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PRIDE 5/5 Osaka Dome card line-up
By Zach Arnold | April 18, 2006
New matches announced today by the DSE office for the open-weight tournament:
- Kazuyuki Fujita vs. James Thompson
- Alistair Overeem vs. Fabricio Werdum
Add these to the other matches already announced:
- Hidehiko Yoshida vs. Yosuke Nishijima
- Mirko Cro Cop vs. Ikuhisa Minowa
- Josh Barnett vs. Emelianenko Alexander
Three more matches need to be booked. Update: On his HP, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira has Rulon Gardner listed as a potential opponent in the tournament.
Topics: All Topics, Japan, MMA, PRIDE, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
“Three more matches need to be booked.”
how about fedor coming into second round, not official though? I think that 2 – 4 matches need to be booked.
They have a concept of wanting to have 8 fights, with 8 winners – and then fans eliminating which of those winners is the least interesting, with Fedor replacing that person. That’s what has been relayed publicly, but I am not sure how legitimately serious it is.
I thought Fedor was recovering until sometime in August? Wouldn’t that be too late for him to enter the tournament?
He was supposed to be out for 6 months after surgery during the Winter, but the promoters in DSE are head-strong about wanting him back as soon as possible.
According to Nogueira’s site, he will face Rulon Gardner. That leaves Hunt, Silva, TK and probably Coleman.
They need some good matchups in here. So far only Barnett v Emilianenko has me excited.
Fujita v Thompson should be brutal and fun to watch as a brawl.
Overeem/Werdum is interesting but will probably be a lot of stalling until Wedum catches a sub.
Hunt v Coleman
Nog v Silva or
Hunt/Nog & Coleman v Silva would be nice additions.
What about Sakuraba? Is he healthy? I have a hard time believing he won’t be booked to fight.
At a press briefing today, Hidehiko Yoshida gave the OK signal for Yosuke Nishijima to wear boxing gloves in their 5/5 Osaka Dome MMA fight in the PRIDE ring.
I still think that they are going to book 9 matches because they are confident that Fedor will be in the 2 round also if Fedor could not compete in tournament then they would use the voting option in second round.
Why in world will Fedor be even in the GP when his brother is also there? There is no way they will fight each other. So what if both make it to the finals?