I think this will be a great event and I can't wait to see what happens. I haven't watched most of the Bushido shows, but I think this one will be good. Fight Card Welterweight Tournament Bouts Phil Baroni ( USA ) vs. Ikuhisa “The Punk” Minowa ( Japan ) Masanori Suda ( Japan ) vs. Murilo Bustamante ( Brazil ) Ryo Chonan ( Japan ) vs. Dan Henderson ( USA ) Akihiro Gono ( Japan ) vs. Daniel Acacio ( Brazil ) Reserve Bout Ryuta Sakurai ( Japan ) vs. Paulo Filho ( Brazil ) Lightweight Tournament Bouts Takanori Gomi ( Japan ) vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri ( Japan ) Naoyuki Kotani ( Japan ) vs. Luis Azeredo ( Brazil ) Hayato “Mach” Sakurai ( Japan ) vs. Jens Pulver ( USA ) Yves Edwards ( USA ) vs. Joachim Hansen ( Norway ) Reserve Bout Dokonjonosuke Mishima ( Japan ) vs. Charles “Krazy Horse” Bennett ( USA ) The only fights I can make picks on are the ones with fighters I know so.... Baroni will beat Minowa again. Pretty sure Busta will beat Suda. I know who Chonan and Hendo are but haven't seeen them fight enough to call that one. And the rest are either guys I don't know of or fights that I can't make a decision on (such as Gomi/Kawajiri, Edwards/Hansen). What do you guys think?
Henderson will knock Chonan out imho. Cuz he got a good punch, good wrestling and chonan's defense is crap.
No, that's Francisco Filho. He's retired now, but he had a great career This tournament should be great; I really hope to see Yves Edwards and Gomi mix it up I reckon Gomi will drop Kawajiri in the first. I think Baroni will do it again against Minowa but I really hope he's worked his cardio. Going by the form Bustamante showed in his last fight, Suda's in for a bit of a rough night. Hendo/ Chonan's a bit of a wildcard - Hendo's got the power in the standup and has a dangerous GNP game but Chonan has a big advantage in the sub department. It could go either way with a Hendo decision or stoppage or Chonan could sub him. I really hope Jens Pulver goes a long way in the tournament, possibly even get a rematch with Gomi; Pulver's among my favourite lightweight fighters and he's always exciting to watch This should be a great tournament, it's always good to see the lighter fighters get exposure
I'm really looking forward to this Bushido tournament; it seems that DSE have put together some excellent lightweight fights! The Pulver vs Sakurai fight should be awesome! My money is on Pulver though, Sakurai is a well rounded fighter, but I think if he stands with Pulver hes going to get KO'd, and if he takes Pulver to the ground, it'll end in UD. Whilst Pulver isn't the greatest ground fighter, he knows how to look after himself down there. Gomi vs Kawajiri has potential to be another excellent fight; but I can't really see Kawajiri winning it; not considering the winning streak Gomi has been on as of late!
are they going to do the tournament in just one night , or is it like the middleweight one? if so, that should be a long show. my only complaint is that its on a sunday night. whats up with that.
I'm praying that Baroni wins the tournement. LOL I just like the guy, sure he runs his mouth, but he has heart. And talk about a comeback.
There's some serious underestimation of Kawajiri going on here, and thoughout the MMA world. The guy isn't considered the world's best lightweight by quite a few people for no good reason.
Now he got dominated. Bushido gets better and better with every show, there were some very good fight, especially the ones with Gomi.
This was a top level event from top to bottom, in terms of both skill level and entertainment value. I was real happy with this show. Kawajiri inexplicably used the worst strategy possible against Gomi, and stayed at the end of his Gomi's long reach while thowing looping bombs from downtown. Other than an early telegraphed shot, he never tried to wrestle or force a grinding inside game. One of the worst gameplans I've seen since Vov jumped into two separate Quinton Jackson slams. Triumphant returns from Sakurai, Henderson, and a 39 year old Bustamante, all in one night. Top that off with an excellent showing from Gono, and great work from bright prospect Filho in the reserve fight (This is Paulo, not Francisco who was a past K-1 fighter, nor Dilson who once had the pleasure of being pounded by Vanderlei Silva), and you've got a great night. Minowa controling a boring rematch against Baroni was the only low point. I wish Sakurai the best in his match with Gomi, because he's got his work cut out for him. Both guys are HUGE for 160 lbers and both are extremely well rounded. Hendo v Bustamante II is the rematch I was hoping to see before Busta hangs them up. Just these two fights alone would be enough to make the NYE show huge.
It seems that after Pulvers fight with Sakurai, he's been left blinded in one eye after taking an elbow. No idea if it's perminant or not, but apparently he still cant see out of it...
Ouch... what a bad luck. I wish him the best, because he is a very cool fighter. EDIT: LInk to MMAWEEKLY http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=808&zoneid=2 Here's hoping everythings OK. They moved it or something here it is........ Jens "Little Evil" Pulver entered the Pride Bushido lightweight tournament with hopes of becoming the first fighter ever to hold division championships in the two largest Mixed Martial Arts promotions in the world. He was coming off a knockout win over Tomomi "Taisho" Iwama and had a bit of momentum behind him. Those hopes and that momentum came to an abrupt halt when Pulver was stopped by Hayato "Mach" Sakurai just shy of the nine minute mark in the first round of the fight and the tournament. Jens' manager, Monte Cox, recently spoke with MMAWeekly SoundOff Radio about the loss to Sakurai, what went wrong, and gave an update on injuries Pulver suffered during the bout. Monte Cox didn't make excuses for Jens Pulver's loss to Hayato "Mach" Sakurai. Let's face it, there are no excuses in this sport, but there are mistakes made. "I think in that fight, he [Pulver] knows it, he didn't follow the game plan. That was a mistake. The game plan was to stay outside of Sakurai's kicks, or stay inside of them, but not be in the middle and not get caught where he could pick him apart. Jens just has this I'll take your best shot attitude and just keep coming forward. It makes for some exciting fights, but makes for a very short career, if that's what you're going to keep doing. We've just got to get it through his head, with these bigger guys, you just can't take shots like that." Questioned if taking Sakurai to the ground was apart of the game plan, Monte replied, "We did talk about it. In fact, the whole month before the fight he didn't train stand up at all. All he trained was ground, take downs, wrestling, and ground. That was mainly for Yves, in case we ran into Yves in the second round, or Sakurai, if we had trouble. He just said he never felt comfortable getting into position to take him down. I guess it's one thing to train it in the gym, but in the fight he kind of reverted back to his old self. I mean he's fun to watch. If he lands that left, he can drop anyone. It seemed to me, in that fight, he went back to the old Jens; just loading up the left. His jab was not effective. He wasn't snapping his jab to make anybody worry about it. And Sakurai did a great job of kicking the left arm...He wanted to kick the arm hard and take the power out of his left. Jens' elbow, his left elbow, is like double the normal size." The elbow injury wasn't the worst damage Pulver suffered in his loss to Sakurai. An accidental poke caused trauma to Pulver's right eye. As of Friday morning Jens' condition was, Monte said, "He can't see. He still hasn't been able to open his right eye. We went to a specialist yesterday and it looks like they might do a steroid drop on his eye. He got poked in the eye, but it didn't just scratch it. It actually took a chunk out. He's got a corneal abrasion is what they call it. It's right on top of the pupil. He was blind, from that point on, in that eye. He hasn't seen since." Corneal abrasions usually heal, but are an irritating injury. The cornea is extremely sensitive and a cornea abrasion is usually painful. You may have the sensation of sand or grit in your eye. Blurred vision, sensitivity to light, headaches, over production of tears can all be accompanied with a corneal abrasion. The most common treatment is eye drops or ointment. Most small abrasions will heal within two or three days, but Pulver's wasn't a small scratch. The good news is, in all likelihood, Jens' vision will restore to normal, and he'll be fine.
