t they try to make their fights more interesting? Wouldn’t they allow each other to show their best tools?

UWFi was situated as the latter case.
Again, I don’t think their fights were predeterminded.

By: rainrider

rainrider — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 09:39:16 +0000

They fought 3 times in UWFi.
I’ve seen all of these, but I do not think the fights were worked. They were playing poker and UFC was a roulette. 2 different sports.

Tamura had many worked fights in UWFi and RINGS, primarily because he had to fight super heavy weight opponents. With Sakuraba, he had no reason to fix them.

By: dave2

dave2 — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:09:33 +0000

Zack (not Zack Arnold, the guy two posts up) was that really necessary? You are showing your ignorance as an anti-pro wrestling MMA fan. In pro wrestling, occasionally, there are special shoot wrestling matches.

By: Chuck

Chuck — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 03:55:21 +0000

“When you say that Tamura won all three fights in their UWFi trilogy, I take it that these wrestling matches were shoots and not works?”

Nope. They were works. Believe it or not, Sakuraba’s first pro MMA fight was actually with UFC. Well, a Japanese UFC show, but still.

Do yourself a favor and check out old UWFi (for some reason, the “i” is lower case. Not a typo on my part) when you get the chance. It’s great stuff. Especially the UWFi vs. New Japan Pro Wrestling fued stuff from 1994. Financially and popularity it was the greatest year in New Japan’s history. Quality wise it was up there by a long shot too.

By: Zack

Zack — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 03:08:26 +0000

“When you say that Tamura won all three fights in their UWFi trilogy, I take it that these wrestling matches were shoots and not works?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvTNyKIGXiI

By: dave2

dave2 — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 01:03:34 +0000

I’m not that in tune with Puroresu.

When you say that Tamura won all three fights in their UWFi trilogy, I take it that these wrestling matches were shoots and not works?

By: Peter H.

Peter H. — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:35:57 +0000

With Sakuraba not having very many fights left in him, I’m happy that this one is finally happening.

By: liger05

liger05 — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:04:21 +0000

Yeah Tamura was a star who Takada mistakingly didn’t give the push in the UWFI. I know its years to late but I’m still excited about this fight happening.

By: Danny

Danny — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:53:40 +0000

On the press conference, Sakuraba demanded special rules: no time limit and no gloves (just palm strikes)! U-Style rules or pure grappling match would be cool!

Tamura and Sakuraba fought 3 times in UWFi and Tamura won all of them. Check out youtube.com/UWFvideos.