Funaki's 22 lb theory

JacJeanFinger

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Pancrase founder Masakatsu Funaki says

"For an Asian fighter, the fair weight of his western opponent would be 22 lb lighter than his own weight."

So if you're born as a japanese, you're automatically placed at an inevitable genetic disadvantage. You're weak and powerless no matter how much skill and determination you're carrying.

"As long as you fare against a non Asian fighter one or two weight classes below you, you're good. "

Funaki has no hesitation jumping to conclusion.

Since Gomi fell off charts, the only Japanese fighters that made it to the world rankings are aoki, horiguchi and okami.

Funaki says "Aoki naturally has the strength of 80 kg fighter although he weighs 70 kg." explaining why aoki could win among world's best, validating his 22 lb theory.

Funaki never mentions about steroids or weight recovery that Western fighters are known for.
 
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Just wondering, where do you get all these Funaki thoughts?
I know he has (had?) a youtube channel, do you translate from japanese?

He forgot about Horiguchi, how he handled the much bigger wrestler Caldwell was super impressive.
 
Just wondering, where do you get all these Funaki thoughts?
I know he has (had?) a youtube channel, do you translate from japanese?

He forgot about Horiguchi, how he handled the much bigger wrestler Caldwell was super impressive.

I wish a bunch of these Japanese Youtube channels would add English captions. Rizin can't be bothered 9/10 and forget about any of the current or former fighters.
 
Pancrase founder Masakatsu Funaki says

"For an Asian fighter, the fair weight of his western opponent would be 22 lb lighter or less than his own weight."

So if you're born as a japanese, you're automatically placed at an inevitable genetic disadvantage. You're weak and powerless no matter how much skill and determination you're carrying.

"As long as you fare against a non Asian fighter one or two weight classes below you, you're good. "

Funaki has no hesitation jumping to conclusion.

Since Gomi fell off charts, the only Japanese fighters that made it to the world rankings are aoki and okami.

Funaki says "Aoki naturally has the strength of 80 kg fighter although he weighs 70 kg." explaining why aoki could win among world's best, validating his 22 lb theory.

Funaki never mentions about steroids or weight recovery that Western fighters are known for.

You bring this thing up often. It's almost as if you were obsessed about it. Funaki or anybody can say whatever, but you still haven't been able to address the obvious discrepancy, how East Asians fare so well, and partly even dominate, in such power/explosiveness requiring sports like judo, wrestling, kick-boxing, boxing, weight-lifting, sprinting (they are faster than whites these days), gymnastics, speed-skating, swimming (short distances require explosiveness) etc.

The more likely reasons in MMA seem to be cultural. First of all MMA isn't that big in Japan anymore, and the training methods there never seemed to appreciate strength training like in other countries or even in other sports in Japan. Not to mention game planning. It was always less of a sport and more about fighting spirit, going and killing or getting killed.
 
Just wondering, where do you get all these Funaki thoughts?
I know he has (had?) a youtube channel, do you translate from japanese?

He forgot about Horiguchi, how he handled the much bigger wrestler Caldwell was super impressive.

The sources I used for the original post is a combination of a recent YouTube video and old tv interviews.

I wish a bunch of these Japanese Youtube channels would add English captions. Rizin can't be bothered 9/10 and forget about any of the current or former fighters.

Mikuru Asakura is earning roughly 400000 USD a month from YouTube operations. He could increase views and subscribers with English/Mandarin subtitles but he's not interested in doing that. The Crew know they'll be hated by fellow Japanese fans.
 
Yoshiyuki yoshida fought significantly overweighing and younger Anthony Johnson in the UFC. If I were his manager, I would have told him to decline to fight.

Yoshiro maeda fought someone in WEC who didn't pass at weigh in. Maeda was crazy enough to say "no problem. Let's fight" and got his ass kicked next day.

They don't understand being Japanese is already a huge physical disadvantage in full contact combat sport against western fighters even when weights match. Giving up additional pounds could be pretty suicidal.
 
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They don't understand being Japanese is already a huge physical disadvantage in full contact combat sport against western fighters even weights match. Giving up additional pounds could be pretty suicidal.

Japanese or (East) Asian or what? Please try to answer my previous post, as I believe it completely ruins your theory. You keep bringing up this theory, and every time I bother to log in to ruin it, you ignore it and disappear.
 
Yoshiyuki yoshida fought significantly overweighing and younger Anthony Johnson in the UFC. If I were his manager, I would have told him to decline to fight.

Yoshiro maeda fought someone in WEC who didn't pass at weigh in. Maeda was crazy enough to say "no problem. Let's fight" and got his ass kicked next day.

They don't understand being Japanese is already a huge physical disadvantage in full contact combat sport against western fighters even weights match. Giving up additional pounds could be pretty suicidal.

Also, most of Japanese MMA fighters always fought underweight compared to their opponents, especially in Pride, but it also continued in UFC. Including the succesful ones, like Misaki, Gono, Ishida, Chonan, Yoshida, Nakamura, not to mention the obvious Sakurabas and Minowas. So bringing up two random cases of the opposite doesn't prove much or even seem to make sense.
 
You bring this thing up often. It's almost as if you were obsessed about it. Funaki or anybody can say whatever, but you still haven't been able to address the obvious discrepancy, how East Asians fare so well, and partly even dominate, in such power/explosiveness requiring sports like judo, wrestling, kick-boxing, boxing, weight-lifting, sprinting (they are faster than whites these days), gymnastics, speed-skating, swimming (short distances require explosiveness) etc.

The more likely reasons in MMA seem to be cultural. First of all MMA isn't that big in Japan anymore, and the training methods there never seemed to appreciate strength training like in other countries or even in other sports in Japan. Not to mention game planning. It was always less of a sport and more about fighting spirit, going and killing or getting killed.
Yoshiyuki yoshida fought significantly overweighing and younger Anthony Johnson in the UFC. If I were his manager, I would have told him to decline to fight.

Yoshiro maeda fought someone in WEC who didn't pass at weigh in. Maeda was crazy enough to say "no problem. Let's fight" and got his ass kicked next day.

They don't understand being Japanese is already a huge physical disadvantage in full contact combat sport against western fighters even weights match. Giving up additional pounds could be pretty suicidal.

Being Japanese - or East Asian - is a dissadvantage in heavier weightclasses.

It is extremely rare to see a big man from there who is really athletic and has very low body fat. The best example I can think of is Okami who stood out for his athleticism in the Japanese circuit since his early days but even then, Okami is only a WW and while he has great strenght and athletic build, I'd not say is particularly "explosive" or powerful for the weightclass.

In the lighter weightclasses, Japanese has proven time and time again in many sports including MMA that they have as much phisicality as people from any other place.
 
Being Japanese - or East Asian - is a dissadvantage in heavier weightclasses.

It is extremely rare to see a big man from there who is really athletic and has very low body fat. The best example I can think of is Okami who stood out for his athleticism in the Japanese circuit since his early days but even then, Okami is only a WW and while he has great strenght and athletic build, I'd not say is particularly "explosive" or powerful for the weightclass.

In the lighter weightclasses, Japanese has proven time and time again in many sports including MMA that they have as much phisicality as people from any other place.

Yes. Japanese (and East Asians) are small on average. Naturally big guys are rare, and if they choose to do sports, it's usually sumo or baseball or some other big sport, which MMA unfortunately isn't in Japan. Even if you could find a few bigger fighters spread out across the gyms they wouldn't have enough high level sparring partners. None of the Japanese heavyweights seem to be real heavyweights. Even in judo they seem to force themselves to the weightclass. Already after welterweight the Japanese pool starts to get thinner. Below that they are as strong and capable as anyone.
 
Yoshiyuki yoshida fought significantly overweighing and younger Anthony Johnson in the UFC. If I were his manager, I would have told him to decline to fight.
He wanted to, but the UFC threatened to cut him or something.

After that fight, he started declining all fights where his opponent comes in overweight. I even think there was a big controversy with one fight where he declined and was cut from the org because of it (was a title fight also) lol.

That fight with Rumble was funny because it was a natural 205lber vs someone that looked like he could make 155 haha. It was too bad because it seemed like it derailed him pretty hard. I had such high hopes for him when he looked amazing choking War Machine out in under a minute.
 
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Being Japanese - or East Asian - is a dissadvantage in heavier weightclasses.

It is extremely rare to see a big man from there who is really athletic and has very low body fat. The best example I can think of is Okami who stood out for his athleticism in the Japanese circuit since his early days but even then, Okami is only a WW and while he has great strenght and athletic build, I'd not say is particularly "explosive" or powerful for the weightclass.

In the lighter weightclasses, Japanese has proven time and time again in many sports including MMA that they have as much phisicality as people from any other place.

Yeah, little man's divisions and women's mma can still accommodate Japanese fighters who have it tough to compete in the regular competitions.

Today they're obviously facing new weight problem because most western fighters are not fighting in their honest weight divisions.

For example, ken-flo and Diego wieedo Sanchez fought for the original TUF championship at MW among leben and Sanford who were LHW fighters. They both ended up dropping to feather weight (feather means bundle of hairs) where invaded poor midgets had no choice but move down further in lighter weights.

The only man I know who had the courage to go heavier was Robbie Lawler. Jon Jones has been talking his move to HW since the Vietnam war and we know he's not gonna do that.
 
Do Asians not cut weight ?
Not cutting weight would put them at a 15 to 25 pound weight disadvantage .

That's true and most Japanese fighters are not even aware that Americans add up to 40 pounds after weigh-in.

Joe daddy was nice enough to tell Mishima (after defeating him) that he had 20 lb on him. Secret was revealed but lesson wasn't learned.
 
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