New Year's Eve not MMA's shining night
If there was ever a night in which a lesson should be learned about the unpredictability of fighting, the annual Japanese television tradition of New Year’s Eve fighting at the Saitama Super Arena was it.
Wednesday's K-1 Dynamite!! 2008 was a night of largely freak-show type matches, most of which could never be sanctioned in the United States. It included the debut of a masked fighter based on a popular anime character; a main event featuring a grudge match of the original generation of MMA fighters who came from pro wrestling; and matches that appeared to be ridiculously one-sided, many of which ended quickly and with shocking results.
Perhaps the craziest moment involved former-NFL-washout-turned-Japanese-television-superstar Bob Sapp, in a match against Kinniku Mantaro.
Translated, that means Kid Muscle. The man under the mask, making his MMA debut, was seven-time Japanese national heavyweight wrestling champion Akihito Tanaka, giving away 115 pounds to the 340-pound "Beast."
Dressed up as a character more akin to a Disney touring show or a Mexican pro wrestling event, with a full cartoon costume and mask, Tanaka was making his MMA debut.
He continually took Sapp down and threw some punches from the top, but never seemed to hurt Sapp. When Sapp was able to sweep Tanaka and get back to his feet, Tanaka started to adjust his mask, which may have slightly covered his eyes. While doing so, Sapp came in with a flurry of punches that Tanaka had no defense for, and the match was stopped at 5:22 of the first round.
The other visually shocking moment was another match with a 100-pound weight differential featuring 287-pound Mark Hunt, known for having an iron jaw, facing 187-pound Melvin Manhoef, one of the world’s most exciting stand-up fighters. Manhoef's total lack of a ground game is probably the reason he isn’t a major UFC star today.
This match was made at the last minute because K-1's attempt to match two big sluggers in Hunt and kickboxing knockout artist Jerome LeBanner fell through Tuesday, as it was announced LeBanner was ill and couldn’t appear.
With no notice and no training time, Manhoef flew in at the last minute. Hunt came charging in, got caught with a punch, and was knocked out in 18 seconds.
The card wasn’t all freak-show matches, as there was a serious lightweight encounter between highly ranked fighters Eddie Alvarez of Philadelphia and Japan’s hard-core fan favorite, submission whiz Shinya Aoki. The match was billed to create the first WAMMA lightweight championship, the same attempt at an independent sanctioning body that recognizes Fedor Emelianenko as heavyweight champion.
It should be noted WAMMA’s own rankings, voted on by U.S. writers, had listed UFC champion B.J. Penn as No. 1 in the weight class, with Alvarez and Aoki at No. 2 and No. 3. So making Alvarez-Aoki a championship match seemed to have a major flaw.
Aoki didn’t want to stand with Alvarez, and Alvarez sprawled out of his early takedown attempts. Alvarez grabbed a headlock hip-toss combination to get Aoki on the ground. From there, Aoki secured a painful heel hook and Alvarez tapped out in 1:32.
The other major lightweight match with DREAM champion Joachim Hansen facing Gesias Calvancanti, known in Japan as J.Z. Calvan, didn’t take place as Hansen was diagnosed with a head injury during his prefight physical after weigh-ins. Calvancanti made the announcement before the show started, saying Hansen had been hospitalized, with no other details given.
K-1 has promoted New Year’s Eve events on Japanese network television dating back to 2001. Fighting peaked in popularity in 2003, when three of Japan’s six major television networks ran shows head to head, in shows that combined MMA fighters, kickboxers, boxers, judo stars, sumos, pro and amateur wrestlers and even a well-known comedian.
Unlike in the United States, New Year’s Eve is considered the biggest night of the year for Japanese television, with a concert that, from a ratings standpoint, is the television equivalent of the Super Bowl in the States, as it is often the highest rated show of the year.
Serious MMA matches that appeal to hard-core fans don’t necessarily work in that setting. Emelianenko, who didn’t fight on New Year's Eve this year for the first time since 2002, has never been in any of the highest rated matches, even when facing Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in 2004, when they were the two best heavyweights in the game.
Instead, it’s Sapp, a charismatic powerhouse but hardly a top-level fighter, who has been the face of New Year's Eve MMA to the average person.
Sapp’s career in Japan seemed to be over a few months ago. K-1 had lost interest in him as a fighter after a quick loss to Jan Nortje in Tacoma, and he was fired by a comedy-oriented pro wrestling group that seemed to be the last rung on his ladder of fading fame.
He was brought back largely to be a huge sacrificial lamb with a mainstream name to kick off creating Kinniku Mantaro as an attempt to draw younger children to MMA matches in 2009. Like so many of the plans on this show, things didn't turn out as expected.
The biggest surprises were probably the matches made to be one-sided, putting kickboxing stars against MMA fighters, but under kickboxing rules. In the past, the kickboxers have usually dominated MMA fighters when battling under their own rules.
The biggest of these matches saw MMA star Alistair Overeem beat kickboxer Badr Hari under kickboxing rules. Hari’s participation was controversial because three weeks ago while behind on points in the K-1 Grand Prix world tournament final, he punched Remy Bonjasky on the ground a few times and stomped on his head – all illegal in a kickboxing match – and was disqualified. The expectation is he would be suspended, but this is Japan, and these actions made Hari a big heel. In Japan, that means ratings.
Overeem knocked a banged-up Hari down early with a knee and a left hook, then finished him in just 2:02 with another left hook.
Similarly, Tatsuya Kawajiri, one of Japan’s top lightweight MMA fighters, figured to fall victim to kickboxing specialist Kozo Takeda. But it was Kawajiri who knocked Takeda down three times until it was stopped in 2:47.
And in a third example, Gegard Mousasi, DREAM’s middleweight champion in MMA, bulked up to 215 pounds to face experienced 228-pound kickboxer Musashi. Wondering why this match even took place? As silly as this sounds, it's that both men’s last names are pronounced identically in Japanese.
It was billed as the Dutch Musashi vs. Japanese Musashi, forgetting they were from different sports and were different natural sizes. Admittedly, the Japanese version is long past his prime, and he was also knocked down three times before it was mercifully stopped in 2:32.
Mirko Cro Cop, who won most polls as fighter of the year in 2006 but has faded badly since, defeated 7-2½, 327-pound Choi Hong-man of South Korea under MMA rules. The fight was all standing.
Choi scored some big kickboxing wins early in his career but has been a different person since a tumor was removed on his pituitary gland, which caused his great size and gave him freakish strength. Cro Cop had trouble with his size, and didn’t look good in finishing him with a hard kick to the thigh in 6:32 in a poor match.
As for the main event, Kazushi Sakuraba lost via decision to Kiyoshi Tamura. Sakuraba, who created the MMA heyday in Japan in 2000 with wins over four members of the legendary Gracie family, has taken so many terrible beatings that he’s sad to watch. This match would have been gigantic a few years ago, as Japanese fans know the story of how Tamura used to bully Sakuraba terribly in the gym in the '90s when Sakuraba started out as a pro wrestler. Sakuraba later got tough enough to be one of the best fighters in the world in his prime. He continually challenged Tamura to a match on big shows, and Tamura always turned it down.
But this didn’t have the happy ending, as even though both men are 39 years old and long past their primes, Sakuraba has taken far more punishment in a Japanese system that saw him fight too often, and usually against bigger guys.
