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Event: Final Conflict 2005
Location: Saitama Super Arena
Date: August 28th 2005
Intro:
Card:
Maurício Rua def. Ricardo Arona KO (Punches) 2:54
Fedor Emelianenko def. Mirko Cro Cop Decision
Hidehiko Yoshida def. David Abbott Submission (Single Wing Choke) 7:40
Fabrício Werdum def. Roman Zentsov Submission (Triangle Armbar) 6:01
Maurício Rua def. Alistair Overeem TKO (Punches) 6:42
Ricardo Arona def. Wanderlei Silva Decision
Kazuhiro Nakamura def. Igor Vovchanchyn Decision
Pride's most important Event of 2005...and one of their most important Events they ever hold...
Another stacked Card with all-time greats and soon to be come all-time greats.
It was the night, that absolutley put Shogun on the map and had the most important HW fight at the time with Fedor defending his strap against CroCop.
And it was also the night Igor Vovchanchyn fought his last MMA fight...
So lets remember this GP final, which is a must watch Event as an MMA fan...!
Nakamura x Igor
(Reserve Match)
A crazy fucker named Kazuhiro Nakamura took on Igor Vovchanchyn in his 11th fight after debuting just 2 years ago.
Igor at this time already was a veteran with 66 fights under his belt.
Igor dropped down to MW(LHW) and still was outsized by most guys down there...
Both guys dreams of winning this GP were crushed at Critical Countdown 2005 by Silva (Kaz) and Alistair (Igor).
And luckily for Nakamura...he couldn't have asked for a better time to face Igor...who retired right after this one...but that doesn't mean Igor wasn't dangerous anymore!...
Interesting:
Pre-fight interview...
Igor: "Oh, i'm absolutley looking to exchange punches with Nakamura!"
Nakamura revealed in his interview that he was preparing himself for this fight by sparring with Mark Hunt! And he has no more fear of Vovchanchyn!
Igor replied with a smile on his face:"Well lets see in the ring if it helps him or not!" lol
And what happens?...Nakamura throws a highkick and goes for the TD right away...but ends up with Igor on top...
Igor controls most of the first part of the fight with top control and punches...Nakamura did a good job of minimizing the damage and threatend with some sub attempts from the bottom...heel hooks and armbars...
The second part of the fight was also pretty close...with both guys having top position and Kaz throwing some more sub attempts in there...
Igor is one of the legends from the oldschool who stopped fighting at the right time imo...and i'm glad he did it right after this fight...
Otherwise we would might remember him as one of those guys who kept on for too long...
The Semi's start:
Wanderlei x Arona
Arona presented a style that was very well suited to defeat a guy like Wanderlei...good wrestling, strong TDs, a nightmare of a BJJ game, strong kicks, fast and overall pretty powerfull...
Well, his hands and head-movement were pretty much tailor-made for Wand in the stand-up...but Arona was a man on a mission in this fight!
Fight starts and Silva lands a couple of soft lowkicks on Arona.
Until Arona had enough with this bullshit and FIRES one of his own and Wand goes flying through the air! (you can make fun out of his boxing...but his kicks were freaking nasty!)
And ends up where you don't want to have Arona...on top!
Bas with a smile:"Takedown by lowkick!"
And from this point on...it was pretty much all Arona...top control...double hammer fists...
Wand was just avoiding getting his guard passed and tried to hold on, until the Ref goes:"Stop!...Stand up!" and pops out a yellow card for Silva.
2nd round started more in Silva's favour, since the fight didn't go to the ground for a couple of minutes.
But Silva was a little bit gun-shy...knowing that he couldn't get up in the first...and then Silva's nightmare happend!
Another TD by Arona...and that was pretty much it...
Rua x Alistair
Alistair subbing his way to the semi's...guillotine victories against Belfort and Igor.
Belfort had this "what just happened he just really guillotined me" face after tapping out and Igor was pissed man...lol
It is pretty well known that Alistair was sharping his grappling skills alot at this time and went through the ADCC European Trials by guillotine after guillotine...and he allmost got Shogun too...
Rua came into the semi's after an upset victory against Rampage (...i say it was an upset because at the time Rua was fighting on the Bushido cards and just had his first Pride appearence at a numbered Pride Event (29) where he earned his spot at the GP, by defeating Kanehara.
Ok, forget the last part of the last sentence!...Rua earned his spot by absolutley murdering Kanehara!
Did Kanehara piss off Inoki, Takada or Sakakibara at some point???...he had 4 fights in Pride and it was exactly this order for him: Wanderlei Silva, CroCop, Alistair and then Shogun...WTF..he probably got benefited with Pride fights after the other for showing his warrior spirit...
)...and against an all time classic against Lil'Nog...Awesome match up on paper...great fight inside the ring...
In which you could see that Shogun has a habbit for getting caught in guillotines (Chael says: hello everyone), when shooting in...
(Before Pride he competed in an epic 1night tourney: IFC:Global Domination...which included Horn, Sonnen, Griffin, Babalu...and some others. He found himself in deep deep trouble in a Eric Wanderlei guillotine, he barely escaped after shooting in and later had to tap out due to a Babalu guillotine choke, after shooting in...allmost got guillotined by Alistair that night, after shooting in and that definetly wasn't the last time finding himself in a dangerous spot. I think Chael watched the right tapes of Shogun and thought: "that will be my move!...i just need to make him shoot!" And it worked..FU Chael!)
Fight starts with a clinch and Overeem takes the fight to the ground with a trip takedown...but both guys are right back up on their feet, again into the clinch to exchange knees...
It was a fast paced fight inside the clinch, where Shogun kept looking for his takedown...
Boom Shogun gets his takedown and finds himself in deep deep trouble...That sneaky fucker Alistair was going to his sub move he knows best...deep guillotine choke!
Somehow Rua escapes...that shit was deep!...arm fully over the neck...Shoguns arm out...full guard...crowd screams...Shogun pops out!
Back on the feet, Overeem botched a trip takedown (Shogun still landing on his face) gets Rua top control and works from side control, before getting into mount.
Alistair is getting tired after eating Rua's punches over and over again, gets his arm trapped and eats more punches...
After Overeem goes out, the Ref jumps in:"Stop, Stop!"
Werdum x Zentsov
Fabricio was facing Roman, a very all russian guy (if you know what i mean
), who could throw some heavy dynamite...Werdum lost back control like 3x...
Allways playing his guard game right after...and catching Roman in an Arm-Triangle-Choke...
Yoshida x Tank
Taankeeh Abbottooh!!!
Yes, they signed Tank!
And yes...Abbottooh!!!
Could the Pride staff have picked anyone worse of a match up for Tank?...i don't know man...
Tank was no match for Yoshida and he even high kicked Tank across his face...Tank also thought it would be a dope idea to take Yoshida down and getting in little grappling exchanges...
Anyway...Yoshida getting a submission win wasn't a huge surprise...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob3CMS3_yvc
Fedor x CroCop
The biggest and most important HW fight at the time...and might be still to this day...
Fedor looked unbeatable at this time and CroCop probably was in his absolute athletic prime back then.
And the most deserving challenger at this time. (...Sergej comes to mind, but this is another story).
Can Fedor avoid getting his head kicked into the 3rd row?
Yes he could...
Thanks to a great gameplan!
He pretty much was able to neutralize Mirko's kicking game by just not giving Filipovic the necassary space he needed to land them...
The japanese crowd, as allways, silent and quiet!
Fight starts and Fedor and Mirko circle around each other.
A couple of minutes in and some striking exchanges later...it was pretty clear that Fedor is trying to prove a point in here: he can stand up with CroCop!
Fedor's speed and reflexes were top notch and he dodged highkicks, checked liverkicks and avoided a good number of punches...allways stalking forward and being right in Mirko's face...
Mirko was doing alot of backwards moving but was still landing good hands and kicks...having Fedor in trouble after landing 2 good straight punches that wobbled Fedor back...
2nd round and Fedor came out putting heat on Mirko...good shots and allmost highkicks his face off...
Mirko answered with a nice liver kick!
Bas:"HaHa!...one back!" lol
Mirko backwards...Fedor forwards, closing the distance...
Clinch-Takedown by Fedor and from that point on, it was Mirko on his back and Fedor on top using gnp and advancing position over and over until Mirko gets back on full guard...
Ref:"Stop!...Up!"
Yellow Card for Mirko!
hahaa
Fedor takes him down again.
Bas:"That is not good for CroCop..."
Fedor defends his HW Belt and becomes (at this time) the absolute #1 Guy there is and was...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d7XrN0TKyGM
Shogun x Arona
The GP Finals...
The GP himself was allready awesome enough...so how can you put up a worthy final?
...before i go into what happened in this fight...we should remember that this wasn't just "another" GP final...
It was another classic match up between Chute Boxe and BTT...a good damn rivalry from brazils 2 top mma camps.
Which brought us absolute Classics like: Ninja x Sperry and Shogun x Nog...or other good ones like Ninja x Arona and so on...
And not to forget that Shogun just was about to face the guy who just put some dents into Silva's crown by eliminating him from the tourney...who was the face of Chute Boxe for a long time.
Back to the fight...
Do you remember when i asked how they could out up a worthy final, for this epic GP?
Well Shogun knew for sure!
Ref:" Reeadyyyyyyyy?!...GO!"
Starting out with a 360-spinning-roundhouse-kick straight from a JCVD movie!
Trip-Takedown by Arona, hard impact on both guys heads...
Omoplata by Shogun...
Scramble...Shogun goes for a flying stomp...
Crowd goes nuts!
Commentators going nuts!
And i allmost nutted too...
Bas:"Look at this!"
Shogun..fighting for the Chute Boxe Legacy, to avenge his "mentors" loss and to win it all!
Arona with a huuge confidence boost on his shoulders, beating Silva...and also fighting to win it all!!
...but also having 15minutes on his back.
And Rua took over...with a furious pace...
TD and work from side control...
Rua standing infront of Arona's guard and allmost landing an excellent stomp through Arona's leg's, which let to the fight ending hammerfists!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KuyesDYng18
Shogun banks in and at just 23yrs old, wins the MW GP 2005!
Epic Event.
Come on...this wasn't a long read
Feel free to add some stuff, pics, infos, thoughts...
The next Event Pride put on was epic too:
Pride Bushido 9
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