Tournament Semi-Finals Denis Kang (25-7-1) vs Akihiro Gono (26-11-7): Kang controls the match but Gono is tough as always, and cannot be put away.
Winner-Kang by unanimous decision
Paulo Filho (13-0) vs Kazuo Misaki (17-6-2): Filho just overpowers and manhandles Misaki until he gets the armbar, to win in the 1st.
Winner-Filho by tapout
FINALS
Denis Kang vs Kazou Misaki: Here is where things go horribly wrong. Filho injured himself in his fight with Misaki, and pulls out of the tournament. Kangs tears his bicep, which rolls up in his arm rendering it useless, and continues to the finals. Pride had no alternates for the tournament, so they allow Misaki, who already lost tonight, to be in the finals vs Kang. The match is very close, but Kang's dead arm hinders him and he loses a very close, split decision.
Winner-Misaki
Non-Tournament Matches
Takanori Gomi (25-3-1) vs Marcus Aurelio (14-3): The rematch is not dominated by Gomi as expected. Aurelio is very good tonight and both men fight a long tough match. In the end, Gomi gets the split decision.
Winner-Gomi
Mitsuhiro Ishida (13-2-1) vs David Bielkheden (10-4): As predicted, Ishida gets the win by decision, and keeps heading toward a title shot with Gomi.
Winner-Ishida
Shinya Aoki (7-2) vs Clay French (8-1): With more time French could've won this. Still, he does enough to be invited back, in my opinion. Aoki gets the decision.
Winner-Aoki
Murilo Bustamante (12-6-1) vs Yoon Don Sik (0-3): Another perfectly predicted fight.
Bustamante gets the decision.
Winner-Bustamante
Minowa (34-24-8)vs Bart Gunn (0-1): Mike Barton, or Mike Plotcheck, or whatever name he is going by today, really did much better than expected. He dominated the stand up and damaged Minowa's face. Minowa never gets the submission, but comes close many times, and gets the decision win.
Winner-Minowa
Luiz Firmino (10-3) vs Nobuhiro Obiya (6-1-1): Firmino gets the win and gives us our 1st wrong prediction of the night.
Winner-Firmino
Gegard Mousasi (13-2-1) vs Hector Lombard (5-1): Mousasi wins by decision.
Winner-Mousasi
Yoshiro Maeda (19-3-1) vs Joe Pearson (15-7-1): Pearson represents for the Miletich Camp, and the USA, catching Maeda in a guillotine choke for the win.
Winner-Pearson
Someone tell me, how Pride, who specializes in tournaments, did not have an alternates match for this tournament? This ruined the whole tournament. Kang who battles through his fiancee dying recently, and a bicep injury that renders his arm useless, loses a split decision to a man who was easily tapped out earlier in the night! There had better be a rematch, just as soon as Kang is healthy. It seems as though Pride tried, and succeeded, to hand the title to one of their home town hero's. Congrats to Kang on showing the heart of a warrior.
We may see a rubber match between Gomi and Aurelio, as this fight was so close. Gomi has a lot of tough talent to fight in the Pride Lightweight division.
The rest of the card was a lot of decisions as we had thought it would be. Not Pride's best show by any means, but still worth watching. -MMA Mafia
No comments:
Post a Comment