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Updated Man Festival card line-up
By Zach Arnold | December 6, 2006
- PRIDE Heavyweight Title match: Emelianenko Fedor vs. Mark Hunt
- Takanori Gomi vs. Mitsuhiro Ishida
- Kazuhiro Nakamura vs. Mauricio Shogun
- Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Gilbert Melendez
- Joachim Hansen vs. Shin’ya Aoki
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Topics: All Topics, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Zach Arnold | 11 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
It’s a strong line-up thus far, though I really don’t think Nakamura is ready for Shogun. He’s improving, no question, but it might be a bit too soon. I sense a knockout.
This is the best BUSHIDO card ever!!!!
I bet there’s been riots at the ticket offices as all of Japan swamps DSE to buy $1000 a head tickets to see these fights. How can anybody believe DSE is in trouble when they put on a NYE card like this. They’ll get 100,000 people in Saitama for sure and probably 1million PPVs!!!!
This card is proof that PRIDE NEVER DIE and next February after DSE conquers Las Vegas again and crushes UFC, IFL, WWE and BODOG, they will also conquer Russia in March, then Croatia in April and Brazil in May.
The developing nations of the world watch out, PRIDE is coming to take your hard earned rubles, dinars, peseiros and other other soft currency
^^ lol. Someone please tell me that post above me was a joke.
The interesting thing that sticks out is that the Gomi/Ishida fight is non-title. I’ve debated Jeff in the past on our radio show that I don’t mind non-title fights, but Ishida is clearly in a position to be the #1 contender. He beat the previous #1 contender, Marcus Aurelio, who beat Gomi in a non-title. So we have Gomi/Ishida non-title, but yet Mark Hunt (instead of Mirko or Barnett) gets a title shot against Fedor. And Aoki/Melendez, which was built up for the past 2-3 months, is now not happening for the promotion’s biggest show of the year. Strange.
Whoever you are Mr. PND, e-mail me! I got the Brooklyn Bridge to sell to you.
Ishida not getting the title shot is BULLSHIT~!
“And Aoki/Melendez, which was built up for the past 2-3 months, is now not happening for the promotion’s biggest show of the year. Strange.”
I guess you missed the story on Gryphon’s site where they quoted Saeki Shigeru who said that they were going to set up Aoki v. Melendez AND Hansen v. Kawajiri… but since Hansen v. Kawajiri ended up a 10-second “no contest” because of a ball kick in Shooto, they figured they’d go Melendez-Kawajiri and Hansen-Aoki, out of respect for Shooto probably wanting to set up a rematch of Hansen v. Kawajiri.
Pride wanted to use all 4 fighters and put them in awesome matches… and clearly they’ve done that.
If PRIDE has to politically curry favor with Shooto, that’s quite a situation. PRIDE is a much bigger deal and they have the money to book what Shooto doesn’t. I’m still surprised that PRIDE spent the time pushing that fight and now is backing away from it.
Nakamura vs. Shogun will be a good draw for the Japanese fans, I think. Nothing like a lamb to the slaughter…
This is shaping up to be an excellent card despite some of the strange decisions by Pride.
Yeah I don’t understand the non title crap. DSE seemed to be saying that title defenses were on the up and ups. Haven’t they learned their lesson from gomi-aurelio 1?
Bah, still a stellar card up until now.
It’s cards like these that make me sad that Pride might be dying.
As for the whole aoki vs melendez vs kawajiri vs hansen love triangle. It kind of makes sense. You are giving out 2 stellar match ups. If melendez wins he goes on to gomi, if he and aoki both lose they get their now hyped up fight and hansen and kawajiri get the big rematch. The lightweight div in pride is so stacked they can pick the names out of a hat and have stellar match ups.
they don’t have to curry favor, you as an mma “journalist” (see blogger) should know that. It is out of respect, and because they have a working relationship.
Exactly Jwebb…
…that right there is a prime example of Zach’s bias that will always discredit him as anything but a fanboy blogger. It’s a shame because he has the potential for so much more, it would seem, with this website.
We all know Zach read what I wrote and I’m 99% sure he read it the first time on Gryphon’s site… but it didn’t fit his agenda enough to present it on his webpage. And when it was presented here by someone else, he intentionally misinterprets it to put a negative spin on it. It really is all too transparent.