PRIDE Bushido 13 PREVIEW
Bushido is, in many ways, like PRIDE’s B show. It serves much the same role in relation to PRIDE FC that Velocity used to in relation to SmackDown! You tend not to get the bigger names or the bigger bodies on Bushido shows but, as was often the case with Velocity, you frequently end up with excellent matches featuring a ton of fast-paced action.
Bushido 13 has the potential to be the biggest B show of the year. It features the semi-finals and finals of the Welterweight GP, and a much-anticipated Lightweight Title match.
Welterweight GP Semi-Final: Akihiro Gono vs. Denis Kang
I am an unabashed fan of Denis Kang. Along with Kalib Starnes, Kultar Gill, Bill Mahood, Ulysses Castro, Tim Thurston, Tyler Jackson, and rest of The Revolution Fight Team, Kang is a fighter that I’m going to support no matter how he does, because he’s from British Columbia. There’s more to it than that, though. Kang is also one of the most exciting fighters in the world to watch in the ring or the cage. He is undefeated in his last 18 fights, and he’s won the most recent five without going out of the first round. He choked out the much larger Ron “Killing” Fields at AFC 14; tapped Cage Rage British Middleweight Champion Mark Weir at Bushido 10; got a KO victory over the debuting Albert Basconcelles at a Korean MMA show 20 days later; shocked the world with a devastating 15-second KO of Ninja Rua in the first round of the tournament at Bushido 11; then thoroughly dominated Fedor’s Red Devil Sport Club teammate Amar Suloev at Bushido 12. The two tournament bouts were particularly impressive. Rua is a member of the Chute Box Academy. Many people were willing to give Kang a chance against Ninja, but absolutely nobody thought that the fight would end so quickly. Kang was also considered an underdog against Suloev, but the Armenian kickboxer/wrestler never stood a chance in their fight. Kang chopped him down with leg kicks, broke his nose with a thunderous straight right hand, worked quickly from guard to side mount, took his back, and choked him out with one arm. The end of the fight was a gruesome spectacle, as blood from Suloev’s broken face gushed out onto Kang’s arm.
While training for the Gono fight, on September 23, Kang received word that his fiance, Shelby Walker, had died. Walker was also an MMA fighter, and the cause of her death is reported to have been an overdose of pain medication. I’ve been told that Kang has literally been training through his tears in preparation for this fight. It’s very difficult to put into words how strongly the local MMA fans that I know are pulling for Kang, and how greatly we admire him for not quitting.
Gono is an entertaining showman who stands out from the other Japanese middleweights by wearing outrageous afro wigs and putting on elaborate dance routines with his cornermen during his entrances. In the ring, Gono is very quick on the ground, and skilled at advancing his position. He has the endurance to take a fight to the judges without ever slowing down. I do not, however, think that has anywhere near the stand-up game that Kang does, nor do I think that his submission defense is strong enough to stop the Canadian from tapping him out.
Prediction: Kang, Submission, R1
Welterweight GP Semi-Final: Kazuo Misaki vs. Paulo Filho
Every one of Misaki’s PRIDE fights has gone to decision. He wins some, and he loses some. He beat the resurgent Phil Baroni and tournament favourite Dan Henderson in unexciting fashion to make the semi-finals. Misaki is a pancrase veteran who choked out TUF heel Ed Herman to win a tournament in 2004. He trains with Gono, whose flair for entertaining the crowd has yet to rub off on Misaki.
Filho is a Brazilian Top Team fighter who is undefeated in his professional career. He’s won six straight in Bushido, three times by first round submission, and three times by judges’ decision. Word is that the three time BJJ World Champion has striking power, but he rarely needs to use it. Filho completely dominated the talented Ryo Chonan at Bushido 12, taking the fight to the ground and tapping him out with a beautiful armbar. He’s probably dominating enough at this point in his career to end Misaki’s streak of 15-minute fights.
Prediction: Filho, Submission, R1
Welterweight GP Finals: The winner of Gono vs. Kang meets the winner of Misaki vs. Filho
Pretty much everyone is expecting Kang to meet Filho in the finals. It’s a great fight on paper, and it’s very difficult to pick a winner. This is compounded by the fact I can’t really think rationally about this fight. It would feel both cheap and disrespectful to suggest that Kang should win this one for Shelby Walker, but it also wouldn’t feel right to predict that Kang is going to lose. Filho is undefeated, but everybody has to lose some time.
Prediction: Kang, KO, R1
Welterweight GP- Reserve Match: Gegard Mousasi vs. Hector Lombard
Mousasi lost to Gono by submission at Bushido 12, but up until he got caught in the armbar it was a very close fight. He is a kickboxer with knockout power. So is Lombard, who suffered the first loss of his career when Gono took their fight to the judges at Bushido 11. In the fights I’ve seen, Mousasi looked the more impressive of the two.
Prediction: Mousasi, KO, R1
Lightweight Title Match: Takanori Gomi vs. Marcus Aurelio
PRIDE have rather an interesting situation on their hands regarding the Lightweight Title. Gomi got choked out by Aurielo in a non-title match at Bushido 10. This rightly put Aurielo in line for a title shot, but the Brazilian went on to lose to Mitsuhiro Ishida by unanimous decision at Bushido 11. The assumption is that Ishida will get first shot at whoever wins this fight.
Nicknamed “The Fireball Kid,” Gomi is a phenomenal athlete and one of the best fighters in the world, pound for pound. His greatest strengths are his boxing and wrestling skills, but as he ably demonstrated at Bushido 12, he has some good submission skills as well. The blond Japanese KO artist rolled right over Miletich student David Baron before trapping him in a rear naked choke at the seven minute mark. The big question in this fight is whether Gomi’s takedown and submission defense are good enough to keep Aurelio from tapping him out again. One of many Brazilians now training with American Top Team, “Maximus” has never been knocked out or submitted in 17 professional fights. Gomi won decisions over Chute Box fighters Jean Silva and Luiz Azeredo in 2005, and knocked out both Ralph Gracie and Fabio Mello in 2004, so it isn’t like he lacks the weapons to counter Aurielo’s BJJ.
Prediction: Gomi, Decision
Freakshow match: Ikuhisa Minowa vs. Mike Barton
Minowa is a 180-pound former Pancrase fighter who has made something of a career out of taking on much larger foreign fighters. He comes across as having a likable and eccentric character, with TV vignettes that show him training by running up mountains, dodging baseballs in a batting cage, working on his strikes while standing in a flowing stream, and trying to out-sprint jet airliners. While he’s suffered some big losses against top fighter in his career, “The Punk” has wins on his record against such freak show mainstays as Kimo and Giant Silva. He added to this questionable if entertaining legacy at Bushido 12 by beating Butterbean in a four-minute joke of a fight that included Minowa twice throwing pro wrestling style dropkicks before getting taken down. On the ground, Minowa waited patiently for his opportunity, which came when Bean left an arm exposed. Minowa grabbed it, and from there the tap-out was pretty much academic.
In a delightful coincidence, The Punk’s latest freak show opponent is NJPW mid-carder Mike Barton, who is better known on this side of the Pacific as Bart Gunn, even though his real name is Mike Plotcheck. As Bart Gunn, Plotcheck won the WWF’s poorly conceived Brawl for All tournament in 1998, and was then knocked out in less than half a minute at WrestleMania XV, by none other than Butterbean. As far as I know, Plotcheck has a perfect record in legitimate MMA competition. He faced concrete-jawed veteran Wesley “Cabbage” Correira at a Rumble on the Rock show in Hawaii this past June, and was awarded the victory after the fight was stopped due to a cut.
Prediction: Minowa, Submission, R1
The Other Matches
Nobuhiro Obiya vs. Luis “Buscape” Firmino
Obiya comes to Bushido after fighting for Shooto and DEEP. His last four fights have gone to the judges, including a unanimous loss to Gilbert Melendez at Bushido 12 where Obiya pretty much just got beat on through both rounds.
Firmino hasn’t fought since July 2005, and his last two fights were both decision losses. The odds don’t exactly favour this one being a barn-burner. Buscape is a member of the Brazilian Top Team, though, so he has probably been working hard on his ground game while he’s been out of the spotlight.
Prediction: Obiya, Decision
Murilo Bustamante vs. Yoon Dong Sik
Bustamante is a BBT teammate of both Filho and Buscape. He’s also a former BJJ world champion. Like his teammate Minotauro Nogueira, Bustamante supplements his Jiu Jitsu skills with a boxing background. He is perhaps best known as the man who handed Matt Lindland his first loss, choking him out in the third round at UFC 37. Since then the Brazilian has lost more often than he’s won, though he did knock Minowa out at Bushido 9.
Yoon is a top Korean judoka who has lost all three of his MMA bouts.
Prediction: Bustamante, KO, R1
Sanae Kikuta vs. Jean Francois Lenogue
Kikuta trains with both Gono and Misaki in team GRABAKA. He won the 2001 Abu Dhabi Submission Grappling Championships at 87 kg. He is a well-rounded and experienced MMA fighter who has been competing professionally for a decade. This will be his first fight since beating Makoto Takimoto at Shockwave 2005.
Lenogue is making his PRIDE debut. He has achieved a record of 8-5-2 while competing in a number of independent fight organizations, and he is said to be a practitioner of Vô-thuat, which is apparently a catch-all term for a variety of Vietnamese martial arts.
Prediction: Kikuta, Decision
Mitsuhiro Ishida vs. David Bielkheden
Ishida is the guy who beat Aurelio at Bushido 11. If he wins here, he’ll probably get a shot at the Lightweight Title in the very near future. If he loses, the title picture will cloud up even more. Ishida has the craziest cauliflower ears I have ever seen on a person. He’s got dominating wrestling skills at 70kg, and he looked very strong in both the Aurelio fight and in taking a decision over Cristiano Marcello at Bushido 12.
Bielkheden is a wrestler from Stockholm who now trains with the Nogueiras in Brazil. He also has knock-out power, so the potential for an upset win is definitely there.
Prediction: Ishida, Decision
Yoshiro Maeda vs. Joe Pearson
Maeda is a very good striker and the current Featherweight King of Pancrase. In his last fight for PRIDE, at Bushido 7, Maeda got knocked out by Charles “Crazy Horse” Bennett. He returns to Bushido to defend the honour of Pancrase against Pearson, a Miletich student who is making his first appearance with PRIDE after racking up a five-fight winning streak on the independent circuit.
Prediction: Maeda, KO, R2
Shinya Aoki vs. Clay French
Aoki is another veteran of Shooto and DEEP who is trying to make a name for himself in Bushido competition. He attracted notice at Bushido 12 both for his slick grappling and for the long yellow pants that he fought in. He was scheduled to fight Gilbert Melendez, but Clay French was called in at the last minute when Melendez hurt his elbow in training. There is a chance here for French to make a name for himself, but not a very good one.
Prediction: Aoki, Submission, R1
Agree? Disagree? If you’d like to send feedback, please do. Just click here (that’s mr.gordi at gmail dot com). The contact link below works, too, but my gmail address is better for correspondence.
