The OWGP sucked, and it's all Fedor's fault

ippikiookami · 05-05-2006, 09:11 AM

First of all, the entire second half of the show was a joke: everyone knew how the fights would end, and the match ups were horrible. I mean, taking Nishijima, who could have been groomed into a really popular fighter if he'd been given some time to cross-train and get some MMA experience, but Pride throws him in with the best judoka in MMA. What's with that?

Then you throw in Minowa, who wouldn't have a chance against any top fighter at 205 or above, and he gets thrown in with Cro-cop, one of the top HWs in the world and is predictably destroyed within minutes.

I think Takada and Sakakibara must have some kind of sexual-sadistic fetish for big, unskilled fat guys: they keep putting in guys (it wouldn't be fair to call them "fighters") like Akebono, Zulu, Giant Silva, etc into the ring. They must enjoy watching these guys get beat to hell by real fighters. But for the rest of us -- the non-sexual deviants -- the fights are just crap. We watch them for the same reason we slow down to look at car accidents, and the results are no more fulfilling.

Werdum/Overeem wasn't bad, and Alex/Barnett was ok. Kosaka vs Hunt was a bit of a mismatch, and I think we all would have preferred to seem someone like Silva, Coleman or a top UFC HW in the GP rather than Kosaka.

I was surprised by how ineffective Fujita was against Thompson, despite the KO. Thompson's a big guy, but Fujita is a great wrestler and very fast, and still couldn't come close to getting a take down.

My bet is that Fujita fights Hunt in the next round, and Fujita will win that one. Despite not looking that good, Hunt looks even worse -- is it just me, or has Hunt's stand-up skills fallen off a cliff since he came to Pride? His fight with Silva was good, but with each fight his stand up seems to get worse and worse. This is the best that K-1 has to offer Pride?

It's all getting a bit boring, isn't it? I mean, Fedor has beat everyone, and the idea that Barnett or Hunt might be a legitimate challenge to him was probably killed after watching these guys fight tonight. Hunt looks like crap and Barnett would have been destroyed if Alex had half the aggressiveness and killer instinct of his brother.

All in all, the "Open Weight" GP looks simply like a HWGP with a couple of lighter guys thrown in to add blood and really big guys put in to be punching bags. With the collapse of Andre Arvlovski's stock, there doesn't seem to be anyone left to make the HW class at all interesting.

My suggestion would be for Pride to force Fedor to fight two randomly chosen opponents at the same time. Watching Fedor have to fight Silva and Arona together, or Gomi and Hendo vs Fedor would be mildly interesting (like the old "dogs fighting a bear" shows of gladiator times) -- the current format just isn't very entertaining considering that no one looks close to being Fedor's rival.

Matt Vasgersian · 05-05-2006, 09:24 AM

Bosko · 05-05-2006, 09:27 AM

Besides Minowa and Zulu, I think it turned out ok...

Teknik Mao · 05-05-2006, 09:30 AM

All this STUPID I knew exactly how the fights would end crap is pissing me off. Everyone said that before the last event.....!! The favourites won, I say deal with it.

Minowa was an obvious gamble and knee jerk responce to losing Saku and he had subbed a couple of good K1 guys (Leko). Against Mirko it was totally unrealistic.

Zulu was in there because of contractual disputes and no one wanting to fiht Nog. At least I know now he is definately shit.

Nishima I though could have knocked out Yoshida, he does show good hands but as you said he didn't get enough time to cross train and get some take down defence.

The above evaluations kind of self pwned me but at the end of the day, I have been wrong in the past and Pride has very recently proved that they know what they are doing 60% of the time.

Crazy Feet · 05-05-2006, 09:58 AM

Quote:

The above evaluations kind of self pwned me but at the end of the day, I have been wrong in the past and Pride has very recently proved that they know what they are doing 60% of the time.

LOL

karantan · 05-05-2006, 10:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ippikiookami

First of all, the entire second half of the show was a joke: everyone knew how the fights would end, and the match ups were horrible. I mean, taking Nishijima, who could have been groomed into a really popular fighter if he'd been given some time to cross-train and get some MMA experience, but Pride throws him in with the best judoka in MMA. What's with that?

Then you throw in Minowa, who wouldn't have a chance against any top fighter at 205 or above, and he gets thrown in with Cro-cop, one of the top HWs in the world and is predictably destroyed within minutes.

I think Takada and Sakakibara must have some kind of sexual-sadistic fetish for big, unskilled fat guys: they keep putting in guys (it wouldn't be fair to call them "fighters") like Akebono, Zulu, Giant Silva, etc into the ring. They must enjoy watching these guys get beat to hell by real fighters. But for the rest of us -- the non-sexual deviants -- the fights are just crap. We watch them for the same reason we slow down to look at car accidents, and the results are no more fulfilling.

Werdum/Overeem wasn't bad, and Alex/Barnett was ok. Kosaka vs Hunt was a bit of a mismatch, and I think we all would have preferred to seem someone like Silva, Coleman or a top UFC HW in the GP rather than Kosaka.

I was surprised by how ineffective Fujita was against Thompson, despite the KO. Thompson's a big guy, but Fujita is a great wrestler and very fast, and still couldn't come close to getting a take down.

My bet is that Fujita fights Hunt in the next round, and Fujita will win that one. Despite not looking that good, Hunt looks even worse -- is it just me, or has Hunt's stand-up skills fallen off a cliff since he came to Pride? His fight with Silva was good, but with each fight his stand up seems to get worse and worse. This is the best that K-1 has to offer Pride?

It's all getting a bit boring, isn't it? I mean, Fedor has beat everyone, and the idea that Barnett or Hunt might be a legitimate challenge to him was probably killed after watching these guys fight tonight. Hunt looks like crap and Barnett would have been destroyed if Alex had half the aggressiveness and killer instinct of his brother.

All in all, the "Open Weight" GP looks simply like a HWGP with a couple of lighter guys thrown in to add blood and really big guys put in to be punching bags. With the collapse of Andre Arvlovski's stock, there doesn't seem to be anyone left to make the HW class at all interesting.

My suggestion would be for Pride to force Fedor to fight two randomly chosen opponents at the same time. Watching Fedor have to fight Silva and Arona together, or Gomi and Hendo vs Fedor would be mildly interesting (like the old "dogs fighting a bear" shows of gladiator times) -- the current format just isn't very entertaining considering that no one looks close to being Fedor's rival.

so why didnt you bet all of your saving on the fights if you knew exactly how they re gonna play out???? i mean last 3 fights were missmatches but there was still some potentional risk although a minimum one that an upset can happen.

Crazy Feet · 05-05-2006, 10:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by karantan

so why didnt you bet all of your saving on the fights if you knew exactly how they re gonna play out???? i mean last 3 fights were missmatches but there was still some potentional risk although a minimum one that an upset can happen.

Lol. You would think 90% of the people on Sherdog would be millionaires by now.