At UFC’s upcoming UFC 93 Pay Per View, a legend of MMA will clash with a man who at one time was thought of as pound for pound the best. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua returns after over a year’s absense to face on Mark Coleman in a rematch from their infamous PRIDE showdown at PRIDE 21 - Dreamers. I’m not sure if there is still bad blood from something that happened years ago, but if there is, I wouldn’t be surprised.
After a freak accident where Rua broke his arm, Coleman lost a little bit of control and started to uncontrollably scream and toss referees around. Some speculated this was one of Coleman’s “Roid Rages”. This caused mayhem as PRIDE officials and members from both the Chute Boxe Academy (Rua’s group) and Hammerhouse Gym (Coleman’s group) dashed into the ring and had an absolutely insane pull-apart brawl. At the time PRIDE Middleweight Champion Wanderlei Silva, along with Shogun’s brother Murilo “Ninja” Rua, Pele, and a horde of Chute Boxe guys almost went to fisticuffs with the likes of Phil Baroni and Gary Goodridge from Hammerhouse. Shortly after in the locker room, Coleman apologized to an angry Silva for his actions and this near-fight was seemingly put to rest. PRIDE was always about the pageantry of pro wrestling with a cast of legitimate tough guys, but this was crazy even for them.
Today on Fight Game Blog Video Vault - we present the pre-fight Video Package, the fight in it’s entirety, as well as the aftermath. I personally can’t wait for these guys to lock horns in Ireland in a couple weeks.
It was the night that began the change of the landscape of Japanese wrestling forever. Mitsuharu Misawa defended his All Japan Triple Crown against Toshiaki Kawada in what seemed like their millionth encounter at Budokan Hall. The peak era that was mid 90s All Japan was dying down a bit. A huge portion of the Gai-jin that helped make it so big left and/or retired, but the company was still carried by the holy trinity that was Misawa, Kawada, and Kobashi (with Taue and a few others helping). Kawada suffered a broken arm during the match. Giant Baba, on his death bed, called this the greatest match he had ever seen and Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer commented on it in a recent audio show.
Here I bring highlights of the match.
It was shortly after this that Baba died, and because Misawa had “creative differences” with Baba’s widow, the “Grand Japanese Exodus” began as Misawa took all of All Japan’s top talents (except Kawada) and started Pro Wrestling NOAH.
So the man who co-headlined Wrestlemania 23, won a handful of titles in WWE, and was on his way to the top, left the company to pursue a Mixed Martial Arts career, following in the footsteps of Brock Lesnar (although Brock’s feet are much bigger). Here on Fight Game Blog, we’ve got his exclusive DEBUT fight against Joshua Franklin - another newcomer.
Before all of the current crop of WWE Divas, the one who was most likely the hottest of them all was Tammy Lynn Sytch, kayfabe named Sunny. So let’s look back at TWELVE years ago, at the Slammys, with Sunny and her nice PAIR of… … Slammies.
Last week Big D covered what was arguably De la Hoya’s best ever performance, the 11th round stoppage of Fernando Vargas.
With the biggest boxing match of the year quickly approaching, there’s still time to take a look back at one more classic De La Hoya fight.
This match up comes from the Thomas & Mack center in Las Vegas, Nevada on February 13th, 1999. De La Hoya’s opponent for the evening was the undefeated Ike Quartey. Oscar himself was coming to the ring with a perfect record of 29-0. The fight went right down to the wire, with the Golden boy needing a huge 12th and final round to secure victory. It ended up being a very close split decision. I will let you watch the last round and judge it for yourself.
With the Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao on the horizon in a just a little more than 24 hours, FightGameBlog presents HBO’s presentation of Oscar De La Hoya’s Greatest Hits, showing some highlights of the future Hall of Famer’s skill, speed, and power against some of his toughest and fellow legendary performers in the boxing game…
This video is funny because Mario Lopez just looks so uncomfortable talking about this. But between the two guys, they might be closing in on Wilt numbers.
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