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PRIDE 4/8 Saitama card
By Zach Arnold | March 15, 2007
Today, DSE announced three fights for their 4/8 Saitama Super Arena event — Shin’ya Aoki vs. Brian Lo-A-Njoe, Makoto Takimoto vs. Zelg Galesic, and Ricardo Arona vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou. Nobuyuki Sakakibara stated that the PRIDE 35 event (4/28 Las Vegas) was cancelled and that they would reschedule it for either early June in Japan or the end of June in California. Furthermore, Sakakibara denied that there were any problems between he and Ed Fishman.
Also on the PRIDE HP, Sakakibara discusses PRIDE’s attempt to get back on free-to-air TV. Plus, he says that he would like to run 3-4 US shows in Las Vegas or New Jersey.
Topics: All Topics, Japan, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Zach Arnold | 18 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Pride are either in trouble or retarded when they give Aoki this Brian Lo-A-Njoe guy. He’s got a sub-.500 record. He was in rings, but had his last victory there 7 years ago (which was in Rings Holland, btw). He didn’t fight a single MMA match in 2003, 2004, 2005… and now he gets Aoki in Pride? Wow.
They can’t afford to have Aoki injured for the GP so they throw him a can. They really shouldn’t have used him at all because anything is possible.
How to be a Pride matchmaker.
1) Print out the names of all your superstars. Then, print out the names of random fighters from small ex-soviet union countries or Bumfuck, Texas.
2) Cut each name out and arrange the slips of paper neatly.
3) Sneeze. (Repeat if necessary.)
4) Get Takada to stand behind you with his fingers in your ears. Close your eyes and mess up all the paper while humming LA LA LA NI NI NI LA LOO LEE LA.
5) Voila, your next ten matches decided.
LOL, Monkeymatt.
The ironic thing is that that exact matchmaking technique is how they found Fedor. What’s that phrase about the 1000 monkeys typing….?
LOL Interesting point…
Well, to be fair, Fedors record already indicated that he might be pretty good before his start in Pride.
Fedor was certainly an accomplished fighter in RINGS (he worked the last RINGS show ever at Yokohama Bunka Gym, if my memory is right), so he had Japanese recognition before PRIDE.
Yeah, certainly Fedor was somewhat of a known quantity in Japan from the RINGS shows. However, I don’t think PRIDE ever truly thought he would be such a dominating champion, much less an elite fighter. I think they were just doing their crazy matchmaking at the time (ie., let’s just sign random matches and hope it works out).
They signed Henderson, Big Nog and Arona from their success in RINGS, but didn’t sign Fedor till years later. If the Quadros/Rutten commentary in the Schilt and Herring fights were any indication, they didn’t expect him to win, nor did they even realize that Emelianenko was his surname. PRIDE was absolutely setting Herring up for a shot at Big Nog when Herring fought Fedor.
To the bumfuck texas thing… it’s also how they found rampage. It still doesn’t apply to the guy fighting aoki who seems to be a bum.
New rumblings about the possibility of EliteXC and PRIDE teaming up in some fashion for their June show. No proof or anything, just at the moment some statements from Gary Shaw and a few others which create the potential for this.
This may be a little to US-wrestling inside, but…
Ooooooooooooooh, SHAW!
BTW, Meltzer was reporting that the 4/28 show was in serious doubt long before the news of a lawsuit came, so the two my not be directly related.
Rampage was in Los Angeles training with Chris Brennan when he made the jump to Pride.
I heard he was in El Monte eating a sandwich when he made the jump to pride
I don’t believe PRIDE’s claim that they cancelled it or thought about doing so before the lawsuit because ‘the shows were too close together.’
There’s a lot of information that we just don’t know about the week leading into the second PRIDE US show re: money and political problems. If we knew all of the details, perhaps it would paint a different picture than what is being said publicly.
Re: Shaw wanting to work with PRIDE… that’s probably what Sakakibara meant by saying he wanted to run in New Jersey, because that is where Shaw wanted to run his second XC event (in Atlantic City). However, Ed Fishman has strong ties there to the casinos, so that could be a roadblock.
Elite XC & Pride working together is the best case scenario for both IMO.
I’ll bet that it was Fedor’s signing with Bodog that put 4/28 in jeopardy. Now that news has come out that Barnett was training for that show and Sakikabara stated that the main event fell through, I’ll bet they were trying for a Fedor/Barnett main event.
Re: Shaw wanting to work with PRIDE… that’s probably what Sakakibara meant by saying he wanted to run in New Jersey, because that is where Shaw wanted to run his second XC event (in Atlantic City). However, Ed Fishman has strong ties there to the casinos, so that could be a roadblock.
There is nowhere near enough financial incentive at this point, especially since PRIDE and Fishman are at odds, for any of the casinos to try and block Gary Shaw from coming in. Boxing still makes a lot of money, regardless of what a lot of former wrestling fans think, and telling Gary Shaw to “scram” is not a smart way to run a business.
Not only that, but Boardwalk Hall isn’t run by any casino (especially Harrah’s), runs MMA shows with some frequency, and is the obvious location other than perhaps Continental Arena where the bouts would be held in NJ.