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Sakuraba story makes national headlines
By Zach Arnold | September 26, 2006
Yahoo Japan: Sakuraba hospitalized, fighter status in doubt
Kazushi Sakuraba’s hospital trip is making national headlines on news wires in Japan, as this is mushrooming into a major story that could dominate the fight industry for the rest of this year. Major speculation in the various Japanese media outlets that retirement is impending, but the biggest concern is about his health. Gryphon has a link to a scan of the Tokyo Sports newspaper article.
Update: Weekly Pro has this on their mobile site: æ¡œåºãŒæ¤Žéª¨è„³åº•å‹•è„ˆè¡€æµä¸å…¨ã«ã‚ˆã‚Šæ¬ å ´ — I’m not great with medical terminology in Japanese, but I think it means he has a blood circulation problem/blockage (bad blood flow) in an artery that leads to his brain. It sounds like he may have suffered a TIA (transient ischemic attack), which is a precursor in the future for a stroke. If it’s a vertebrobasilar problem, it would in fact be a TIA.
Sakuraba did not have a stroke, but he’s been told to not train or fight. He’s off the 10/9 Yokohama Arena event. Despite the medical scare, there is an indication that he would consider fighting on New Year’s Eve.
Image credit: Livedoor Sports/GBR
Kazushi Sakuraba attended the K-1 press conference on Wednesday and talked about how the symptoms were a result from repeated blows to the neck since he was wrestling in high school. He has been told to rest for at least one month. K-1 matchmaker Sadaharu Tanigawa noted that there was a chance that Sakuraba would fight on the Dynamite event.
More detailed Japanese article here. The point Sakuraba tried to get over at the press conference is that he did not suffer brain damage, but rather it’s damage in his neck area from all the punishment he has taken in the past that prevented blood from circulating properly to the base of his brain. It is being said that the injury is serious, but not life-threatening (according to the latest diagnosis).
Topics: All Topics, HERO's, Japan, Zach Arnold | 8 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
“tsuikotsu-noutei-doumyaku” is vertebrobasilar artery in English, i think.
Bless sakuraba and all he has done for mma.
But zach I still have to think how you thought and claimed sakuraba jump to k-1 was a huge blow to pride, your anti pride statements should be turned into a relief for pride.
Of course you will never admitt that because of your odd personal hatred for pride.
Nobody is a winner in the PRIDE/K-1/Sakuraba situation right now.
It was the right move for K-1 to make. HERO’s uses different rules for their fights than PRIDE does, so on paper it was theoretically going to be safer.
If there’s a heel in the entire situation, it’s the referee in the Smirnovas fight who let Sakuraba take one of the most brutal beatings I’ve seen in MMA. If Sakuraba lost but walked out with minor injuries, everyone would have accepted that. Instead, he got destroyed and after getting pummeled, Sakuraba came back with an amazing finish to the fight.
Sakuraba’s tranfser to HERO’s was a bigger blow to PRIDE (who lost one of their two main Japanese aces, the other being Yoshida) than it was a gain for HERO’s/K-1. I don’t blame K-1 for making the move.
What I do blame are the actions by K-1 (whether it’s Tanigawa, Maeda, the referee, whoever was responsible for what happened on August 5th) that put Sakuraba in the position that he is in today.
Zach Arnold is so anti-PRIDE. I mean, I remember the time he had Mauro Ranallo on his radio show about fifty times, and had PRIDE ads on the show, and had PRIDE fighters on to promote PRIDE shows, and…
On a serious note, my sympathies for Saku. This is no way to go out if indeed he’s forced to retire.
The über pro-Pride and über pro-UFC fans are more ridiculous than anything I’ve seen in other sports. Just a bunch of completely braindead morons who hopefully will never have a real influence on anything in the world, ever.
Get well Sakuraba. I’m soooo relieved he’s out of the tournament and think Tanigawa is a dick for putting pressure on for a NYE fight already. Sheesus, if Saku wants to be Kurt Angle, at least let him decide on his own.
Ditch I guess you have not read his work where everything was going to lead to prides downfall, including sakurabas jump.
As of now, pride comes out a winner, the bad press will fall on k-1, k-1 did steal sakuraba, but for one fight that leads to his unhealthy retirement? Turned out not to be a blow at all for pride, more of a blessing.
If having mauro ranallo on your show makes him somehow fair to pride then I dont understand your logic, I just wish his reporting would not always spell the demise of pride, and I can dig you up tons of articles where he hinted towards pride demise and there eventual downfall. All I want to see from him is some positive pride press once in awhile, in his writing, not having mauro on his radio show.
Message to Saku if you’re not already, you should start burning some reefer, it’s a scientifically proven fact that thc, the main ingredient of Marijuana, has a neuro protective quality. The canibinols in this herb when present in a persons blood supply actually prevent brain damage in the event of stroke or head trauma. There is no health risk involved in weekly periodic consumption of marijuana for medical purposes whether by smoking or eating it.
This was proven and subsequently duplicated in independent studies in the US, Netherlands and Japan.
http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/21/17/6475#otherarticles
Losing the biggest star in your company’s history is not a blessing, unless you have no regard for his well-being, and you’re shallow enough to claim victory because he didn’t suffer the attack while under contract to PRIDE. So PRIDE can wash its hands of the situation and avoid some of the bad press that’s coming if Sakuraba eventually passes away due to these issues.
The fact that Sakuraba’s health is being turned into a partisan blame-game is ridiculous. The man is a legend, and people should be praying for him and his family. Not discussing which promotion comes out of this looking rosier.