K-1 Vs Pride / Inoki-Bom-Ba-Ye

Is it just me.. Or isn’t it far to early for Jerome Le Banner to enter the ring after his BIG knock out against Mark Hunt??

And finally Sam Greco is back.

Sam Greco are going to fight Satake. The old boys are back in business!

Greco will destroy Satake. Remember how hard he hit with 8oz gloves? Just think how hard he will hit with 4oz gloves! Satake has no ground game so he'll probably just try to hold Sam and hope for a decision.

3 rounds is a long time to hold someone PJ Reilly, unless it is your girlfriend... LOL!!

Looking at the poster, it looks like we are going to get a new "show".

I wonder whom CroCop are going to cut this time? Show or real, I am looking forward to see Sam Greco in action again! I am also excited to see Jerome and Mike Bernado wrestling on the floor.

Team INOKI vs K-1 Finalized Matchups
Date: December 31st 2001
Open:16:00 Start:18:00
Place: Saitama Super Arena , Saitama pref , Japan




Tadao Yasuda (Japan,38) vs. Jerome le Banner (France,28)

Nobuhiko Takada (Japan,39) vs. Michal Bernardo (South Africa,32)

Masaaki Satake (Japan,36) vs. Sam Greco (Australia,34)

Yuji Nagata (Japan,33) vs. Mirko Cro Cop (Croatia,27)

Don Frye (USA,36) vs. Cyril Abidi (France,25)

Gary Goodridge(Trinidad and Tobago,35) vs. Rene Rooze (Holland,32)

Tokimitsu Ishizawa (Japan,33) vs. Shingo Koyasu (Japan,26)

Ray Sefo is out due to a tear in his rectus abdominis muscle

actually, for the final matchup, i think Rene Rooze pulled out and is being replaced by Ebenezer Fontes Braga, who has alot of MMA experience but will be fighting for the K-1 side.

Ebenezer Fontes Braga vs Gary Goodridge

wow, sefo seems to be having a lot of injury troubles this year.....

the first 4 matchs have been draws

Nobuhiko Takada vs. Mike Bernardo
Masaaki Satake vs. Sam Greco
Gary Goodridge vs. Ebenezer Braga
Tokimitsu Ishizawa vs. Shingo Koyasu

all draws!


Don Frye defeated Cyril Abidi in 33 secs in the 2nd round via choke sleeper.

Mirko Cro Cop TKO'ed Yuji Nagata in 21 secs.

Yasuda defeated LeBanner via forearm choke!

bernardo vs takada

satake vs greco

braga vs goodridge

braga vs goodridge

crocop vs nagata

abidi vs frye

le banner vs yasuda

GREAT PICTURES DIRK!

Sam Greco still looks very fit and strong, and so do Satake. I wonder if they will return to fight in the K-1? I would love to see Sam back in the K-1, he is super fighter!!!!!!!!!

Jerome Le Banner lost by a forearm choke, well... Jerome returns to the K-1 where you belong.

How the hell can 4 of the fight end by a draw, to me it sounds like god business but also a little unreal. Draw in the Pride after 3 rounds of fighting??

Happy New Year!

ishii and braga

hi oliver,
well , i also hope that sam return in the k-1,i like him a lot,he's a great fighter.
I WISH YOU A GREAT LAST EVENING OF THE YEAR !!!!!

>>>How the hell can 4 of the fight end by a draw, to me it sounds like god business but also a little unreal. Draw in the Pride after 3 rounds of fighting?? <<<

Oliver, there were no judges, so unless someone was KO'd or submitted, the fight was ruled a draw.

For example, Greco (who looked really good tonight) would have beaten Satake if there had been judges. But since it went the distance it was a draw by default.


Unfortunately, the show was heavily edited on TV so I couldn't see all of the Greco fight. Likewise, I wanted to see the Braga fight as well as get a better look at Koyasu, but those matches were edited down to basically highlights.

Lebanner tapped to a forearm? HAHAHAHA!
I think I learned to defend that on the playground when I was 10 years old.
So much for him fighting on the ground.

How did CroCop ko Nagata?

>>>How did CroCop ko Nagata?<<<

He didn't actually knock him out cold, but nailed him with a hard shot. He caught him with a very fast left high kick to the head...as he did vs. Bernardo ('99 Grand Prix). Nagata went down, but wasn't out. Mirko started to rain punches down on him and the ref. stopped it pretty quickly. Nagata was OK afterwards...but probably only due to the quick action by the referee.

nobody taps to a forearm to the throat like that, with LeBanner being as strong as he is.... hate to say it but i gotta think its a worked fight, just to build up Tadao Yasuda as a star in Japan. Jerome probably got paid a hefty sum

i think the whole card was works too. not because jerome tapped to a guillotine choke. the guys wearing masks and running into the ropes. the abdomnal stretch. a 9' tall long-haired giant tried to bodyslam inoki but he put a triangle choke on the guy mid-slam. staring and posturing.

This is really cool. From what I understand from reading everything here, this basically shows that grappling isn't that much better than striking. As Pride is an NHB fight which usually goes to a lot of grappling, and K-1 is striking only.

migo. are you sure grappling isn't effective?

>>>nobody taps to a forearm to the throat like that, with LeBanner being as strong as he is.... hate to say it but i gotta think its a worked fight, just to build up Tadao Yasuda as a star in Japan. Jerome probably got paid a hefty sum<<<

Definitely not a work. Plenty of experienced grapplers tap to all kinds of basic submissions, I have no trouble believing that a guy with zero experience in such ground fighting taps the moment he feels 200+ lbs. crushing his wind pipe. Jerome got scared and tapped there's nothing more sinister to it.

The simple fact is that if you are going to work fights, you work them for a reason. There was little reason to work this fight...and absolutely zero reason to work it with LeBanner losing.

Yasuda is an old man and has been jerking curtains in New Japan Pro Wrestling for years. This win isn't going to make him a star. He surely isn't going to be a successful shooter against skilled MMA opponents and he isn't going to become a star in the world of puroresu. Yasuda lacks the charisma, in-ring ability, and psychology to ever become a star in pro wrestling. He means little to NJPW and Inoki in terms of long-term business potential.

Quite the contrary, however, is Yuji Nagata. Nagata has been groomed as heir apparent to Keiji Mutoh and is NJPW's next breakout star. He was booked to win the recent G-1 Tournament and has a huge interpromotional matchup against NOAH's Jun Akiyama at the Tokyo Dome on Jan. 4. Unlike Yasuda, he is the best permormer in the New Japan heavyweight division and brings tons of charisma, as well as solid ring skills to the table. Basically, he has the one key ingredient to being a success in pro wrestling: he is "over" with the fans. If ever there was a case to work a fight it would be to protect Nagata and have him win or at least draw with Cro Cop. No way you let him get slaughtered like he did in a worked environment.

Same story with Fujita. Fujita was New Japan's IWGP Champion and riding a huge wave of success in both Pride and pro wrestling. The Japanese were ecstatic to finally have a native fighter who could compete with, and actually defeat, the foreign heavies. There is absolutely zero chance that they work a fight to have him lose. Especially when you consider the results...the New Japan booking committee was thrown into chaos by Fujita's loss, as a years worth of building had to be scrapped and storylines rewritten in the wake of that debacle. Since then, Fujita's career has sputtered and gone nowhere. He can likely get it back if he returns to Pride and has some legit. victories, but his mystique in NJPW took a huge hit.

Ditto Nagata. Nagata has no future in MMA, so he is completely dependant upon his image in New Japan. He was slated to win the 1/4 match at the Dome, but now all that is up in the air. He suffered a humiliating loss, and now the New Japan brass are asking themselves how they can elevate a guy who just got destroyed to the #1 position in the company. Answer...they probably can't. There goes months and months of work right down the toilet.

Simply put Inoki is a fool. He made his own career by winning worked fights against martial artists, and somewhere along the line he bought his own press, and started believing that pro wrestlers could win shoots. He isn't completely wrong...some of them can. But in any shoot situation you roll the dice...and he got burned. He thought for sure that Fujita would beat CroCop, and likewise, felt reasonably sure that Nagata could hang with him as well. He lost those gambles and ended up looking stupid to both fans as well as those who pull the strings behind the scenes in the pro-wrestling world. Inoki may be a fool, but it is certain he doesn't like to look the part. There is no way on earth that he books these matches to intentionally leave himself with egg on his face. No way ! The sad part is, these were actually pretty safe bets on Inoki's part. The history of MMA is filled with billions of examples of ground fighters taking down and easily submitting standup fighters with no grappling training. Frankly, the K-1 side should have done a lot worse...but they were saved by very favorable rules and some mismatches. I can't imagine anyone thinking that the top 10 K-1 fighters would win any fights against the top 10 Pride fighters in an NHB match. Which is why I think the whole excercise was stupid to begin with. They are different sports and mixing them proves nothing.

Back to the LeBanner fight...how can anyone believe that Jerome's ego would let him lose a worked fight? Especially considering how weak it made him look after running his mouth so much about winning. Plus, what does Ishii gain? He isn't Inoki's yes man. No way he has his poster boy get emasculated in such a fight especially considering how he needs to be built back up after his Grand Prix showing.

When you work fights you do it for a reason. Either you do it to artificially build someone up or you do it to ensure an exciting fight to entertain the fans. Both are business considerations. Well, none of these fights were particularly exciting so they sure weren't worked for that respect. Let's just suppose that they were going to work the LeBanner fight. Accepting the ridiculous notion that Yasuda is a more valuable asset than LeBanner to their respective companies, lets say we book Yasuda to win. If that is the case, you work the fight in a way to at least make the fighters look good in doing so. You would work it so Yasuda won with a jujigatame or some other technical submission to get over that he is an accomplished shooter...not with some rapist choke. Likewise, even if Jerome agrees to take the dive, he at least gets to get some offense in. Or at the very least you make him look like a tough guy...for example, not tapping to a choke and going "completely out". At 12/31, however, Jerome had the "deer in the headlights" look of someone completely out of his element and he tapped out of fear at the first sign of danger. You don't do that if the fight is scripted.

Bottom line, is all the fights were shoots. They were a stupid waste of time in my mind, but they were legitimate contests. The contests ultimately prove nothing other than that Inoki and Ishii have excercised poor judgement. Neither guy comes out ahead with the way these fights ended up. Inoki's "guys" Fujita and Nagata are much worse off now than before, while the only guys who come out looking better are guys like Yamamoto and Yasuda...which doesn't help you at all in terms of business. The K-1 guys are a little better off. Cro Cop has helped himself a bit in terms of fan perception but since K-1 is ultimately performance based, it translates into little if he goes out and loses his fights. Jerome suffers as well because he looks even more like a big mouth now. But he can take some solace in the fact that it doesn't matter how stupid he looks, if he wins his fights he can get back to the Tokyo Dome in December.

Which is what I wish Ishii would let all the K-1 guys would concentrate on, and put this sorry chapter behind us. Unfortunately, I doubt that will happen.

>>>i think the whole card was works too. not because jerome tapped to a guillotine choke. the guys wearing masks and running into the ropes. the abdomnal stretch. a 9' tall long-haired giant tried to bodyslam inoki but he put a triangle choke on the guy mid-slam. staring and posturing.<<<

Uh...that sad display was clearly called an exhibition by both the announcers and on-screen graphics proclaiming, "exhibition mathch."

No one at the event and no one in the press has at any time tried to pass off the stuff done with Inoki, Great Sasuke, and Giant Silva as anything other than pro-wrestling...and bad pro-wrestling at that.

>>>This is really cool. From what I understand from reading everything here, this basically shows that grappling isn't that much better than striking. As Pride is an NHB fight which usually goes to a lot of grappling, and K-1 is striking only.<<<

Personally, I wouldn't quite draw that conclusion. I agree with you and think it is good that the K-1 guys weren't humiliated as a whole. I also think that with some ground training, that guys like Greco or CroCop could become competitive in NHB.

But these weren't true NHB contests and were conducted under rules which heavily favored the strikers. For one, the rounds were only 3 minutes, as opposed to a 10 minute and two 5 minute rounds in Pride. The short time period made it difficult for the grapplers to have enough time to work a submission. In many cases the K-1 guys were able to physically hold on to their opponent if taken down and ride out the end of the round.

Also the 5 shorter rounds meant more standup portions at the beginning of the round, where the K-1 guys would be more in their element.

Some other rule changes, were the fact that knees and kicks to the head were not allowed on the ground which also favored the guy on the bottom (mostly K-1 guys) and kept them from being pummeled into submission.

Also there were no judges. So if you could just survive you earned a draw. If these fights had been scored with Pride judging criteria, there would have been more winners and fewer draws.

But most importantly, was the fact that we saw a really poor field of fighters representing the Inoki or NHB side.

The only upper level guys were Erickson, Fujita, and Frye. Guys like Goodridge, Ishizawa and Yasuda have NHB wins but aren't elite fighters. And bums like Takada and Satake are extremely poor NHB fighters...if you can even call them that. And Nagata had no more NHB experience than the K-1 guys.

Also K-1 was represented by Braga and Rozen...both of whom have fought K-1, but have made more of a name for themselves in the NHB world.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, the contests really don't prove anything and seem extremely stupid to this K-1 / NHB / and pro-wrestling fan.

crocop vs nagata

le banner vs yasuda

geronimo versus yasuda

$$$$$$$$$$$

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS ????

K-1 Team in the gym before the K-1 Vs Pride / Inoki-bom-ba-ye

spiderman vs. inoki.

spidey will never work again in tokyo. i had a little too much champagne in me when i was watching and thought that was ishii in the mask. hehehe.

LOL!!

Mark Hunt is also on the photo above. Are Hunt also going to fight in Pride, or are the new champion just helping his friends?

the above picture is the "learn gracie jujitsu in one easy lesson" seminar. it was taken just before [or after] the grand prix. hunt was there. "i'll pretend to fight for money".

i still am shocked that lebanner would fight again less than a month after
being k/o'd by hunt in the gp final.

David Lucas :

Me 2

Felix Writes: migo. are you sure grappling isn't effective?

Read my post again, I never said it wasn't effective.

sorry migo,

this card was, i believe, just another fake-wrestling thing. so no conclusions about real fighting can be drawn at all. seeing how you were comparing striking and grappling i thought i'd just have some fun and post two fake-wrestlers grabbing each others crouches. usually they only grab their own when a guy is down. nothing like male bonding, huh?