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PRIDE 12/31 Saitama Super Arena card line-up
By Zach Arnold | December 21, 2005
A bank account-busting budget of $8-10 million USD provides us with the following on New Year’s Eve:
- Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Ikuhisa Minowa
- Emelianenko Alexander vs. Pawel Nastula
- James Thompson vs. Giant Silva
- Free-weight Fight: Ken Kaneko vs. Charles “Krazy Horse” Bennett
- Middleweight Title Match: Vanderlei Silva vs. Ricardo Arona
- 2005 Lightweight Tournament Finals: Takanori Gomi vs. Hayato “Mach” Sakurai
- 2005 Welterweight Tournament Finals: Dan Henderson vs. Murilo Bustamante
- Emelianenko Fedor vs. Zulu
- Mirko Cro Cop vs. Mark Hunt
- Yuki Kondo vs. Kazuhiro Nakamura
- Makoto Takimoto vs. Sanae Kikuta
- Hidehiko Yoshida vs. Naoya Ogawa
On the promotional spots on Fuji TV, the network/promotion has been putting over Yoshida strongly and has been putting over Ogawa as a comedy character, almost not to be taken too seriously. One guy is getting a push, the other guy isn’t. Sakuraba and Minowa both got pushes on TV, but Sakuraba’s is much larger as they are doing the same thing that they did with Mirko Cro Cop before his 8/28 fight with Fedor — putting over Sakuraba’s mother, the family, his childhood, etc. Takanori Gomi has not been mentioned much, if at all on TV. Neither has Emelianeko Fedor.
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