In response to pro-wrestlers in MMA.

dlofnep

Are there any pro wrestlers who could successfully compete in mixed martial arts events such as pride or ufc. i don't think so.

Sorry to drag this back up again guys - but I had to point out something that wasn't highlighted in the original thread.

Kazushi Sakuraba was a pro-wrestler before he competed in MMA. He was and is very skilled in catch wrestling, like many pro wrestlers - and became the first guy to dispel the Gracie Myth.

Sakuraba beat Rampage and a prime Randleman, not to mention Royler, Royce, Ryan & Renzo.

Tamura also has had a good MMA career.. Has wins over a prime Pat Miletich, Jeremy Horn and Renzo Gracie. Ken Shamrock also started in pro-wrestling and in his early Pancrase days was top of the food chain.

There are alot of legit tough guys in pro-wrestling with extensive amatuer-wrestling and catch wrestling backgrounds.. More notably on the japanese circuits. It's ignorant to think that they could not, when one of the most famous mixed martial artists of all time, Sakuraba - started off his career in pro-wrestling.

fatal

dlofnep wrote:

Sorry to drag this back up again guys - but I had to point out something that wasn't highlighted in the original thread.

Kazushi Sakuraba was a pro-wrestler before he competed in MMA. He was and is very skilled in catch wrestling, like many pro wrestlers - and became the first guy to dispel the Gracie Myth.

Sakuraba beat Rampage and a prime Randleman, not to mention Royler, Royce, Ryan & Renzo.

Tamura also has had a good MMA career.. Has wins over a prime Pat Miletich, Jeremy Horn and Renzo Gracie. Ken Shamrock also started in pro-wrestling and in his early Pancrase days was top of the food chain.

There are alot of legit tough guys in pro-wrestling with extensive amatuer-wrestling and catch wrestling backgrounds.. More notably on the japanese circuits. It's ignorant to think that they could not, when one of the most famous mixed martial artists of all time, Sakuraba - started off his career in pro-wrestling.

there are certainly exceptions(as there are to everything) but generally speaking pro wrestling and mma are two completely different things.Although both generally have the same audience it is wrong to assume that any pro wrestler could become a succesful mma fighter and vice versa.
I think that original poster of the quote has very limited knowledge about mma for the most part and should try looking into mma deeper than the tito ortiz's and chuck lidell's and realise that like you pointed out there have (especially in japan) been very successful mma fighters that were once pro wrestlers

Fozzy

I forgot Sakuraba did pro-wrestling, in the UWF I think it was. Ryan Gracie's only other MMA defeat was to a pro-wrestler. Jumbo Tsuruta wrestled in the Olympics. Kawada was a national amateur wrestling champion in Japan. AJPW's current champ bet Ken Shamrock twice in Pancrase in non-fixed matches, and NJPW's current champ represented Japan at many amateur wrestling competitions

There was a thread here a while back about "shoot-pro-wrestling", there's an awful lot of good Japanese MMA competitiors who've done pro-wrestling. Kazuyuki Fujita wrestled in New Japan, he fought at the last Pride event. I think I mentioned somethin about the amount of Japanese guys who've done both in the thread, but yer man was just ignorant and looking to put down wrestling because he seems to believe he's above it

Vince135792003

This is off topic but on the subject of Sakuraba he's apparently fighting Royce Gracie again on the EXC/K1/Heros show in Los Angeles (the same 1 Lesnar makes his debut on I think).

dlofnep

It's not signed yet Vince, so I'm unsure at the moment. Royce is signed for the card, but opponent is not 100% yet.

there were lots of uwfi matches on youtube, but they took them down.

Here's Gary Abright against Takada. Albright had a legit amatuer wrestling background.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDXS2WD5dFk
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVW0llhPs6A

Japanese wrestling in general is alot more stiff than American Pro-wrestling. their style is different too.. you'll see it in any american wrestler who's spent time in japan like benoit and such.

Vince135792003

dlofnep wrote:

It's not signed yet Vince, so I'm unsure at the moment. .

There seems to be a lot of things uncertain about this event! Have they started to sell tickets for it yet? They do have 90000 of them to sell after all.

dlofnep

Vince135792003 wrote:

There seems to be a lot of things uncertain about this event! Have they started to sell tickets for it yet? They do have 90000 of them to sell after all.

Yeah they are on sale, from as low as $10!

As high as $1000 though I think.

Vince135792003

Just an update on that show from the observer site:


This is the current line-up that will be announced tomorrow by FEG:

Brock Lesnar vs. Choi Hong-man 5 rounds
Royce Gracie vs. Kazushi Sakuraba 5 rounds
Mighty Mo vs. Choi Mu Bae 3 rounds
Ray Sefo vs. Marvin Eastman 3 rounds
Melvin Manhoef vs. Yoon Dong Sik 3 rounds
Johnnie Morton vs. Bernard Ackah 3 rounds
Jake Shields vs. Ido Pariente 3 rounds
Gina Carano vs. Jan Finney 3 rounds
J.Z. Calvan (Gesias Calvacanti) vs. Nam Phan 3 rounds
Javier Vazquez vs. Katsuhiko Nagata 3 rounds
Brad Pickett vs. Hideo Tokoro 3 rounds

They are attempting to sign Antonio Silva vs. Ricco Rodriguez but that match is not final.

dlofnep

Yeah just read it earlier

dlofnep

Royce Gracie himself confirmed that he's signed to fight Sakuraba in a rematch.

Yay!