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Inoki 2011 NYE at SSA: Fedor obliterates Ishii, Aoki makes Kitaoka gurgle his own blood

By Zach Arnold | December 31, 2011

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Yahoo Japan had Brock’s retirement front page & they gave Ishii’s KO loss the same deal

  1. DREAM Bantamweight tournament reserve match: Yusup Saadulaev defeated Hideo Tokoro in R1 in 42 seconds and sent Tokoro to the hospital.
  2. DREAM Bantamweight tournament semi-finals: Antonio Banuelos defeated Masakazu Imanari after 2R by split decision.
  3. DREAM Bantamweight tournament semi-finals: Bibiano Fernandes defeated Rodolfo Marquez Diniz after 2R by unanimous decision.
  4. Kickboxing match: Masaaki Noiri defeated Kengo Sonoda.
  5. Kickboxing match: Yuta Kubo defeated Nils Widlund in R3 by KO.
  6. DREAM Welterweight match: Hayato “Mach” Sakurai defeated Ryo Chonan after 3R by unanimous decision.
  7. DREAM Featherweight match: Tatsuya Kawajiri defeated Kazuyuki Miyata in R2 in 4’54 with a choke.
  8. Women’s MMA fight: Megumi Fujii defeated Karla Benitez in R1 in 75 seconds with an arm-bar.
  9. IGF rules match: Josh Barnett defeated Hideki Suzuki in 11’47 after a Northern Lights Bomb.
  10. Mixed rules fight (1R 3 minutes kickboxing, 2R 5 mins DREAM rules): Katsunori Kikuno defeated Yuichiro Nagashima in R2 in 2’34 by TKO.
  11. DREAM Bantamweight tournament finals: Bibiano Fernandes defeated Antonio Banuelos in R1 in 1’11 by TKO.
  12. IGF rules match: Jerome Le Banner defeated Tim Sylvia in 2’57.
  13. IGF rules match: Kazuyuki Fujita defeated Peter Aerts in 3’36.
  14. IGF rules match: Kazushi Sakuraba & Katsuyori Shibata defeated Atsushi Sawada & Wakakirin when Sakuraba used a face lock on Sawada..
  15. DREAM Feathereweight title match: Hiroyuki Takaya defeated Lion Takeshi after 5R by unanimous decision.
  16. DREAM Lightweight title match: Shinya Aoki defeated Satoru Kitaoka after 5R by unanimous decision.
  17. DREAM Heavyweight match: Fedor Emelianenko defeated Satoshi Ishii in R1 in 2’34 by KO.

** Antonio Inoki had Tiger Jeet Singh & Jr. for an interview segment. Singh was in Japan because his late tag team partner, Umanosuke Ueda, died last week at the age of 71. Ueda & Singh were Inoki’s top rivals during the Showa era of New Japan. Russian media claims Fedor was paid $500,000USD for the Ishii fight but one Japanese report claims Fedor/M-1 got 25 million yen. Katsuyori Shibata may have dislocated his arm on a bad landing doing a dropkick in the tag match against Wakakirin’s team. The bout went as you would expect with Wakakirin involved. Josh Barnett got very high marks for his bout against Hideki Suzuki.

As for the answer to the question I posed earlier in the week about who would retire first (Fedor or Lesnar), we now have our answer. Before his fight with Satoshi Ishii, Fedor indicated that he will be fighting for a few more years.

As for debating what kind of future Satoshi Ishii has in MMA, it’s likely that you can close the book on that debate at this point barring a miracle. 18 months ago, Jordan Breen and I had a debate online about Ishii’s career path in MMA. He celebrated Ishii not following the traditional Japanese promotional path and I said that Ishii could have been a human lottery ticket. Look at his predicament now. He’s not good enough to be a Zuffa-level fighter, which is what he wanted in the first place. His value in Japan is no longer TV-level and Ishii never was a strong live house draw. He’s run out of any capital to make any serious money in MMA.

What was tragic (but understandable) about Ishii is that Inoki & DREAM promoters did not feel comfortable at all putting him out in front of the press & the spotlight to do heavy PR for the NYE show. Ishii has negative charisma and doesn’t really stand for the traditional qualities that you can build upon for a Japanese native hero in the fight game. Regrettable.

Given the downward trajectory of the Japanese fight industry and the war that police are waging on the yakuza, you could honestly make the case that Satoshi Ishii was Japan’s last, best hope of developing a native hero that could have competed on a global stage. With the Ishii experiment basically kaput, it’s hard to see who’s next in the Japanese pipeline.

Topics: DREAM, Japan, Media, MMA, Pro-Wrestling, Zach Arnold | 40 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

40 Responses to “Inoki 2011 NYE at SSA: Fedor obliterates Ishii, Aoki makes Kitaoka gurgle his own blood”

  1. RST says:

    I’m not familiar with a lot (all) of these fellows?!

    But I dont know much about LW’s either…

    “IGF rules match: Josh Barnett vs. …”

    ^^
    Isn’t this guy barnett supposed to be some sort of bad butt?!

    Why do I only see him under special rules?

  2. 45 Huddle says:

    Speaking of Pro Wrestling on MMA websites…

    http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2011/12/28/2665786/ufc-141-brock-lesnar-vs-alistair-overeem-dana-white-vince-mcmahon

    This douche on BE is posting Pro Wrestling clips, and then when people complain in the comments section…. He is telling them thanks for the page views.

    Bloody Elbow is sinking to new lows….

    • The Gaijin says:

      Hey you wanted to complain that Jon Snowden was “trolling” BE for cheap heat with incendiary articles – now you’ve got yourself full blown, no bones about it trolling authors…complete with the lame Phael Chonnen-esque trolling in the comments.

      Now go apologize to Snowden so he’ll come back and actually write worthwhile stuff. (for the record I always liked Snowden’s stuff, even if I flat out disagreed with it. He took a stance, which I truly believe he believed and stood behind it with well defended arguments…this stuff is fkin amateur hour). Though I must say you and Z fully predicted this happening at the big site in that email 6 or so months ago…so hats off to that. 🙂

      • The Gaijin says:

        er, Sonnen that is…though I wouldn’t put it past him to change his name to “Chonnen”, an amalgam of the last two fighters to “defeat” Anderson Silva.

        • 45 Huddle says:

          The level of troll doesn’t really matter. Writing BS articles for page hits seems to be the only think BE/SB Nation is in for. Heck, they published over 10 articles on Christmas day alone…. A day that most MMA websites basically went dark or posted 1 or 2 articles max.

    • edub says:

      Always was more a fan of the “fan posts”, rather than the actual articles on bloody elbow.

      Not surprised to see it sinking.

  3. Nottheface says:

    This sucks, Le Banner has been calling Sylvia out for years so when they finally fight it’s a pro wrestling match. I hope he “shoots” on him.

    Also, while I normally have no interest in fake matches i am somewhat intrigued to watch Saku and Barnett give catch demonstrations.

    • Bryan says:

      Why the heck is Le Banner going to be in a pro wrestling match? And why would anyone want to see a real fighter in a fake fight?

      • frankp316 says:

        Actually LeBanner is the current IGF champ. He beat Barnett a couple of weeks ago. It’s kind of weird seeing LeBanner doing pro wrestling while wearing kickboxing mittens. Inoki likes mixing pro wrestling with MMA and kickboxing. It’s nothing new. It’s preferable to have guys like LeBanner or Sylvia in there with an experienced pro wrestler to lead them around. Remember Inoki fought Ali back in the 70s. He did a 20 minute crab walk.

      • Nottheface says:

        “Why the heck is Le Banner in a pro wrestling match?”

        For the money?

  4. liger05 says:

    Can see a lot of the hardcore going crazy seeing pro wrestling matches mixed among the ‘Real fights’. Already read on forums people hoping all the pro wrestling was done at the start.

    I think it’s hilarious seeing mma fans moan about a card made for the Japanese public.

  5. Bryan says:

    Why does the Japanese public want to see pro wrestling mixed with real fights? They want to pretend like Sylvia isn’t a scrub?

    • Steve4192 says:

      Because that is how it has always been in Japan.

      All of the early Japanese organizations grew out of the pro wrestling business. Even Pride was owned by a pro wrestling company. In Japan, pro wrestling and MMA go together like chocolate and peanut butter, jam and toast, franks and beans. That’s just the way it is.

  6. Bryan says:

    It’s pro wrestling, who really cares? Watch it or don’t.

  7. 45 Huddle says:

    What was a worse joke?

    Miguel Torre’s rape tweet? Or the UFC’s 3 week firing of Torres?

    Personally, I will have to say the later of the 2…

  8. PaulH says:

    This won’t affect HDNet’s broadcast, will it, now that TBS is out of the picture?

    Ed. — No. In fact, the irony is that there may be more viewers in North America for the show than people watching the event on PPV in Japan.

  9. liger05 says:

    Damn. No TV, things are so bad right now!!

  10. Zack says:

    They should’ve signed Shamrock vs Shamrock for this show (IGF rules of course.)

    Can’t wait to see Sak get the hot tag lol

  11. Mark says:

    What was the Inoki crucifixion supposed to symbolize? That he is the martyr of Japanese fight sports? Or that Japanese fight sports are due for a resurrection? Or was it just a joke not to be taken seriously?

  12. kid nate says:

    thanks for the “constructive criticism” of BE. We just enjoyed another record month for traffic and continued to offer the best technical analysis of actual MMA fighting and technique anywhere, plus more MMA history than offered on any other site.
    Sorry if you couldn’t handle a post about Lesnar’s WWE tenure. The reality is that’s why he was an MMA star. Just as Zach has shown in Japan, pro wrestling has proved one of the best star making machines for MMA in the U.S. And just like Japan, it looks like those days are over and the UFC doesn’t seem to have a plan B.
    Keep complaining, we’ll keep building our audience and covering the sport better than anyone in the biz.

    • The Gaijin says:

      Cool story bro…

      • The Gaijin says:

        All this, of course, ignores the fact that your commenter-turned contributor(s) upped about a half dozen WWE related front page posts (including one that looked like it was ripped from PWI, in full kayfabe mode about the “assault” on Zack Gowen) in the week leading up to the fight in lieu of any informative newspieces, insightful editorials or technical analysis and then your staffer proceeded to go into the comments section and blatantly troll commenters/site patrons with dozens of ridiculous responses and taunts.

        Not to mention that I can name a few websites that get tons of traffic, Perez Hilton and the Dirty.com – that doesn’t make them “good” websites worthy of praise or boastful pride for their quality.

        • nottheface says:

          I don’t get the outrage over the wrestling pieces. I hate wrestling but understand that’s a big part of the UFC’s fanbase. They showed a bunch of Brock highlights from the WWE because they knew it would draw viewers (nothing wrong with that) and it was “fun”.

          What I am missing on BE lately are Judo Chops – they’ve only had one since Dec 11th – especially Judo Chops like KJ Goulds breakdown of Barnett’s invisible catch, more analysis like Rome and Snowden used to do, and in depth retrospectives like Kid Nate used to do on the fighters of the Dark Ages. The current scouting report is pretty awesome but they should find away to condense it somewhere so you don’t have to dig through 80+ articles when its done.

        • The Gaijin says:

          Just to clarify, and if you read my post I think I was pretty clear though I didn’t say it directly – I have ZERO problem with them bringing up his past history with the WWE. That being said I take issue with the following:

          1. They could have summed it up with 1 post, not 5 or 6 separate ones that border-lined at times as kayfabe PWI pieces.

          2. Brock has been fighting in pro mma for how long now? These pieces were really relevant at this point in time?…They would have probably been far more relevant when he first started or if they were explaining the reason he has such a rabid fanbase and drawing power – however, TBH to me they really lacked any sort of context – and falling behind the “Zach Arnold does it all the time” and “we’re explaining his draw” seemed like some really flimsy tack-on reasoning after the fact (illustrated by the need for Brookhouse to make a separate post “explaining” why the the posts were made).

          3. It was fking amateur hour when the author was wading into the posts acting like a total troll. It’s one thing to debate merits with someone but it’s another thing completely to act like a fkin 12 year old online gamer trolling your readers and thanking them for page views, etc., etc.

          Grow the fuck up boys – you want to talk about how you’re doing this and that and you’re the place to be for mma – then act like it and don’t be petty little bitches when you catch the warranted criticism.

        • nottheface says:

          I shouldn’t have and didn’t mean to suggest you were outraged by the comments. I also didn’t really see the Roth’s replies in the comments so I can’t comment on them. I also can’t really criticize Brookhouse because I wrote a fanpost explaining the linkage of wrestling and mma, so I’m as guilty as anyone else. I guess I don’t have much to say on the matter.

          As I said, I had no problem with them posting Inane, attention, grabbing Brock spots. They probably would have been better off admitting that’s what they were doing instead of trying to justify it as being an important part of Brock’s career.

        • The Gaijin says:

          “I also can’t really criticize Brookhouse because I wrote a fanpost explaining the linkage of wrestling and mma, so I’m as guilty as anyone else. I guess I don’t have much to say on the matter.”

          Hey I won’t argue with you there. I’m all for articles and what have you on the history of mma and linking the various foundations and roots of the sport today (boxing, bjj, judo, MT and puro/pro wrestling), but these were clearly not those type of pieces…not by a country mile. A Kid Nate-style history of mma piece would have been great, but these were just useless filler to grab attention coupled with the amateur attitude of the author. The added after the fact justifications are just lame and insulting to people’s intelligence as well.

        • The Gaijin says:

          P.s. Read your piece at HKL – those are the kind of pieces I’m talking about. Really well done my friend.

    • 45 Huddle says:

      Take your trolling back to BE…

      Doesn’t have a plan B? They have a 7 year, $100 Million a year contract with FOX. Stars come and go. It’s the natural flow of non-team sports. They now have 4 FOX shows a year to build stars and use it as basically a #1 contender fest to then give the winner a title shot on PPV.

      That’s one hell of a plan B. And it’s the best, long term star building concept in MMA history.

    • 45 Huddle says:

      As for your traffic…. Nobody really cares. That’s all BE is about now, is page views. They go through writers like it’s going out of style. There is a reason why none of the people from BE are really going onto bigger and better things outside of the SB Nation universe. It’s the Bellator of MMA Journalism. Nobody ever comes out the better…..

    • fd2 says:

      Your technical analysis is awful. Your editorials are awful. Your writing is awful. And all of your news is simply copy and pasted from other, better, sites. You have the most traffic for the same reason McDonalds has the most business – you advertise relentlessly and pander to the lowest common denominator, and most of the public doesn’t know better. Your quality is low, which is why you have a revolving door for writers and why nobody takes you seriously.

      And you know all this, and are deeply insecure about it – which is why whenever there’s a disparaging comment about BE on this site (which is far more respected than BE despite, as you never fail to point out, receiving less traffic) you pop up to tell everybody just how much you don’t care about them.

      Here’s a hint, nate – people who genuinely don’t care about someone’s opinions ignore them – they don’t keep telling them over and over how much they don’t care. People who do that are trying to convince themselves… and failing.

    • Mark says:

      You know, if you guys would drop that whole “giant chip on your shoulder” act, people might respect you more. I was dumbfounded when I’d see BE writers hit the comments sections of any negative BE story 3 years ago. I am shocked you’re still doing it. It screams “mass inferiority complex” and people don’t like that. Let people have their opinions of you, even if they are trolls. Jumping to your own defense looks bushleague.

    • edub says:

      Bush league argument.

      BE does not offer the best of really anything, besides maybe fan interaction. Junkie has better news. Sherdog’s got better historical avenues, and information.

      Keep crying about your audience, and throwing it in everybody’s faces. That’s a great way to show your little napolean complex.

    • Rich Hansen says:

      Because as we all know, there is a direct correlation between quality and popularity. That’s why Jersey Shore and The Bachelor are so popular….

  13. Darkmader says:

    I think one of the biggest things that isn’t talked about is that Reem has to take 2 random drug tests in the next 6 months now. It would be interesting to see how these tests are conducted. Because of the farce that happened with his testing they may do NFL style drug testing where they will show up to your house and tell them pee in the cup right now while supervised. If that’s the case, Overeem will have to probably mix up his “diet” and take stuff that can get out of his system really quick instead of probably what he takes now.

    Maybe Metlzer or people connected could figure out how the random tests will go as if he does get busted and is out for a year that will kill his new stardom and put the UFC in a bad bad position and be one of the top stories of 2012 for sure.

    The ironic thing is if he does have to cut back on his “diet” to not get busted that would probably be a good thing. He weighed in at 263 for the fight and don’t be shocked that he weighs in at around 250 for JDS which would be a good thing because he needs a lot more cardio for JDS rather than most heavyweights in the UFC.

  14. RST says:

    “We just enjoyed another record month for traffic and continued to offer the best technical analysis of actual MMA fighting and technique anywhere, …”

    …therefore proving via the irrefutable evidence of a disembodied statistic and an emotional conviction, that yall just be all jealous and hatin and stuff.

    Even though I’m personally not a fan of pro-rasslin, I liked the Brock.

    He was kinda worth the WWE baggage that he brought with him.

    But on that same note, I kind of dont regret him moving on now and taking that baggage down the road with him either.

    I think we’ve paid our dues to the pro-rasslin gods.

    For now at least.

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