Old man weighing in here. I was living in Tokyo and one of the first MMA events I went to was the Pride that had Sak-Silva 2. I knew a Pride ref (he owned an MMA gym I went to) and was about 100 ft from the ring. There was an English language program you could buy, and it had a bunch of fighters picking the match between the two fighters -- nearly every one of them had Sak. Everyone thought that the first fight was a fluke (no one knew what a killer Wand was at that time), and we all expected Sak to make more of a grappling match of the second fight.
I was AMAZED at how fast Sak's shots were. When I watch the video now, it seems pretty fast, but there in person they were like lighting. When Wand picked Sak up and slammed him down on his shoulder, I thought Sak would keep going -- he didn't seem too hurt, but if I remember correctly the judges forced a stoppage.
One problem was that Takada kept forcing Sak to fight the big guys -- Takada should have fought those people, but I think he was just too afraid to, so he put his star pupil in against them. Then Sak became a national hero, and people thought he could beat anyone. There's no way he should have been in the ring against half of the bigger guys he fought, and he suffered a career's worth of damage in each fight against Cro Cop, Wand, etc.
The great thing about Sak is that he was so easy going and friendly. I heard stories of how people had to run outside to alleys to tell him his fight was starting -- he'd be outside chain smoking and then run in for his entrance.
Seriously don't know anyone -- fighter or fan -- that doesn't love the guy.
