The king still lives.
Despite some citing this as a distinct upset possibility, Fedor Emelianenko proved why people still consider him the best MMA has to offer by dispatching 7’2″ Hong Man-Choi in 1:54 via armbar in the main-event of Yarennoka! or as many people have called it, “The Farewell Pride Show.”
Despite most people’s alternate name for this card, it didn’t quite seem like a Pride card with only eight matches (big shows for Pride usually had more) and a lot of fighters coming from K-1—the co-promoter for the show.
Two shockers did come out of a night headlined by a forgone conclusion as Gilbert Melendez suffered his first MMA loss and Yoshihiro Akiyama, hot off of a KO of Dennis Kang in South Korea, was knocked out in 7:48 by Kazuo Misaki in Misaki’s first fight since being dominated by Frank Trigg in Vegas at Pride 33 this past February. Melendez, now 13-1, suffered a unanimous decision loss to Mitsuhiro Ishida.
Decisions were littered all over this card as Maurilo Bustamante lost via split decision to Makoto Takimoto, while Hayato “Mach” Sakurai and Shinya Aoki both won via unaminous decision to close out the show.
Without the star power of K-1’s show or the big matchups of UFC 79, this show does seem to be the odd man out show of New Year’s weekend as Fedor was the only real reason for a lot of people to watch the show as the Misaki/Akiyama match was the only other match that on paper seemed tantalizing. Yes, the participation of Bustamante, Melendez, and Sakurai was food for insiders, but in two of three cases, even their matches seemed like a forgone conclusion that (unlike Fedor) turned out to provide the shock results of the evening.
Fedor did provide the headlines after the night as well, as he all but assured fans that Couture/Fedor would happen. Expressing his respect for Couture’s abilities and his desire to fight the current UFC heavyweight champion, Fedor did admit that the fight was all but set. This does make sense with recent stories, including a quote from Couture saying that the fight would happen in October 2008 when his UFC contract runs out.
Like, Rickson/Sakuraba, we’ll just keep our fingers crossed and our ears open.
