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Hunt: I want to fight Fedor
By Zach Arnold | January 5, 2006
DSE posted an interview today on their web site with Mark Hunt. Hunt stated that he wanted a chance to face Emelianenko Fedor in 2006.
- After his fight with Mirko Cro Cop, Hunt said that he went to Yoshinoya and ate a Japanese beef bowl meal before going back to his hotel to rest.
- Hunt stated that he thought his fight with Mirko but that he was frustrated with Mirko not aggressively facing him. He summarized it as Mirko’s strategy to make him tired by forcing him to chase around the ring.
- When asked about whether or not he knew that Mirko had an ankle injury and a cold going into the fight, Hunt stated that he didn’t know this information all. With that stated, Hunt said a loss is a loss. When you are fighting in the ring, you have to be a professional. If the situation was reversed and Hunt was sick and had lost the fight, what would the opposite viewpoint be?
- Hunt stated that he has hired a fight coach and practices MMA training. However, he stated that in Australia, there really isn’t a steady organizational team system like there is in Brazil (with BTT) or in Russia (with RTT). Therefore, he (Hunt) would like to set up a new gym in the future for fight training.
This is only a brief summary of the interview. Please wait for PRIDE’s English web site or for another source to do a full translation of it.
Unrelated side note: Rob Sayers at FightCast discusses Silva vs. Arona. When I watched the Japanese feed live and did PBP of it, my first reaction to Silva winning… not buying it. Silva was clearly more aggressive in round one, but in rounds two and three I felt Arona did a good job of sticking to his game plan. My opinion: I wish there should have been an extra (OT) round (which is something I wish PRIDE would have in title fights, overtime).
Topics: Japan, MMA, PRIDE, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Yes, Zach…Arona did a good job of sticking to his game plan. Unfortunately, his game plan consisted of not fighting at all.
As far as Hunt goes, he is probably the best challenger for Fedor at the moment….which means that he will get knocked out late in the first round instead of early.
PRIDE does not have OT rules. Arona should have won by split decision, however, it clearly had been decided because Wanderlei is the champion and Wanderlei is Wanderlei, that if the fight went the full 20, he would win. Arona’s only shot was to get a stop or submission or KO. Arona controlled the whole fight, and worked more to finish despite his efforts to finish weren’t strictly causing much damage.
The Silva-Arona fight, I feel, was similar to the Bustamante-Henderson fight, where I felt that Bustamante controlled the whole fight save for the last 20 seconds. According to the official PRIDE rules, which I have read and know very well, a fight is judged in its entirety, not on spurts of highlight-worthy action and certainly not on a mad dash to do something in the last 20 seconds of a fight. Henderson’s problem was that he decided to work extensively in 15-20 seconds out of the 1200 he had available. But, since he’s who he is, he gets another win- and this time a title- handed to him.
They should have OT rules in title fights. I think an extra round for Silva/Arona would have been excellent to see.