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Well, they only had like 2 tournaments after that one, so there hasn't been many chances to replicate the result...
(that was in 1997, and in 1998 they had a WW tournament won by Pat Miletich, and a MW tournament won by Dan Henderson)
For clarity's sake, the reason Saku and Conan had a rematch had nothing to do with the fact that "the Japanese protested", no one knew who Saluraba was, he wasn't even supposed to be here today, but Kanehara got injured so Sak was a replacement.
But since Tank Abbott had broken his hand beating on Yoji Anjo's thick skull (you might remember him as the Japanese pro-wrestler who challenged Rickson Gracie
View attachment 1013847
), then was no one to fight Marcus Conan Silveira in the finale, and since Saku was the only participant in shape to fight again, he got another go at him.
Just wrtting those details because to someone not familiar with the story, it could sound like Sakuraba was this big star, calling shots and getting fights overturned.
He managed to do that later in the Sexyama greasing debacle, but at that point he was a big deal, so people actually listened.
... and now that I think about it, PRIDE did change the outcome of the Guy Mezger fight, and instead of calling it a draw like agreed upon if they reached the time limit, PRIDE officials decided to have an extra round, that Ken Shamrock hadn't agreed on.
And since Mezger was gassed, and Saku seemed to have endless stamina, it was a bad situation for the Lion's Den guys
But considering that Saku was also on the receiving end on some terrible referee calls and questionable judging, and was sorta sabotaged by Takada himself
(I'll post a few examples)
it's kinda mitigated...
-Saku got screwed over in the first Nino Elvis Schembri, fight, when "the Godfather of Gogoplata" headbutted him right on the chin (to be fair to Nino, it did look accidental on his part) which rocked Saku long enough for Schembri to clinch and land a few devastating knees right to his face, followed by soccer kicks even while the ref was trying to stop the fight
Saku would get a rematch eventually, that he'd win, but had that happened today in the UFC it would have been an DQ as soon as the Takada Dojo guys called BS and demanded that they review the footage and etc
PRIDE was happy with the result though, it was a huge upset and the rematch would sell well, let's not waste this and miss the opportunity to spam the KO on every DVD
-Saku had a tough time dealing with the Gracie family, and had to accept rulesets that would advantage the Brazilians, like no time limit, and other stuff that was always last minute and "it's either that or no fight"
And in his last MMA fight against a Gracie, the always game Ralek, Saku had him in a pretty deep Kimura when the referee decided to stop the action because they were too close to the... cage wall.View attachment 1013844
Yeah, it was when DREAM got a badass white cage so they should have let Saku work on that submission he had on, but the ref acted like there were ropes and the combattants were about to slip though them, and dragged them in the middle of the DREAM cage, where Saku didn't get to restart with his armlock.
That one annoyed me so bad ><
-Japanese refs arguably failed him a bunch of time, letting Smirnovas beat on a clearly done Saku for so long that he gassed, and Saku was able to get a win, but the price for victory was waaaaay too high.
View attachment 1013845
Those were the days were we weren't seriously worried about concussions and the possibility of getting punch drunk from MMA was alien, it was just a boxing thing, "because these idiots punch each other in the head for 50 rounds and get a bunch of opportunities to get rocked, and get back up, but in MMA is you get dropped you get stomped a couple times and the ref steps in"
But even then lots of people were worried about the damage Saku had taken in that fight, added to the damage he took in previous fights like against Arona (in which his own corner called it quits since the ref didn't), Igor, or Wanderlei.
It was a tough time to be a IQ Wrestler superfan
-And that he would keep getting in the sadly controversial Saku vs Zelg "Benkei" Galesic, on which Sak got pounded on for so friggin' long that even if he did end up getting the sub
(and poor Benkei got his knees ligaments completely destroyed, he had to take a long break and wouldn't be able to fight for 2 years)
- One last thing, since that fight didn't really matter the outrage didn't last long, but if you were on Sherdog when the Saku vs Royce rematch happened, you'll remember that the decision was extremely unpopular, and 90% of sherbros had Saku winning that kind boring fight, and Royce would piss hot anyway so it was overturne, but that was another instance of "omg why does Japan hate poor Saku"
Oh well
I'm glad that the UFC put him in the HoF even though he only fought twice for that org, for the UFC 15.5 Japan GP
I love that QUINTET is back on tracks, and that after taking so many beatings at the end of his career, he was really able to do whatever he pleased with his submission wrestling org, got to do way more pro-wrestling
and be the guy able to help his once opponent, the Mad Dog Pro-Wrestler "
View attachment 1013846
into international super-stardom
Damn, this was a good post.
I'd be on sherdog more often if we had more posters like you.
Not many know but Yoji Anjo is appare tly a very funny, cool guy.
He got forced by his pro wrestling org to do the whole rickson challenge thing.
Here's a very obscure fact.
When Enson Inoue got busted for weed, he was looking at 4-6 years.
He was being interrogated by police for 12 hours a day.
He needed to tell them who he got it from (he was growing it himself but couldn't say so for obvious reasons) he used one of his students who never had nor ever would go to Japan as the basis for his imaginary friend that just gave him some of his extra weed.
His name was Tony and had a fu Manchu.
After days of talking about "Tony" while the fatigue was setting in. They out of nowhere asked what Tony's last name was.
He instinctively said Montana.
He thought he royally fucked up and was doing YEARS.
The police didn't question it and wrote it down.
So legally speaking Enson's drug dealer is Tony Montana.
