Sakuraba - Me

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“Me …”

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Kazushi Sakuraba

 

Inside cover Kazushi Sakuraba

Born July 14, 1969 in Akita prefecture, he started amateur wrestling in high school and was active on the wrestling team in university. He joined UWF International in July 1992. On August 13, 1993, he made his pro debut against Steve Nelson. In December 1996, UWF disbanded. The next year, 1997, he participated in Kingdom. He represented Japan for the first time in December of the same year in the heavyweight tournament of UFC Japan.

He joined Takada Dojo in 1998, making his PRIDE debut at PRIDE.2 in March 1998. From then until now, he has repeatedly battled against veterans and champions of the sport. From November 1999 to December 2000, he beat Royler, Royce, Renzo and Ryan of the Gracie family in succession, marking new territory with their previously undefeated record. Particularly, his 90-minute match against Royce was an epoch-making struggle to the death. He became a star at the same time that he climbed the ladder to the top of the sport.

He fought in the main event in the first “Dynamite!” held in August 2002 at the Tokyo National Stadium in Yoyogi. He fought against Mirko Crocop. In the spring of 2006, he left Takada Dojo to become a free agent. At the same time,

Weight: 85kg (187 lbs)

Special techniques: Honoo no Koma, Shiawase Chop, Hurricane Bolt

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Height: 180cm (5’11”)

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he moved from PRIDE to HERO’S.

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Table of Contents

Chapter One - "Injury"

Suddenly the world slipped into total darkness………. 17

Knee Injury just before the event………. 26

Consecutive KO losses to Nino and Silva………. 42

A submission win over Randleman………. 54

Fight with Nogueira brother on New Year’s Eve………. 62

A sty in the next year – bone fracture……………. 72

Chapter Two - "New"

Tamura Saku revolution misfire………. 85

Push my button and my anger hits over 1,000………. 94

Um-um-dois………. 109

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Ah, loveable Fedimar………. 102

 

Conclusion at the end of continuous troubles………. 117

Chapter Three – “Anger”

No more shoot!? ………. 129

Into the semifinals – an unavoidable absence………. 138

Mystery case, opened………. 144 He's so slippery! ………. 151 Chapter Four - "Reform"

The fight that caused harsh criticism across the net………. 166

For the sake of the future of MMA………. 171

Liquor -> Brazil -> PRIDE………. 178

Getting the runaround with medical checks………. 187

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A lot happened in America, but………. 198

 

Notes from the translator

First of all, thank you all, and by that I mean all those that donated to have this project come to fruition. I will continue to translate more Japanese MMA books (and there are many!) as long as there are MMA fans around to support the time and effort it takes. MMA is possibly the greatest sport in the world, and Japanese MMA was the pinnacle of the sport for many years, so being able to read about those years, those fighters, those events in English is, I think, to capture an important part of history. And let us hope the future of MMA is even brighter, including Japan.

In translating this installment of Sakuraba's MMA autobiography, I thought it was most important to bring across his character. His sense of humor and unique outlook were what I constantly kept in mind. I hope that it comes across to English readers.

In order to help keep the flow of the book the way that it felt to me while reading it, I had to make some compromises. First, normally, in a professional translation, a translator has to choose a specific word or a specific phrase that is equivalent in meaning, and put only that word or phrase on the page.

However, as I want the reader to really see Sakuraba, I have at times chosen

get across. Other times, I have given loose translations to phrases that don't

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that would have worked, in order to give a better feel for what he was trying to

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one word or phrase but also included as a note some other words or phrases

 

exist in English and have included notes on the original Japanese that Sakuraba used to bring the reader closer to him. As well, I have added some Japanese cultural notes for references that he makes that might be lost on Western readers.

Also, past, present and future work somewhat differently in Japanese than in English. The way Sakuraba wrote this book, he uses two tenses. The first is the past tense, where he is writing down what he remembered from that time in his life, and the second is the present, where he is inside that memory and reliving it as the present moment. I decided to use these two tenses exactly as he used them, so that you are there with him when he is remembering and there with him when he is reliving. I hope the changes in tense are not too abrupt for English readers.

Readers should also keep in mind that Sakuraba talks very directly, with simple expressions, but that they are loaded with imagery, jokes and emotion, so a slow and thoughtful reading (with Wikipedia ready for looking up the numerous cultural references he makes) will likely be more enjoyable.

I have chosen to keep people’s names the same way in which Sakuraba refers to them (“Nino” for Antonio Schembri, “Rogerio” for Antonio Rogerio Nogueira,

idiomatic expressions. I find that non-native English speakers often word

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Lastly, I have chosen at times to do a direct Japanese transliteration of certain

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etc.).

 

things in ways, based on their original language, that create new expressions that have a refreshing impact on the ear and mind. In cases where a somewhat cliche or overused English expression would do, I tried to put across directly what he was saying in his mother tongue, part for the refreshing feel and part for getting more inside his mind. As a small example, at one point he says that he would rather die than get taken down by a BJJ fighter because of his pride as a wrestler. However, the Japanese phrase used in such a thought is that one would rather not have that happen to them, even in death.

Thanks, and please enjoy the book.

MMA Translations [email protected] http://mma-pride-book.blogspot.com/

and please also visit: http://www.mixedmartialarts.com http://www.sherdog.net/

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http://nightmareofbattle.com/

 

Kazushi Sakuraba Me… Introduction Hey, this is Sakuraba. Once again, I went and wrote an autobio. This time, I've tried to collect together stories from the first Dynamite! in August 2002 up to Dynamite!! USA in June 2007. To start with Dynamite and end with Dynamite - naturally this is a book of dynamite contents from start to finish.

So much has happened these five years. I found myself putting in a lot of training with Chute Boxe who, before that, was supposed to have been my enemy. I became a free agent* as an athlete. Even the ring that I step into changed. In five years, my surrounding environment went through a complete change.

No matter where I went, the only thing that didn't change is the cheers and warmth I receive from the fans. I encountered many times where I re-realized how great it is** to have all the people that always support me.

To try to meet those people's expectations, I will try even a little harder from                                                             

fact that he didn't have one  **

 he uses arigatami which can mean value/worth/etc. ("to reconfirm the value of having fans" or similar) 

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 he uses the term shozokusaki which refers to a person's place of employment in Japan - the

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here on out. I think life and fights are the same - if you can win, you can also lose, there are good times, and there are bad times. To continue is strength. The bad times don't last forever. After that, inevitably, good will come. Balance in moderation between relaxation and putting in all of your effort.

I'd be happy if you read this book thinking "I, too, will try to work a little harder."

Kazushi Sakuraba

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June 2007

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Chapter One - "Injury"

Suddenly the world slipped into total darkness My fight at the Tokyo National Stadium against Crocop

The time is August 28, 2002. The place, Tokyo National Stadium in Yoyogi. K-1 and PRIDE concentrated their joint powers to put on the first "Dynamite!" The venue had a capacity of about 100,000 people. Certainly, a world top-class fighting event. My opponent is Mirko Crocop, still undefeated in MMA. And of course the match is taking place last, as the main event.

Last year, November 3, 2001, in my match against Wanderlei Silva, indulgently nicknamed "PRIDE Gorillaman," I broke a bone in my left shoulder. The fight against Mirko, thinking time-wise, was my first comeback fight after a 10-month layoff after the Silva match, though I wasn’t aware of that at the time. Thinking about it objectively, nah, without even thinking about it, Mirko is a heavyweight fighter. More than that, it isn't just that he's huge, he is a

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weight between us. Why this card was put together, I literally have no idea.

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heavyweight who has acquired skills. There is a difference of some kilos in

 

To think of just one thing, in my column that appeared in a pro-wrestling magazine, I wrote one sentence basically without thinking about it, "Maybe I will go fishing to catch and eat a delicious Mirko." The fight with Mirko Crocop was finalized just after this column was put out. I had just written it as a joke, but now we were really going to fight. Huh? Is this what they call paying for one's mistakes?* I see, if it's that, what can I do. I just have to fight. Though, it would've been better if I hadn't written too much.

The day of the event, I entered the stadium, and after some hours, the ring "entrance material,"**

the Vader helmet I asked for, was brought stealthily to

the locker room. The worst thing in a match is not getting punched in the face, not getting kicked in the stomach, but having my entrance material leaked before it's time. Before my ring entrance, if there are rumors going through the crowd "I heard his entrance material is gonna be xx," it's over. The freshness of the idea plummets. I can't put a helmet in a bag that looks like a helmet, when I use props that are easy to discern, I have to be very careful and discreet when heading to the ring. Until the entrance music starts, it must be kept a secret. I want the entrance materials to be, it almost goes without saying, enjoyed at the entrance time.

As the sun sets into complete darkness and the lights inside the stadium                                                             

actions), reap what you sow  **

 he uses neta, "material" like a comedian's material 

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 he uses jigoujitoku - getting one's just desserts, suffering the consequences (of one's own

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*

 

assault the darkness, we take the helmet and move to the backstage area of the ring entrance gate. There is an electric current at fighting events. There are times when, bit by bit, the pulse of the tension builds inside the venue, peaking at once in the main event, and other times when it alternates between small swells and abatements as the event heads toward the end. The one thing I can say is that within one event, the peak is not revisited as often as that.

The pro world is not one of "might is right." The ones that have the say in whether a match was great or not are not the fighters or the producers, it is the fans that buy the tickets and come to see it. Like, say that you win but the fans tell you "it was boring." To ignore the existence of the fans and focus too much

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on winning or losing is no good.

 

Maybe because I'm from pro-wrestling, the thought, "In the main match, you have to build the climax of the event" is imprinted in my head. Will the fans get a rush they can feel through their bodies or will they feel resigned to sadness. It is the job of a fighter in a main event to leave an impact that makes the fans say "I have to come see this again."

Especially, in the case of a big match like this one, half of the audience are budding fans that have come to watch MMA for the first time. To introduce such

by decision, I'd rather choose to lose in grand fashion by KO.

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leave no memories for them. If it's the choice of a sluggish match that I'll win

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fans to a match in which you shut down your opponent without motion, it will

 

In the fight between Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Bob Sapp, the event moved towards its first peak. The full impact of what a match is, offense and defense, developed in a simple, easy-to-understand composition of "Technician vs. Power Fighter," and the fans were really pleased.

The second peak came with the semi-final showdown between Yoshida (Hidehiko) and Royce Gracie. As I waited my turn, a flood of sound, a mix of cheers and angry roars fell upon my ears. Royce discontent with the referee stoppage was complaining to the judges. His whole family met in the ring to hold a protest rally!

In some way, the voltage in the venue had hit its climax!

Shit. There's no way that this level of excitement can continue through the main event. Coming out after something like this makes it really hard to fight. The current will absolutely weaken. I somehow perceived my fate in the Mirko match. "It's definitely gonna happen today."

Standby, I put on the mask and helmet. At last, time to make my entrance. Wow, it really is Tokyo National Stadium, there is quite a distance between the entrance gate and the ring. From here, the ring is about 70 meters. The unique heat and humidity of an outdoor venue in the summer wraps around my body.

To really stand in front of Mirko, maybe I should say "of course," he is quite big.

fat and lots of muscle, that would've been an unreasonable topic to bring up.

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him to drop down to 80 kilograms (176 lbs) for me, but for Mirko who has little

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He probably only dropped to about 98 kilograms (215 lbs). I would've liked for

 

There should be a rule that heavy fighters are forbidden from meat intake and muscle training until after a fight.

After a long time off, I'm always hit with the question "what about ring rust?" For me, a half-year or a year off, it doesn't really influence my fights. Perhaps it's because I'm always entering the ring in training.

I had confidence from the beginning to be able to shoot for takedowns. When you shoot in, there is timing to it, and if you can reliably read that timing, in 10 tries you will definitely succeed 2 or 3 times. Anyway, my shoot timing and Mirko's low kick timing were for the most part the same. Mirko's low kick is fast and painful. He can also read the timing well so that made it more difficult. I ate three good ones and, feeling pissed off, I decided to return the kicks, all of which were deflected. As should be expected, from a K-1 fighter.

Going after the shoot too-intently like a maniac won't push the match forward. First, you have to use striking to scatter their focus. As he is a K-1 fighter, I have to say, there really was no fear or sense of resistance in throwing strikes.

For sure, Mirko's physical power is quite above mine. But, between us it was not like the difference between an adult and a child. My opponent is always human. A human being just like me. If you think like that, you can stand and

strike. When a punch connected with his face, Mirko showed a surprised look

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where it's easy to take him down. He probably didn't think I would come in to

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wage offense against any opponent. Frustrate him and try to make an opening

 

as he fell on his butt.

I wasn't afraid at all of his high kick. If you're frightened, "Whoa, it's coming!" then you fall prey to the high kick. I thought if I just keep moving forward, the high kick won't hit. He rests his weight on one foot and that make it easier to take him down. Mirko was on the watch for the takedown, keeping a certain distance from me as he fought. That wasn't the way Mirko usually fights. So I was able to fight with confidence that I wasn't going to eat a high kick.

The biggest trouble was the impenetrable difficulty of our difference in power. There was nothing I could do about this. Even to get him down on the ground in a good position, he would quickly just explode and return to standing. It was painful even being squeezed by his legs in guard position, and it was taking a lot of effort to pass. It's because of this that I hate fighting guys when there's a weight difference.

Just one time it seemed like I could get an armbar. The rope was right there. Maybe I could take the arm, maybe the ropes would get in the way and I'd lose. Should I go for it. Should I wait. I couldn't decide.*

In the December 1997 UFC Japan event as well, against Marcus Conan, and in the first fight in March 2001 against Silva too, the same sensation fell upon me.

*

 he uses mayotta - lost/confused 

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Just before someone approaches death, it is said that their life until then comes

 

back to them like a zoetrope* inside their head. It was really like that feeling. In the span of a few seconds, all kinds of thoughts were running about in my head. "I'm sorry for pooping my pants." "I'm sorry for stealing a bicycle."

"I'm

sorry for stabbing my student in the ass with a saber." "Mother, father, please forgive me for dying before you and leaving you with such unhappiness."

The problem was, while I was reflecting on my childhood crimes, the chance disappeared. In the end, I didn't have a conclusion. I didn't go for the armbar. After all, it takes too much time to look back on my life from childhood until now. Maybe if it had been limited to from when I graduated high school until now, it would've turned into something. This zoetrope viewing, is there some way to shorten the time it takes?

And the final stage of round 2, Mirko uses his guard to immobilize me. Incredible power. For Mirko, who has been exerting energy since the first round, he should be tiring. That may give me a chance to finish the fight in the next final round. But the venue felt like a painted backdrop in a movie; I wondered if the match was boring. I heard the announcer say "one more minute!" Being careful would be the safe thing, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. At any rate, there's only a minute left, so just move, surge before going into the rest. It's the main event.

*

 he uses soumatou, a Japanese revolving lantern 

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Thinking that, I moved my hips forward, and went to strike Mirko. The guard

 

was opened, Mirko was using his legs to control me. In that instant, something

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made a direct hit into my left eye. Light disappeared from my field of vision.

 

Knee Injury just before the event Push on through with anti-inflammatories

In the middle of the darkness, I recklessly moved in for a takedown. Mirko and his big muscles rolled and fell. From here I want to do one more thing to create some action. But my vision was so bad, I couldn’t get a feel for where Mirko’s arms and legs were. Another injury!? What do I do? And in the instant I had those thoughts, the second round of the fight came to an end. A few seconds after that, I received the official ruling that I had lost by TKO. My bad prediction had hit its mark and come true in the worst of ways. "It's definitely gonna happen today." As the bell that marks the end of the fight rang out, I realized, like hitting the surface of water, the whole place had gone deathly silent. Really no one could understand exactly what had happened.

out as far as the audience. If you want to do something, you do it right, you get

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foot snagged my eye on a kick. Such minute offense and defense can’t reach

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I don’t think it was that Mirko was mad or anything like that, either. Just, his

 

a clean KO that even the people sitting in the seats at the back of the stadium can see and understand. Without doubt, it was a horrible match. It was like the laughs starting before the comedian even got on stage. This match took a magnificent 1st place in my personal Worst Bout Ranking. I did an inexcusable thing to all the people that gathered there at the Tokyo National Stadium. But my fight was not over. After the fight ended, I felt a heavy fatigue set in like lead, like I was going to just be flattened. I heard this is a unique symptom of an orbital fracture. Going back to the locker room, like the burnt out “Ashita no Jo!,”* I sat on a chair and closed my eyes. For me who usually is laughing foolishly win or lose, I’ve plopped down on this chair and I’m not saying anything. I was thinking it seemed that all the people around me were feeling down. But it isn’t that I was feeling down, it was that I simply felt sluggish and just didn’t want to move my body. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I didn’t want to do anything. The one thing that supported me was the tenacious joy of

*

 Tomorrow’s Joe 

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“Work is over, let’s have a smoke.”

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The first thing I did when I arrived at the hospital was ask the head doctor, “Is it okay if I just smoke one?” His answer was, “sure,” contrary to my expectations. I was happy, and in high spirits I walked to the smoking area. But, just as I lit the lighter, “BLUHH!” There was a strong feeling of being sick to my stomach and I started to feel really bad. With how bad I was feeling at the time, smoking is strictly forbidden. The doctor told me I could smoke just so he could see what would happen. The medical treatment was better than the best. The doctor gave me an anaesthetic injection and stretched the skin around my eye, holding it in place with pins. The place of the injection, of course, was my eyeball. You want to close your eyes because it’s scary, but that’s just the thing you can’t do.

The needle moved gradually, drawing nearer and nearer to my eye. The pain really wasn’t so bad, but you can see the needle extending out from your eye. It was a scene of trembling with fear that you can’t even really find in a horror movie. I acquired a new experience of horror I had never tasted before.

Next, the pins scraping against my eyeball. Different from the time I had that tube stuck up my urethra. A strange feeling circled its way around my right eye. I wonder if Medama-oyaji* that appears in “GeGeGe no Kitaro” can go through life easily with this feeling. I thought about his day-to-day life and understood

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 Daddy Eyeball, a cartoon character that is just a giant eyeball 

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his hardships through my own personal experience of it.

 

My field of vision clearly went weird. Everything in the world appeared as pairs of themselves. After going home when the medical treatment was finished, my sons, which I should have two have, had become four. Two sets of twins. And two of Kami.* Overnight, we’d become a large and polygamist family. Minoru Toyonaga also became two people. Around this time, it was a pain just to open my eyes.

I was somewhat able to return to training about two to three weeks after that. My sight didn’t get any better, but if I just do groundwork there’s no problem. And my next match would be decided soon. A mere three months after my fight with Mirko. It was to be that I’d participate in the November 24 event at the Tokyo Dome (Pride 23 - Championship Chaos 2).

This was the show for Takada’s (Nobuhiko) retirement. Takada would have the leading part, and I'd be the supporting cast. Naturally, I was thinking that Takada’s fight would be the main event. But when I opened the lid of the box, I saw that my match was the last on the card. In other words, main. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of discomfort. This is strange, being Takada’s retirement event. To affirm it, I proposed like this to Takada, “It’s your retirement match, your fight should be the main event, don’t you think? Please make mine the semi-final fight.” He responded, “Nah, I’m a quitter. You’re the one that is going to pull along PRIDE from now on, so you should be in the main.” “Ye…,

*

 his wife 

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yessir.”

 

Bad things tend to continue on. In the middle of November, there was an incident during training. At the edge of the dojo, I was grappling with M-I D-Nirou*. There was an exercise bike just past the mat. There is no space to throw or get thrown here. I ended up in a desperate situation and was fighting off Matsui’s throw. But finally I wasn’t able to withstand it and I fell from my knees to the mat. At that instant, a sharp loud sound came from my right knee as it got smashed. I couldn’t move my knee at all. My knee had been completely shattered. I could somehow manage to walk a little, but training was now out of the question. Nevertheless, my match was just 5 days away.

Takada had looked after me ever since I started pro-wrestling, and I thought of him as my major senpai**; as well, he was the president of the company I worked for. It was his retirement event, and it would be unforgiveable to leave a hole in the main event. He even told me at one point that it was okay if I dropped out, but there was no way I could do that. I sealed up my knee stiff with supporters and tape and ended up in the ring.

Takada’s final opponent would be Tamura (Kiyoshi). I waited silently just to the side behind the ring entrance gate for it to be my turn. The retirement of one of our athletes was a sad thing for me. The music marking the end of the fight

*

 a pseudonym 

**

 older brother/mentor, a part of the vertical hierarchy of Japanese society 

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spilled down from the speakers. Ah this is no good, I’m starting to feel tears. I

 

come across as always smiling and laughing but really I’m this kinda crybaby. Already before this, I was sobbing while watching a replay of “Dr. Kotoh – Medical Clinic”*. Here I was about to start my match, and the tears wouldn’t stop. My tear ducts were stimulated by PRIDE’s amazing production.

Here was the main event, my fight after Takada’s. Wearing the Tiger Mask, I headed toward the ring. I could see words, “We’re counting on you, Sakuraba.” Something in the mood told me that it was going to be hard to fight. My opponent was Gilles Arsene, making his PRIDE debut. In this kind of “who the hell is this guy?!” match, and with my condition as it was, I wondered if I could even put on a match that the fans would approve of. A difficult problem was thrust before my eyes. While it may be true that he was a no-namer, that doesn’t mean I’m guaranteed to win. In fighting, there are times when you win and times when you lose. You don’t know anything until you get into the ring,

*

 a Japanese manga turned into a television drama series about terminally ill patients living in

a beautiful area of Japan 

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until you really see what your opponent can do.

 

Right at the opening bell, Gilles came in buzzing, showing off with his knees. I

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be dangerous. I made quick steps in to take him to the ground.

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could hear the wind being cut with his punches. If we start swinging, this could

 

But while it was good that I took him down, his guard was strangely tight. While Gilles wasn’t the most skilled of fighters, he really knew his ground defense. However many times I popped him in the face, he didn’t make a single sound. Conversely, it was my hand that started to hurt from punching him. The time to call the match was approaching moment-by-moment. If it continues like this, I’ll probably get the decision. But this is the main event. After all, I’d like to wrap up the event with a decisive victory. I can’t bend my leg, and the sound of my cornerman yelling (I have to say I’m happy that he did) instructions, “He’s open for an armbar!” came to my ear. If I went for it, I would have to get it. “Yeah, I know.” I mean, I can’t bend my leg! I felt like crying again.

But there was no time for crying. So let’s see what we’ve got here. How would a famous wrestler have dealt with this. I ruminated on footage of pro-wrestling matches I’d seen in the past. Butcher had the Fork, Tiger Jet Singh had the Sabre. Oops, I was only thinking of the heels. On top of that, I have a feeling neither of those would work in MMA. Which wrestlers were there in the orthodox school… Thinking these kinds of things, the bottom rope in the ring appeared in my sight. Ah, that’s it.

I grabbed his arm and the tip of my toe snagged the bottom rope. From here, even not being able to bend my leg, I should be able to lock it in. A perfect

I suppose you know the pro-wrestler Ric Flair. He was the NWA World

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cross-body armbar.

 

Champion back when I was a kid. More than being strong, Ric was a “never lose” champion. Sometimes he would get his opponent in a cobra twist and grab the ropes, with his opponent folded up like a shrimp, he would put both legs on the ropes and increase his weight to get the 3-count, or he would weave some crafty cheating into the bout while he fought.

By no means did I think that Flair’s finishing moves would be of any help in PRIDE. Watching pro-wrestling from when I was young, I’ve lived so much. Using the rope to get an armbar. Drawing on Flair’s moves, I was actually somehow able to get the submission.

Yuukou Miyato, Yoji Anjoh, Tamura, Hiromitsu Kanehara, Yoshihiro Takayama and others were all gathered waiting. We took a group photo together. Behind us, Gilles Arsene was happy, saying, “I took Sakuraba to the third round! I’m a man, too!” Heavens, I dared not interject.

Afterward, with the condition of my right knee having gotten worse, I put training on hold. Thinking back, it had been ten months since my last match where my orbital bone broke. And three months later, I had ruptured ligaments in my knee.

And lastly, Ric Flair. Like this, my year 2002 came to an end. Now, what about

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next year?

 

Kazushi Sakuraba’s Unwritten Story [Interview]

Interviewer: Kazumasa Fujimoto [KF]

KF: Ordinarily, what kind of person is Mirko?

KS: Normal. Not particularly cheerful, not particularly gloomy. Only, his

Bushido 2, February 15, 2004). He told me he wanted me to show him a lot of

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Takada Dojo to train. It was before his fight with Yoshihisa Yamamoto (PRIDE

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expression never changes. Always, that face. Sometime earlier, he came to

 

things but I said, “Please excuse me, someone else from the team will do it.”

KF: He has a seat in the Croatian Parliament but he was constantly coming to Japan, right?

KS: I suppose he was always absent from the Parliament. Maybe he smashed the name placard on his seat *crack* (laughs).

KF: Fedor Emelianenko has a somewhat gloomy appearance, but how is he in reality?

KS: When I approached him, he was all smiles. He says, “Ah, good to see you” while shaking my hand, grabbing my hand. Everyone around starts saying “Whoa, look at his hand,” “Damn, huge!” His fists and his frame seem really strong. Like, “If I were to get his by this, what the hell would happen!” He just smiled while I told him things like that. He’s always getting touched.

KF: Does he understand what’s being said to him?

KS: Yea, somewhat, I think.

by something like a german suplex by Randleman. He purposely allowed

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KS: Probably his composure. For example, there was that time he was thrown

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KF: Where do you think the secret lies to Fedor’s abilities and strengths?

 

himself to be thrown. He doesn’t use his power little-by-little to hang on and avoid the throw, more like, if you’re gonna throw, then throw. And after that insane throw, he goes firmly after the arm, right? He lets the opponent do what they want to do, takes the opponent’s attack, and from there he goes for it. I think he’s really good at that timing, too.

KF: What about Silva?

KS: He’s usually quiet.

KF: Is he rather low-key?

KS: Yeah, really. Or, maybe always nervous. I see him at events quite a lot. I’m also nervous, but he really seems so. Before the bell rings, he’s always staring down his opponent. But if you see him up close, it seems he is on edge. The first time (our first fight), it was irritating so I tried not to look at his face. But the second time, seeing his face at a glance, there was nervousness on his face. I thought, “Hm, from far away you can’t see it, but up close he’s scared.”

KF: Out of the foreign athletes, who talks to you the most?

KS: Probably Murilo Ninja. I don’t understand that guy at all. All the time, that

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in Brazil about how I’m gay.

38 

guy’s on my nipples, talking about something. Maybe because there’s a story

 

KF: What’s that?

KS: When we went out drinking after fighting in PRIDE 18 in Fukuoka (December 23, 2001), Renzo (Gracie) and others were coming in and out of the place. Me and my guys were sticking out our tongues and kind of smooching each other. As a joke. There were non-Japanese guys there so we were doing it as a gag. But one guy there who wasn’t drinking saw us and started saying, “For real, those guys are gay.” So, that story flew from Fukuoka back home with them and it spread. That one was one big backfire of a joke. Wada (Ryougaku) was also there, and we had a blast with dirty jokes and all, like idiots.

KF: You mean the rumor spread around the other side of the earth…

KS: Yeah. I’ve heard that in Brazil everyone knows me as being gay.

KF: Of course, among Brazilians too, there’re all kinds of personalities, right.

KS: Right. Nino (Schembri) is kinda shy. He doesn’t look people in the eye. On the other side, the guys always saying dirty jokes do nothing but. The fighter Fabio Silva. But, when I went to Chute Boxe, I also learned a lot of techniques from them. “Don’t talk about this to anyone. Don’t even say it to any of the

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around to make sure no one was around while telling me.

39 

other Chute Boxe guys. We got this from a fighter from Europe.” They looked

 

KF: Have you use any of those techniques in your matches?

KS: Not yet. But, those guys, it seems they won by KO five or six times so far using what they showed me.

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KF: So they weren’t just your usual perverts.

41 

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Consecutive KO losses to Nino and Silva Temporary memory loss, I’m good at getting punched

Before, in “I’ve Returned Home,” I wrote that I didn’t want to use Tiger Mask for my stage entrance. Masked Wrestler – Tiger Mask. Because it feels to me that it’s become a little too obvious or ordinary. But for Takada’s retirement event in November 2002, I decided to use the prohibited Tiger Mask. There was only one reason. Soon, the Mask gag would be used up.

My first bout in 2003 was against Nino “Elvis” Schembri on March 16 at PRIDE 25. If I can’t think of a mask, I’ll have to think of something with paint. It would be the second in my paint series after going with the Great Muta at PRIDE 17.

no lipstick. So to really apply paint to your face is against the rules. So talking

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As an aside, any kind of ointment is not allowed in MMA. No water, no hair gel,

42 

This time, I would enter the ring with “Oriental Mystery” the Great Kabuki.

 

about paint, what I really had to do was make a mask using the Great Kabuki’s face as the motif. And if you think of the Great Kabuki, you think of poison mist and nunchucks. But I went with poison mist at PRIDE 17 against Silva, so today I went with spiderwebs from my palms. Well, if I flick it off properly when it comes time, it should at least look like that. My preparations are complete. And the tune-up went pretty well, too. This would be the first event in awhile where

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I would face the day not being in too-bad shape.

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However, at the point where there was nothing to do except head for the ring, I suffered a major disaster. Right before heading out, I took a giant spill. Of course, the spiderwebs I had prepared in my hand went flying, scattered across the floor. In front of me, the strings were entwined around one young athlete, floundering, struggling, unable to move. Shit, I gotta run to the locker room to pick up a spare. Nothing is going right before the match. I felt the same thing then as I did before the match with Mirko, a bad premonition swept over me. “Don’t screw up.” Nino is not really a fighter that strikes fear in the hearts of men. His striking ability is rather dubious. Well, if I were to classify my striking, I would put myself in the “poor” category, but when I squared up with him, I could pretty much see his real level. His stance was really bad. To stereotype him, maybe he’s basically like Royler Gracie. This isn’t BJJ, this is MMA. You can’t just have ground skills* and you can’t just have standing-up skills. No matter how good you are on the ground, the fight doesn’t start there. Just like the name “Mixed Martial Arts” infers, you need mixed techniques. Nino came at me and clinched, looking to offset my balance and drag me down to the mat. There is no way in hell I want to be taken down by something like

*

 Japanese “newaza” for ground skills translates literally as “sleep/sleeping skills” because you

are in the position for sleep 

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this. I started wrestling in high school, and ever since then I’ve been training

 

continuously to be able to avoid being taken down. To be shot in on or taken down by a top-class wrestler is one thing, but even if I were dead, I wouldn’t want to get thrown by a BJJ guy. Wrestlers have wrestlers’ determination. Nino seemed to give up on the takedown, and butt-flopped, saying, “Come on! Come on!” and inviting me to the ground. I have a weak spot for this kind of provocative behavior. I get overexcited. “Okay, then, I’m coming.” As he wished, I decided to go to the ground with him. Nino throwing upkicks. You yourself invited me to the ground, and now you’re kicking up at me!? Shit. “I’m going to the ground like you asked, stop kicking!” While I gave him a piece of my mind in Japanese, I went to face him on the ground. The fight came to a stall and we were restarted on our feet. The match was not really going smoothly at all. The audience was growing quiet. I’d have to do something soon to heat up the air in the place. Nino, showered by my punches, started to ooze blood from his nose. Chasing him into the corner, I tried for a Mongolian Chop. I started seeing stars in front of me. My memory went on vacation.

went back to the locker room, my cornerman Yamamoto (Yoshihisa) explained

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became desperate, yelling “I quit! Quit, quit!” as they pulled me up. When I

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I lost, with no idea what happened. I don’t really remember, but I was told I

 

to me what had happened. Right when I went for the Mongolian Chop, Nino’s head hit me square on the jaw. As I crumbled, this time his knee caught my face with a bang. I lost by KO… to the vicious headbutt-knee combo. But hey, headbutts are illegal. You think you’re Bobo Brazil or something? Maybe punishment for my stunt in the Gilles Arsene fight had come. I got KO’d by Nino’s headbutt. “What? I got headbutted? Let me go grab a smoke.” I lit the cigarette and pondered whether I should make an objection to the call. I quickly reached a conclusion. “Alright, let’s go protest. But before that, just one more cigarette.” But this second cigarette made me cancel the plan. If I were to go and complain, it wouldn’t cover up the fact that I lost. A loss is a loss. It would be my fault to do what I did with the Mirko fight and repeat the same mistake. It’s not good to play around too much in a fight, and it’s also no good to get overexcited and rush into brawling. I have a lot of points that need to be worked on. Afterward, it was just about this time that I was asked, “How about coming to Brazil to train?” by a person that was to become very important to

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me, head trainer of the Chute Boxe academy, Rudimar (Fedrigo).

 

To mention the headlining star of the Chute Boxe team, the man who is a first-class impersonator of Gorillaman, Wanderlei Silva. August 10, it was the opening round of the PRIDE middleweight Grand Prix. It was decided that my opponent would be Silva, our third fight together. The nervous tension that comes with fighting him is enjoyable. To give an example, it is like when you’re playing Resident Evil, and you go up against a giant monster that has a bazooka and you just have a single pistol. I exchange fire with the bazooka blasts, firing the pistol “pow pow,” aiming for his weak points. If I get hit once, it’s game over. This nervous tension is irresistibly enjoyable. My third match against him is my first fight in one year and nine months. Thinking solely of my fight against him, I started a serious weight-gain program. I was 91.2kg (200.6 lbs) the day before the event. This is exactly the same weight that Silva came in at at the public weigh-ins. There should only be a difference of at most five or six kilos (11-13 lbs) on the day of the fight. I racked up a lot of experience training with Yamamoto, who weighs 110kg (242.5 lbs). Because of this kouhai*, Silva felt light today. In the back and forth

*

 younger brother/disciple/underling, part of the vertical hierarchy of Japanese society 

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against the ropes, I was able to easily pummel and force back his big muscles.

 

Also, my entrance this time was The Road Warrior. I was able to satisfactorily demonstrate my heretofore unseen role as a power fighter. But there was something about Silva that was off. Usually, he barrels in like a dump truck that’s lost its brakes, but he wasn’t coming in at all. He was punching, but no kicks. Strange. Clearly, he changed his fighting style. “Huh? He ain’t attacking. What should I do…” Last time when he hit me low, I was able to shoot and easily get takedowns. I’ve got to see what he’s doing. I was being forced to change tactics. Just to test it out, I throw a low kick. If he doesn’t return a strike, I may open up with strikes. What the hell is this guy thinking? One hit, two hits. To try to push the fight into the next stage, I just keep throwing leg kicks. And as I do, finally, Silva comes firing BOOM with his bazooka. His fists are coming at my face. And right then, the place I was in completely changed. Snapping out of it,

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what I saw in front of me was the ceiling of the locker room.

 

“Eh, what am I doing in here? It’s January now, right?” In response, I heard a far-off voice say, “You had a fight with Silva and you lost. You were knocked out. Please don’t get up.” A fight with Silva? When? Who fought Silva? Where? Why? I had no idea. I jumped again to my feet. “It’s March now, right? Why am I here?”

birthday is July 14. How old am I gonna be this year?

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Isn’t it March? Which reminds me, my birthday is coming soon. Hm, my

50 

“Like I said, you lost to Silva. Please lie down.”

 

“It’s July, right? I haven’t turned 34 yet, right?” Again, “Please, lie down.” Please lie down? Why am I being made to lie down? And, in the locker room at Saitama Super Arena? Ah right, I was going to fight Silva? Could it already be game over? “I…, lost?” “Yeah.” My consciousness had warped through time since the beginning of the year and finally caught up with the present time. My corner tells me that while I was fading in and out of consciousness, I was carrying on conversations like that with them. A bitter short story. Being told what happened, I could somewhat remember something about that when I threw a low kick, something came flying, aimed at my face. The real situation was this. When I threw a low kick, Silva came in with a left-right 2-punch combo. The first hit air but the second punch was a direct hit. I was thinking he’d only come in with one punch. The reason I lost is because I misread him. There’s no way he’ll throw two in a row. And as I suffered a

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complete loss, falling, my head struck the mat. Two times my brain was

 

violently shaken. In retrospect, I would agree if someone told me that I’d been losing my memory for a long time. A KO loss, and no use arguing about it. Later, I heard that after the match, Silva was shaking my hand, saying “My friend, my friend.” From now, I might not fight Silva again, but we might end up meeting someplace, sometime in the future. He must have holes too. Somewhere, he is hiding some weaknesses. I don’t think it is embarrassing having lost to the same opponent many times. I may often have memory spurts, but on this, it’s like water off a duck’s back. Someday, without fail, I will

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discover Silva’s weakpoints, and I want to beat him down to size.

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A submission win over Randleman Ultimate ecstasy!

If you want to talk about ridiculous matchups, the November 9, 2003 bout against Randleman is among them. Randleman is a former heavyweight UFC champion. Huh, why am I facing another fighter like this… I hugged my head. But, when I was approached with this card, my personality of hating to lose interfered, and I replied, “OK. I’ll do it,” in complete opposition to my true feelings. Once again, I went and bit off more than I could chew. At that time, I suppose I was lacking in humility*. Of all the fighters I’ve battled until now, the ones with the most strength and

*

 he uses sunao, a positively looked upon trait among Japanese people, meaning obedient,

meek, docile, unaffected, compliant, amiable, graceful, among others 

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physical prowess were Mirko Crocop and Kevin Randleman. With a physique

 

like it was made out of muscle armor, and not only that, incredibly fast reactions. When I feinted a shoot, Randleman sprawled and was back to his feet before I knew what happened. No opening at all. If he learned how to use his brain more when fighting, he would be at the top. I’ll never cinch a shot on a monster like this. I quickly gave up on taking him down. And what I mean is, rather than trying to take him down, I need to get him to take me down. So, as I put on a good display of striking, he came in on me with amazing speed. Randleman using all his might to push me up against the ropes. From behind me I detected the hint of a knee flying up. Not struggling too much against this is best. Me leaning against the ropes, a slight rest. This too, is an activity of Ric Flair. The fighter pushing against you is using up energy, while you’re just relaxing, letting the ropes carry your weight and draining their reserves. Fighting in a ring, there is such a thing as ring strategy. Randleman, on my back and pushing, might be more suited to fighting in a cage. On the ground, I started working toward the triangle choke. But Randleman was too strong, making me unable to get to the actual choking part of it. As I tried this and that, advice from my corner flew into my ear, “the grinding you

techniques.

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body, pestering him with shots to try to set up an opening for grappling

55 

always do, DO IT!” I started working my fists and elbows into Randleman’s

 

I could read some impatience on Randleman’s face. With the fight on the ground, he started moving as little as necessary. Him throwing single toddling punches here and there. To avoid me getting one of his limbs. If I were to start grinding again from here, it would just piss off my opponent, no idea what to do. The difference in power is evident. If he were to explode, I would be helpless. With one punch from him, it could be instant death. I decided not to rile the beast, so there was nothing I could do but wait quietly for a chance. “I did it!” But the first one to have a problem was me. As the second round started, I ate a left to my face from Randleman. This one rocked my head. I lost sight of myself. “Goddamnit! This fucker. Let’s trade!”* Just at that moment, with me burning red, I heard Shimo**, who accompanied me to the fight, “Saku, calm down! Calm down!” His voice cooled me down to a more moderate temperature. If I had rushed in pissed with the idea of striking with Randleman, I might’ve been KO’d. This is the pattern of how I lose.

*

 he uses Japanese katakana script to spell out the English “God damn” 

**

 Tsuyoshi Shimoyanagi of the Hanshin Tigers baseball team 

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Even throwing kicks wouldn’t result in a good end. I hit the emergency brakes.

 

“You have to calm down!” It was dangerous. Randleman also seemed to sense that I was intending to counterattack. Because of Shimo’s words I was able to live again. The fight was taken all the way to the third round. Randleman is good at punching but he doesn’t throw kicks. I started to gradually see his weak points. Taking my turn, I threw low kicks to take out his legs. It was plain to me that he wasn’t liking them. Randleman again stuck to my back. Like always, I wrapped up one of his arms

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power lessens and move to an armlock. But the way my arms were locked was

57 

with both of mine. If I can lock up his arm tight here, I can time it when his

 

unfortunately not deep enough. There was no opening for the first part of the technique, just twisting his arm. This is a problem. As I thought that, Randleman lifted me in the air. And like that he dropped me to the mat. An opening appeared. Like figuring out the pieces of a puzzle, I seized his arm tightly. I can do it. I can win. Randleman was lying on his face, defending against his arm being bent. I could feel the breathing body of the monster. As we stalemated, our eyes met. What is he thinking now. Taking my time, reading his exhales and his expression, I threw a leg over his face and moved toward the armbar. Randleman, possibly sensing danger, used his head as a fulcrum to roll forward. He did me the favor of trying to escape in the wrong direction. “Oh! Lucky!” Using my back muscles, I yanked and stretched out Randleman’s huge arm. A decisive victory that’s been a long time coming! Not with strength but with timing I was able to bring his arm out straight. This feels good. A feeling of dumbfounded joy was circulating through my body. I jumped up to the top of

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the ropes celebrating and drumming.

 

With that kinda escape, you are submission bait. I had heard afterward, probably because it was such a beautiful armbar, that “The fight was a work” popped up on sites in America and elsewhere. But whatever, to win by submission is really a great feeling. It’s the ultimate ecstasy. It wouldn’t be going too far to say that this moment is why I keep training. With a KO, the match ends while the opponent has lost consciousness. For the loser, it takes some time before they come to know the fact. They don’t remember the moment they lost, so their consciousness of the fact that they are the loser is pretty dim. But with a submission win, they lose knowing that they lost. Only with their declaration of intention to give up does the fight end. When the opponent says he lost, I immediately let go. They tapped of their own accord, so there is no excuse they can make. I won, the fighter that gave up lost. That feeling of conquest is irresistibly good. And I have another confession. I’m a real “S”*. But you see, pain and pleasure are two sides of the same coin. I continued to throw the low kick which he didn’t like but it also hurt my ankle. Shit, maybe

*

 as in sado – it is typical in Japanese to use “S” and “M” to describe where someone falls along

the scale 

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another injury. Just walking causes pain to run through me. At least for a while,

 

I won’t be able to train. I turned down the offer to fight in the New Year’s Eve

*

 Man Festival 

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“Otoko Matsuri”*.

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Fight with Nogueira brother on New Year’s Eve I really should’ve gone with El Solar!

In 2003, three MMA events introduced themselves to challenge Kouhaku Uta Gassen*. For this year’s New Year’s Eve, there would be three separate live broadcasts - Fuji TV had “PRIDE OTOKU MATSURI,” TBS had “Dynamite!” and Nippon TV had “INOKI MATSURI.” Three different channels putting MMA on during the primetime slot. The guns were locked and loaded for the MMA vs.

*

 an annual music show on New Year's Eve produced by Japanese public broadcaster NHK that

has been getting the highest viewer ratings of any Japanese show in history, for decades 

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Kouhaku Uta Gassen ratings war.

 

I, too, descended into that war. At first, they came to me asking, “What about Tamura?” I heard that my lack of interest basically ruined the chances of it happening. To begin with, in the November fight against Kevin Randleman, I injured my left ankle, leaving me in a condition unable to train. Naturally, not being able to train means that taking a fight is impossible. I turned down the offer to fight in the “Otoko Matsuri.” However, the promoters came to proposition me with a compromise plan. There were three candidates. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira’s twin brother Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, El Solar, who had once fought the original Tiger Mask, and a fighter I’d never heard of that was supposed to be between those two in terms of skill level. I was able to return to training around December 10. Only three weeks until the event. There was still pain in my ankle. I can’t train standup or cardio. With my body like this, it really seems tone of those three. I made an immediate reply. “El Solar, please.”

canceled my earlier conclusion.

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ducked me.” I can’t have that. The result of me rethinking it was that I

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But, no, wait. If I go and choose El Solar here, Rogerio will think, “Sakuraba

 

“Of course, I’ll fight Rogerio.” Lining up these three names, Rogerio was the only choice. If a rumor spread that I only fought weak opponents, people would be laughing at me until the era of my grandchildren. I have to avoid that. Somehow, it resembled the way the Randleman fight was set up. So, my participation in “Otoko Matsuri” as well as my opponent were truly finalized. As an aside, later, it is said that El Solar proclaimed, “Sakuraba ducked me!” in Mexico Mat, but I haven’t been able to confirm it as fact. Thank god. To fight around that time on the New Year’s Eve card, is, to be honest, a pain in the ass. The world is in vacation mode. And I want to vacation, too. Just wanting to go and relax at my parents’ house, the one wish I had was that my other wish, “I’ll fight Rogerio,” would go ungranted and turn out just to be a dream. The event was starting at 6 in the evening. Because of traffic, I was late, big time. I made it close to Saitama Super Arena, but from there, traffic wasn’t moving at all. And, I’m tired! Ridiculously sleepy! I arrived at the arena at 5:55. After parking, I grabbed a t-shirt and some other things, ran to the toilet to change, and went directly from there to the stage. Not even going to the locker

a deep sleep for an hour and a half.

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fight back against the urge to sleep and passed out. I was sunk, immerged in

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room, just like that I went to join in for the opening show. After that, I couldn’t

 

I opened my eyes, and it was already time to warm up. Shaking off the sleep, I quickly warmed up my body. And then, I don’t know why, I was feeling really good. Light. As if wings had sprouted from my back. My body was moving so well, it was downright mysterious to me. I cocked my head in puzzlement at the unnatural degree to which I felt in peak form. However, good times tend to come before bad times. Just as I finished warming up, I fell into a complete exhaustion. Because of the way I had been feeling, I overexerted myself in the warm-up. Well, there is some time before the fight, maybe I should sleep again. And as I thought that, the staff came running in saying, “Please get to standby soon.” I’m exhausted, want to sleep, and now they’re pulling me up behind the entrance gate to the ring. Heat was gradually escaping from my body. And come to think of it, the wings on my back also seem to have disappeared. The semi-final match with Tamura comes to an end. I put on a costume to make me look like Sachiko Kobayashi for the ring entrance. Feeling exasperated, I give a “kiai!” As it is now, my body is still listening to what I tell it to do. I want to head to the ring ASAP. It’s that time. Like water thrown on my impatient face, the announcement, which has a huge impact on me,

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reverberates through the venue. “And now we will have a 20-minute break.”

 

The event isn’t being broadcast live, it’s on a twenty or thirty minute delay. And for that reason, they inserted a 20-minute break to set up the equipment

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before the main fight.

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In these twenty minutes, my body has gone completely cold. I somehow feel sluggish. I can’t move at all. Moment by moment, my strength gauge is dropping. I’m heading into a match in the worst condition. The time is past 11 at night. Finally having entered the ring, I measure up Rogerio’s shape. As the fighter is being called, I always look at their body. He has really thick legs. We’re both in the middleweight class, but our body types are so different. Well, this is the twin brother of Rodrigo who’s a heavyweight, right. So then, isn’t Rogerio a heavyweight, too? I really should’ve gone with El Solar. No sooner did the bell ring and Rogerio charges in. He hit me with a knee. Unlike me, he’s raring to go. A sudden wild rush. I jump back to create distance. I can’t keep up with him at this pace. I was tired before the fight even started… Around the two-minute mark, Rogerio got a big cut in the corner of his eye. The ref quickly stepped in and they had the doctor check it. At this point, my legs are done. Like the feeling after having done a number of uphill sprints, I sink into a silent lethargy. “I’m begging you, end it here for me with a doctor stoppage!”

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to think about the fans. In the end, my prayers didn’t reach god, and the match

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I stood in the neutral corner just praying. I didn’t have the luxury of being able

 

quickly resumed. And there’s still 8 minutes left in the first round. I feinted some low kicks while waiting for the clock to tick down. I was able to cinch a takedown relatively easily. I wasn’t worried about submissions on the ground, either. As a veteran pro-wrestler, I can tell a person’s abilities from the instant we start grappling. And same as that, after piling up some experience in your career, you come to be able to read the general strengths of the other person from a small amount of movement on the ground. Comparing him to other BJJ fighters, his ability to tie me up was not at that high of a level. Usually, when a fight goes to the ground, the BJJ fighter works to tie you up like a snake, but Rogerio’s fighting style is its own thing. He isn’t looking for submissions, just punching. As I usually only expend lots of energy in standing-up fighting, I felt that being on the ground was like a safety zone. But while I was able to get the takedown, after that, it went nowhere. And even if I want to get past his legs, I can’t jump. I’m so exhausted, my head isn’t even working. What can I do. How can I push through this. Rather than victory and all that, I couldn’t help but make toughing out this match my major goal.

more minutes. Vowing that, I put the red corner behind me.

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a tiny bit. The bout rushed into its final round. Just stand five minutes, five

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I’d gone dazed, so my corner poured water over my head. My head cleared just

 

I heard my corner telling me, “put your guard up,” to keep my hands up. I know, but I’m so exhausted I can’t lift my arms or my legs. My legs are profusely heavy. My muscles don’t follow my lead. I had no plan other than to stand and swing with no guard.

Just a little time left. And my body, just a little energy left. And I slipped.

“Enough. I can’t stand……”

And after that, it was nothing but strikes. I lost the decision. I didn’t fulfill my plan to stand until the end. It sucks. There was just a little bit of time left. And that makes me recall, the NWA used to have a pattern of world title matches with the champion defending until time runs out. Those twenty minutes of waiting that wreaked havoc on my body. And in a way isn’t this like Ric Flair’s

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techniques? And before I knew it, I was looking forward to a new year.

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A sty in the next year – bone fracture…… Incompatible with New Year’s Eve?

Some days later, Rogerio’s older brother came to me saying, “You, you hit my younger brother!” Of course it was a joke, but how do I reply to this kind of charge? This requires a comeback. Some months later when Nogueira was back in Japan, I came back at him with this.

“I had a bad time with your brother!”

Yes, as it is written above, “a bad time.”* That was a first for me in my entire MMA life.

*

 he uses an idiomatic expression, hidoi me ni au, meaning literally “to meet a wicked eye.” This

is a premonitory play on words with what’s coming below 

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I honestly shouldn’t have fought Rogerio. No, Rogerio shouldn’t have stepped

 

into the ring that day.

About two weeks after the fight was over, I felt something strange around my eye. My eyelid turned deep red. Gradually, the unpleasant itching turned into pain. In medical terms, a hordeolum. A sty. This is a medical condition that comes from bacteria. The bacteria spread along the edge and underneath my eyelid. Who the hell could’ve pushed bacteria into my eye? I could only think of one culprit.

“Rogerio… you son……”

I never thought about catching something in a fight. In amateur wrestling up until I turned pro, I never had something like this happen. Really terrible luck. The bacteria Rogerio brought from Brazil to Japan drifted from him onto me and infected me. Kami and my months-old son got it from me. By the turn of the new year, everyone in my family had red eyelids. The power of this made-in-Brazil bacteria left quite a scar on the Sakuraba family.

The most major damage I suffered from the whole New Year’s Eve fight was this sty. I don’t mind getting hurt, but please leave my family out of it. What the hell was he thinking going into a fight with a contagious disease! Yo Rogerio, you a bacteriological weapon? Feeling miffed, I let his older brother know what

“I’m sorry. A friend brought it into our dojo and my brother got it.”

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happened. I blamed him for his brother’s fuckup.

 

Motherfucker. The Don of Brazilian Top Team, Mario Sperry, is also responsible for what Rogerio brought into the ring. Hearing him, it seems a good portion of Top Team suffered from this bacteria. They should’ve known from the beginning that Rogerio either had it or there was a good probability that he did. You should recover 100% from it before you come to Japan! (from Shiro Koshinaka). Bad things really do always come in bunches.

In this awful way, I cut a start in 2004. While the symptoms are still there, I can’t train. And in daily life too, I had to be careful not to give it to anyone else. Finally, it cleared up and I started quickly training to get my conditioning back, looking toward a rematch with Nino, and this time, I hurt my knee. And after that, I injured my hip, my knee… In the end, I was only able to fight once this year.

Planning to fight in the New Year’s Eve “Otoko Matsuri,” I prepared up until the last minute. My prospective opponent, seeming like a yearly thing, Tamura. If Tamura also says yes, this match can be put together in an instant. But I waited about a month for a response.

And once again, without a say in the matter, a possible fight with Tamura goes up in smoke. Instead, a fourth fight against Silva was put on the tentative card.

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myself in shape.

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I had no reason to refuse. I worked slowly toward the end of the year, getting

 

The press conference to announce the card was on November 30. That day, I was sparring at the dojo as usual. Then, of course, in the afternoon I would attend the press conf. Heading straight from the dojo to the hotel where the press conf was being held after training was the schedule for the day.

But something happened that meant canceling everything. In sparring, I was on top on the ground, looking to pass my partner’s guard. His knee went deep into my mid-section. Maybe something broke, a bad sensation rung throughout my entire side.

“Time! Time! I can’t move!”

Bent over, I couldn’t move at all. Even trying to move my body just a little, a sharp pain would stab me in the abdomen. I couldn’t even make it to the car. Looking like they were moving into a new house carrying a huge box, 3 or 4 of my teammates picked me up and carried me to the car and brought me to the hospital.

As it’s my character, I used the most overused excuse, saying I overslept, and they excused me from the press conf. The results of the medical examination were “torn cartilage” and “broken rib.” One month before the event, I unavoidably went in-patient. There are some people that are completely fine

my body left this safe zone even a little bit, the pain came with a vengeance. I

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broken rib and the pain was immediate and direct. I had to stay bent over. If

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even if they break a rib. In my case, my nerves were connected with the

 

couldn’t straighten my back so even peeing was a damn chore. While I stayed in the hospital, I spent my life as a bent over old man.

Despite that, as is always my way, I put it at about two weeks before I’d be okay. Then, I can start training again and just about be on time for New Year’s Eve. More than anything, if I can’t make it into the event, I would really be inconveniencing Silva. I believed in my powers of recovery. I wanted to believe.

But my condition, after one week had passed, after two weeks had passed, didn’t improve one bit. I could return home, but even doing cardio caused major pain in my ribs. Soon, I would have to make a decision myself.

Mid-December, I had to give up on fighting in “Otoko Matsuri.” It seems from around that time that my compatibility with New Year’s Eve isn’t so high. Last year’s, I had also dropped out but then had the fight with Rogerio. And after the fight, I got an incredible bonus no one would’ve expected, a sty. And this year, despite being eager to fight, I decide right before the event that I can’t fight. For some reason, I can’t be in good condition and in a good fight on New Year’s Eve.

Maybe taking what happened as a sign, this time too, I was really late getting

the highway, I get as far as the entrance ramp and it’s already a traffic jam.

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Japan. Taking a step outside my house, everything is white. Planning to get on

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to the event. New Year’s Eve in 2004, there’s snow everywhere in this part of

 

Just like last year, I can’t get out of the rut. I decide to abandon my plan with the car and take the train. I head back to the house to drop the car off.

And as I get near my house, the road has frozen over and I can’t get up the hill! I get out of the car and walk the rest of the way, and head to the garage. Planning to take the train to Saitama Super Arena, Kami takes me to the station in our second smaller car.

A whole lot of time was lost. I took the bullet train to Oomiya for a transfer. I take an older train line just one stop and arrive at the nearest station to the arena, Saitama Shintoshin, about an hour after the matches have already started. I walk into the arena as the second fight on the main card is already underway. I rush and get changed and head toward the ring. I apologize to the crowd for not being able to fight and return backstage.

After all the fights are over, I approach Silva to bow to him. Because I dropped out, Silva’s opponent was switched to heavyweight Mark Hunt. This is my fault. Causing someone else troubles, for example, even if he looks like Gorillaman, I have to apologize. I bowed up and down.

“Sorry. I’m sorry.”*

*

 he says in Japanese to Silva 

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“It’s OK! We’re friends, right. Happy New Year!”

 

I felt some hesitation about the word “friend,” but he accepted my apology (probably). Right after that, Fedimar* came to me smiling and said “It’s okay. OK! Everyone gets injured.” Viva, Chute Boxe! Among the Chute Boxe fighters, there is a feeling of good will and connection with them. Especially, their head guy, Fedimar, is always paying attention to me. After my KO loss in the third fight with Silva, Fedimar told me, “You were throwing nice uppercuts. If you landed clean, my Silva might really’ve lost.” I’m supposed to be an enemy, but even to me, he was offering advice. A modest feeling in me

*

 he combines Rudimar and Fedrigo to make a nickname for Rudimar Fedrigo 

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of wanting to try training under him was growing little-by-little.

 

Kazushi Sakuraba’s Unwritten Story [Interview]

Interviewer: Kazumasa Fujimoto [KF]

KF: When was your third child born?

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They’re all boys.

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KS: A little bit before my fight with Rogerio. Having lots of siblings is good.

 

KF: Busy, right. KS: It’s bad! It’s really crazy around the house. KF: Do you want to raise them into powerful men? KS: No. I want them to be kind. Children that take care around other people. To choose among extremes, if it were the choice of having a bully kid or a bullied kid, I think having a bullied kid is better. A bully is weak here (heart). A bullied kid has to put up with it and learn to endure, so he is strong. He’ll be able to endure a lot of things. If they grow up along those lines, I think they can learn to be kind. Bullies are weak so they bark. In a group, they get strong, but alone, for example getting in a ring one-on-one, they wimp out. 100%, that’s a bully. KF: Is your eldest son already in elementary school? KS: Yeah. He’s also going to Yoshida Dojo. On the small chance that he might get bullied, he’ll learn to defend himself. If he gets pushed, he knows how to fall. And he can throw a bully like, “This kid’s training Judo, you better watch

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out.”

 

KF: That’s the pro-wrestler theory of being the attackee*, right. Not attacking, but you learn by starting with something that gets done to you. KS: Yeah, yeah! (laughing). And I think knowing an art to protect yourself and your siblings is important. KF: Have you been to see them in classes or at athletic meets? KS: Yeah. My oldest had an athletic meet at an indoor pool. They put a cover over the pool and have the meet on top of that. It was like having a meet at Yokohama Arena, you sit in a seat and watch. Just going outside for something to eat. KF: There are also events where they want the dads to participate too, right? KS: There is at the kindergarten. A game where I carry them piggyback and they have to grab hats or dancing the Anpanman** dance. For me to do it, it would really turn into a show, so I wouldn’t dance at any price. I stood on the sidelines. KF: What about the current educational problems?

                                                            

throw him in practice  **

 a Japanese cartoon character 

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 he uses “ukemi,” the word for a person who, for example in Judo, allows the other person to

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*

 

KS: I think it’s that parents are being too protective. Is anyone really properly scolding their children? If my kids do something wrong or bad, I go off. Sometimes I get nosebleeds*. “Papa gets nosebleeds in training or in fights, and he didn’t die. You don’t die from that.” “If you don’t like being hit, then do it right.” I also have them sit seiza style** if they’re bad. KF: Do you change the punishment based on their age? KS: Yeah. Even if they do the same thing, the oldest one has to sit seiza, the younger one has to sit next to his bed and not move. I turn off the lights and make it completely dark so they can reflect on it. KF: Like the “I’ll lock you in the cellar” of olden times. KS: Yeah. “You don’t understand when I say it, so I’m doing this.” Children don’t understand when you say it so they keep doing the same thing. But if you scold them, and say “you can’t do this,” they understand. The parent has to get mad and discipline them. These days, parents are leaving all that up to the teachers. It isn’t the teachers that are bad, before that, it’s the parents. Children don’t receive any punishment so they have no idea how others feel when they do something bad to them. And then you have bullying.                                                             

**

 seiza is the standard traditional Japanese way of sitting, kneeling, your shins on the floor,

butt on your feet 

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 it’s a trope in Japan that a person under too much internal pressure will get a nosebleed 

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*

 

KF: What about study? KS: I make them study. I say 20 or 30 minutes is good, so do it every day. KF: What are the kids doing for play? KS: If they start to play a game, it’s nothing but that game. The Nintendo DS lets you connect with other DS users, so they all gather in a park. We have a one-hour rule for games. If they play games too much, I hide the game system. Once, I really got mad and I broke the game system. And that turned into a big argument with Kami. Her saying we had just bought it. I folded it in half in front of the kids. With that, without saying a word, they went right to study. I say, if

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you study like that every day, I’ll buy you another one.

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Chapter Two - "New"

Tamura Saku revolution misfire Middleweight GP starts with quick finish

For what reason, I don’t exactly know, but a surprising number of people were getting their pulse up about “Sakuraba vs. Tamura.” In reality, I was offered by Dream Stage to fight him a number of times in the past. Like making something official by pushing your seal onto the paper, I would reply, “OK.”

At this point, I want to avoid fights against Japanese opponents, but if a lot of fans are saying they want to see it, I should go with that. Tamura and I aren’t that much different in weight. We both came from UWF International, but we weren’t so close that it would make it difficult for us to fight each other. There

approached, Tamura’s name disappeared from the New Year’s Eve lineup.

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That said, I had a feeling that Tamura was ducking me. As year-end

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should be no reason to turn down the match.

 

Every year, the same thing. Always leaving me waiting for a response, half-hearted, disgusted. I never receive a real reply.

If we fought, who would win? Without stepping up into the ring, you can’t get an answer to that. I could win. He could win. But if us fighting gives the MMA world a boost, I think we shouldn’t just fight once, but continuously. Like Riki Choushuu and Tatsumi Fujinami a long time ago, wouldn’t it be good to fight two, three times? Listening to fans’ voices is our job.

In the first PRIDE of 2005, PRIDE 29 on February 20, I got some action going. I wouldn’t be participating in it, but Tamura would be, in the seventh match of the evening. His opponent was to be first-timer Aliyev Mahmud, a wrestler.

I put my and Tamura’s names together on the list of candidate athletes for the April PRIDE middleweight Grand Prix. I should drum up something at this event to tie it to the April tournament and possibly get the eyes and ears of a lot of

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fans.

 

Before doing it, for the time being, I requested to Sakakibara, “After Tamura’s

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left is to do it. The work of a lone lunatic.

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match, can I take the mic and talk a little?” Sakakibara said, Sure.” All that’s

 

My strategy was like this. This is Mahmud’s, his opponent’s, first fight. Tamura will probably win. After that, I imagine he will take the mic. At that moment, I will come in and say, “Tamura, let’s do it!” Maybe I’m a little full of myself, but it’s a perfect scenario.

If I do the “mic appeal” well, it won’t be Tamura’s victory but rather my calling him out that will leave a big impact on the fans and mass communication people. And if it goes that far, Tamura will have to accept.

I watched Tamura’s fight quietly from a ringside seat. The fight went as I expected, with Tamura victorious. There was a break in the action due to a low blow. For both the winner and the loser, the match left a bad aftertaste.

Here, Tamura took unexpected action. Maybe unhappy with the match, he raced out of the ring without taking the mic. He took off, starting to leave the ring. I’ll miss my chance. I get up and rush toward the ring. From behind, I hit Tamura with these words.

“I don’t think this kind of fight is interesting at all. Please take a match with me in April. I’m counting on you!”

Tamura retraced his steps back into the ring. He answered my request with a

here……”

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it.” In my head, I instantly had this wild idea, “The Saku Revolution starts from

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one-liner, “You think you can do it!?” I cut my bangs while answering, “I can do

 

But Tamura didn’t follow up with anything, he just disappeared backstage. I talked steadily into the mic. There’s no way he couldn’t hear. Possibly he was ignoring it. In the end, I wasn’t able to trade verbal blows with him. With this, my “trespassing” ended as a misfire.

April 23, Osaka Dome (now the Kyocera Dome Osaka). The 2005 PRIDE middleweight Grand Prix starts at last. There are 16 fighters. The Japanese fighters consist of four entries - myself, Yoshida (Hidehiko), Nakamura (Kazuhiro), and Kondo (Yuki). Tamura didn’t come to fight in the tournament.

I hate tournaments. I can do them, but I don’t want to. Why? Because they’re a pain in the ass. Even if you win, your next fight is right there waiting for you. You have to fight two or three times just for the thing to end. The more you win in a tournament, the tougher it gets, it really is an unreasonable format.

My first matchup is against a Korean Judo player, Yoon Dong-Sik. This is his first fight in MMA, but in Judo, he is the real deal, with victories over Makoto Takimoto and Toshihiko Koga. He came in as the “Japanese killer.”

Actually, Yoon had asked awhile back to train at Takada Dojo. Of course, training with the person you’re supposed to fight next is not going to happen.

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became a Takada Dojo fighter.

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So I left it with him as, “after the fight, let’s do some sparring.” Later, he

 

Aside from all that, I knew absolutely nothing about Yoon. I received some materials from Dream Stage, but the videos were just Judo. And the video started after the two had already engaged each other. With this, there’s no way I can judge what he’ll do in MMA. The day of the event, I faced off against him with zero background knowledge.

This day, from the first match, it was decision, decision, decision, making for a really sluggish event. The complete opposite of the situation when I fought Crocop. There are no waves of electricity at all. My match is the sixth of eight in total, a relatively nothing-special situation. It’s really easy to fight at a time like this.

I cinched a victory in 38 seconds. I had heard that he hadn’t been training striking at all, but right at the gong he came at me with a straight punch. After creating some space, I was pissed and started answering with some punches of my own. Yoon collapsed to the mat. This night, I got the first KO victory of my life.

“I finished him too quickly. What should I do?”

“Well, there were so many decisions tonight, so it’s fine isn’t it.”

no-quick-finish-ism. I wanted the fans to not just be concerned with winning or

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talking about in the ring with my corner. Up until now I’d been a follower of

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Saying ‘what should I do?’ after a match is meaningless, but that’s what I was

 

losing but to enjoy careful offense and defense throughout the fight.

However, winning by a quick KO felt really good. As well, the fans seemed happy. Once in awhile, this kind of fight is a good thing too.

About two or three months after this, Yoon and I started training together. By the way, this guy is amazing on the ground. He’s caught me a number of times in sparring. When he fought Quinton “Rampage” Jackson at PRIDE 31 on February 26, 2006, while he lost in the end by decision, he had Rampage locked up in a perfect armbar in the first round. Yoon thought he had it, and he lost all his energy after that. He was so close. Maybe Rampage had taken him lightly. After the bout, I went over to Rampage, without thinking, to bitch.

“What, you thought he was weak but he almost got you. He’s really good, isn’t he!”

“You don’t even know! He taps me in sparring a lot.”

“Eh? Really?”

Yoon’s ground technique amazed Rampage too. If he slowly builds up

The next stage happens at the Saitama Super Arena on June 26. Before that

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Well then, making it through one fight naturally means I can’t but fight again.

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experience, in no time he could become a standout in MMA as well as in Judo.

 

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event, I had already been planning to leave Takada Dojo.

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Push my button and my anger hits over 1,000 But Arona’s so heavy, I can’t move!

Even if it's only dust that's collecting, it can still form a mountain. And if it's stress that's building up, it can form a volcano. Boom! At the beginning of June 2005, my head suddenly erupted.

No matter who it is, a person always has a button that they can't stand other people pushing. If you push the button even once, the grudges and pissed-off-ness you'd been enduring since then erupt at once. It's a matter of degree, but everyone has a boundary line like "up until here I can't take it, but if it goes past there, I'll burst." Someone steps over your boundary line,

Looking at it from the point of view of the organizers, we are one type of

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The fighters that get in the ring and the organizers that make it happen.

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pushing that button with their shoe, and it's inevitable that you'll explode.

 

available means*. Maybe nothing more than a product.

But I’m human also. I experience joy, anger, pathos, and humor. Of course we can also be products, but we are not robots that have been built to fight. If one person is going to take in another person to hold or control, a lot of care is necessary.

About a month after my fight against Ricardo Arona in the second round of the Pride Middleweight tournament was decided, without warning, my button was pushed *click*. Probably, the person that pushed it wasn’t aware that they had. The real truth behind me separating from Takada Dojo has never been written down, in any book or magazine in the world. Likely, I’m the only one that knows the real reason.

But I don’t want it to be misunderstood that I was upset about the cards or my treatment and decided to quit the dojo. My button was pushed, and things added onto other things, and something exploded. At that instant, my anger was well over 1,000 points. A feeling that “I don’t want to be here any longer” sprouted up in the center of my heart. And that feeling, I was unable to suppress.

*

 he uses mochigoma, a captured piece than can be reused (in the game of shogi) 

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“Look! I will absolutely beat Arona!”

 

There was nothing I could do but use up the anger I was feeling in training. Training, training, I did nothing but train. There is a will in a pawn, there is a will in a product. Somehow or other, this strong feeling of wanting to just pass through Arona and move beyond the second round of the tournament became my prime motivation.

But after a month of overtraining like this, my body had shrunk. At 85 kg (187.4 lbs) I was looking at going into game day 8 kg (17.6 lbs) under the limit for the middleweight tournament. And Arona around 97, 98 kg (213-216 lbs). No way. This isn’t what winning is. Once again I realize going overboard in training or in a fight is not good. Ignoring the line past moderation is one of my faults. I have to fix this fault, and quickly.

Arona, how can I say, was a pain in the ass to fight. The fight went on like he only had in mind not losing. He would not gamble if he thought he could lose. This kind of fighting style reminds me closely of someone from the past, a guy I call Great King Stalemate, Guy Mezger. What can I say about this, a fight the mere watching of causes stiff shoulders. He doesn’t have a bazooka like Mirko or Silva, and this kind of punch here and kick there isn’t something to worry about. I didn’t really feel him as very strong either. But due to the too-big weight difference, if he pressed me, I wouldn’t be able to move. Heavy,

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“Sakuraba, move!”

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whatever, just heavy. I felt like I was going to be crushed by his large build.

 

“He’s too heavy, I can’t.”

“There, make some movement!”

“I’m saying I can’t move!”

“Don’t give up, move now!”

“I’m telling you I can’t move!”

If I had been able to move, there would’ve been no problem from the start. For some reason in the middle of the match I’m arguing with my corner. I try to resist against Arona’s pressure using the power of anger, commonly referred to as “Kajiba no Kusozhikara”*, but that kind of power only comes for a second. Right after that, your body is back to its old form. And Arona is Arona, when he puts the pressure on, that same damn knee comes again and again. I couldn’t get an opening at all in the fight.

Nothing really hurt that bad. But for him, calling them femur strikes instead of knees would be correct. Arona comes throwing femurs to my head. If I keep my guard up, I’d be fine with eating these all night. It wouldn’t come close to a fatal injury. A real knee that drove through and dizzied me happened maybe

*

 a special power in Kinnikuman 

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one or two times.

 

In the back and forth, I was blessed with an opportunity for an armbar. My forgotten past comes back to me. It’s come. My old friend, it’s zoetrope time.

“I’m sorry for pooping my pants.”

“For stealing a bicycle…”

Danger, danger. If I go any more into the past like this, it’s gonna turn into Mirko part two. Coming back to the present, I went for the armbar. But Arona just blew it off and escaped. A splendid comeback.

“Ugh, I’m too light.”

When I fight against a smaller guy in sparring, I can just blow him off like that, too. I should’ve calmed down, and moved toward the technique while keeping balance. Impatience is forbidden. In this world, balance and timing. For the armbar, too, balance and timing. It would’ve been good if I had remembered the “ass” in "stabbing my student in the ass with a saber."

In the second round, I ate a full-blast knee to the head. My forehead split wide open and the fight went into its second doctor check. And what was the

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the doctor.

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determination going to be, I somehow had a sense of it. I timidly check with

 

“Doctor, are you going to……”

“Yes, right.”

“No good?”

“Yes, no good. Please don’t drink alcohol tonight.” I felt my body drain. I had the post-fight festivities I had been looking forward to stolen from me. More so than the injury, more so than anything, that was the worst thing.

And with not a care in the world about that, Arona came, bam bam bam, kneeing me in the face. My swollen eyelid covered my eye up. How many times have I been in this shower of strikes? In the midst of the horrible darkness, the kind bell marking the end of the second round rang out for me.

“Fuck it. I can’t do it. I can’t see a thing! Where’s the doctor? I can’t see anything, guide me back to the locker room.”

I was throwing all kinds of talk at the guys that came rushing up to me. At that time I strangely felt no sense of anger or anguish. If you can’t do it, you can’t do it. The outcome was a loss by TKO. My field of vision had up and vanished, so there was nothing I could do. Fighting like that in the third round would’ve

“Would it really be bad to drink?”

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been impossible.

 

As I asked that, everyone accompanied me, not to the bar, but in what’s becoming a habit, to the hospital. This pattern, consuming a course of fight, hospital, hospitalization, was conspicuous to say the least.

After an evening of icing it down, the swelling in my face had subsided a bit by the next day. In a way it was sad but the medical examination didn’t find anything wrong with my brain or bones. A big bouquet arrived in my room sent by Sakakibara. I felt thankful. I gave him a call to pay my respects.

“Thank you very much for the flowers. Gah, I really came into that fight too light.”

“Fedimar was saying the same thing. ‘At that weight, you can’t do anything.’”

Why was Fedimar bothering to worry about me? Looking at it from Chute Boxe’s perspective, I’m an enemy camp fighter. All this when it wouldn’t even be surprising to hear something like, “Eh, he ran to the hospital in fear to avoid our boy Silva.”

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I was lightly joking, laughing as I tossed the words over to Sakakibara.

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“Really, Fedimar said that? Sakakibara, could you get me into Chute Boxe?”

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Ah, loveable Fedimar I’m… going to Chute Boxe!

“Could you get me into Chute Boxe?”

Though they were words I said somewhat in jest, I was led into a brand new world. August 18, 2005, I really did it, I started my trip to the Chute Boxe Academy in Curitiba, Brazil.

Brazil is as far from Japan as two countries can be. It takes roughly one day from liftoff to arrival. I hate big airplanes. Especially being forced for eternity to wear a seatbelt for international flights. This is close to torture for me. Making this kind of trip is a real pain in the ass, so I’d been refusing to go on any

he really is an amazing individual. He really understands the feelings of each fighter. Ah, loveable Fedimar! My mood just before heading to Brazil was

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But at some point, I’d started really liking Fedimar. As a coach, and as a person,

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overseas campaigns.

 

surely, “I’m coming to see you.”*. Maybe that example’s a bit old. To put my mental state at this time into an expression of inequality, it would be like this:

“I want to meet Fedimar” > “I don’t want to fly in an airplane”

If I can train under Fedimar, I can endure a long trip. I can wash off my stress and feel anew. I can get physically bigger. And I can take in new skills. There were a lot of things I wanted to do in Brazil. It was my first trip to the country, but rather than the element of uneasiness, my feeling of looking forward to it was the thing that was overwhelming.

I finished the press conference at Narita airport, leaving them with, “Because I don’t want to be here.” I boarded a flight for Sao Paulo by way of New York. At the stopover in New York, it was a spectacle that left me mesmerized. New York, a melting pot of all types of people. Tall people and short people. Fat people and skinny people. All the people lined up at immigration – their body types, the things they were wearing, their skin color, each person was different. I really had a feeling of there being all different types of humans mixed together and living on the surface of the earth. It was just like that one scene in Star Wars. You don’t see this kind of thing in Japan.

                                                             *

 an old Japanese reference lost on me, probably a pop song 

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Going from Sao Paulo to Curitiba I would take a tiny Airbus. Fedimar, who had

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Two or three hours later, I boarded the second plane heading to Sao Paulo.

 

come to pick me up at the airport, relieved the stress from the long trip with what he said.

“Please think of me as your Brazilian dad. If you ever have a problem, just call me.”

I was really taken in by Fedimar’s charm. Why have a bunch of talented young guys all gathered up around this guy, I started to understand a little.

I take my first steps into the Chute Boxe dojo. A bunch of guys are already there, having been called in for some training. The atmosphere and harmony really reminded me of our camaraderie in club activities in school. A feeling that they were not being forced to participate but were having fun while they were training.

I was paired with Daniel Acacio (26 at that time) for agility training. As I had also been in the hospital for awhile, I (36 at that time) didn’t really train all that much the first month. After such a layoff, it really wouldn’t be expected that I’d be eating from the same menu of physical strength training as the guys in their 20’s.

enough strength, he and I alone were doing real hard training. It was quite a rough welcome. I collapsed.

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pushing me, pushing me! While everyone around us was going light, just using

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And maybe it was my bad luck but this Daniel Acacio was hardcore, always

 

“Malandro!”

As I lie groveling on the mat, everyone around me was shouting that out. It seems “malandro” is Portuguese slang for a miscreant*. In Japanese, it is probably similar in nuance to the phrase “Onushi mo Waruyonou” that is heard in Samurai period films. I heard this word “malandro” a lot throughout my time at Chute Boxe. If you act in a manner showing even a bit of exhaustion, “malandro!”, in sparring if you feint too much, “malandro!”, in practice if you pull your hands away, “malandro!” To translate those, “Quit faking being tired,” “Stop trying to be clever,” “Train right.” Listed out like that, it seems a person could think of “malandro” as a word made just for me.

Of course, there was also sparring at the dojo. Chute Boxe has a number of coaches specialized in different fields, with like a striking day, a clinching day, an MMA day, etc. divided by what day of the week it is.

It is often referred to people as a Muay Thai gym. But the striking practice they do was clearly different from the striking in Thai kickboxing. It would be better to call it “striking for MMA” than “Muay Thai.”

                                                             *

 or bad apple, crook, filth, gangster, rascal, thug, etc. 

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time. Each time was with a completely different guy. What would the next guy

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In ground sparring, I got one submission, and then tapped out the rest of the

 

come with, you had no idea. And if you get too desperate, it was quite likely to get injured, too.

Most of my training was like I had come to Brazil to learn how to stop getting beat to a pulp. Going against all these guys allows you to steal their techniques. Breathe in their art. But if you just act as a mop for them to clean the floor with, they’ll think you’re a joke, so I went with getting one tap first. After that, it was completely back and forth exchange of offense and defense. I would take my partner’s techniques while learning groundwork, standup, and new skills.

The person that would make me groan in anguish on the ground was (Murilo) Ninja. He is known more for his striking than his BJJ game, but his ground technique was amazing. In sparring, he comes at you with an unending barrage of attacks. Impossible to stop his movement. He is strong and also has technique. I think maybe his win list in MMA is going to start including more matches decided on the ground.

“My Brazilian dad” Fedimar also really did a lot to coach me. He is always incredibly busy, but whenever at all he has the chance, he shows up at the dojo, holds the mitts himself for guys that have a fight coming up, etc. With this, his guys are always thinking “Coach brought me this far, so I want to have a good

understanding between the coach and the fighters.

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their might to meet his expectations. They really have a relation of

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finish in my fight.” Fedimar puts his faith in them and the fighters try with all

 

I felt no stress at all in Brazil, and was able to devote my attention 100% to training. I didn’t even hear the noises in the background. In the morning was technique training. Weight training started from 3, and hitting the mitts from 6:30. There was also swimming and cardio. The last time I could remember being able to devote myself this much to training was when I was living in a dorm with the other wrestlers on my college team.

My weight also increased well. I wasn’t sure whether Brazilian food would suit me or not so I brought two cardboard boxes from Japan of freeze-dried curry, sugar rice and drink-type “balance meal” meal replacements with me. But it was all for nothing.

Brazilian food caught my tongue and wouldn’t let it go. About four times a week I would eat churrasco. I would wake up and slam two or three bottles of meal replacement. Then have a regular meal for lunch after the morning training was finished. And about two or three hours after that, another liquid meal. After weight training, I’d go back to the hotel and eat curry. And when evening training was done, beer or wine. All the activity my stomach was forced to do let me stuff in more and more churrasco. Finally, right before sleep, I would have three or four more “balance meal.”

was being stored around my stomach. Lying on the ground, it was hard to get up. My stomach would get in the way, and I couldn’t hit the armbar from the

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body had started growing. Or I should say, I got fat. My face was chubby. Fat

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If I was awake, there was never a moment where my stomach was empty. My

 

bottom anymore.

I could really see that as I gained in size, my movement got sluggish. If I’m going to fight at 93 kg (205 lbs), I should walk around at 95 or 96 (209 or 211 lbs). I didn’t get as far as the “d” in diet before I was shoving more churrasco in my mouth. When I’d gotten on the plane to Brazil, I was 88 kg (194 lbs) and

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by September 28 when I returned home, I was up to 93 (205).

 

Um-um-dois Birth of my new style!

While I was racking up training in Brazil, my next match had been decided. PRIDE 30, October 23. My opponent – “legendary fighter” Ken Shamrock. Around the time when I had just entered U-Inter, he was already battling the top guys in Pancrase and the UFC.

“Shamrock, he’s Guy Mezger’s teacher right. Maybe it’s gonna be another boring fight.”

My depressed mood disappeared through training. Just about everything about training with Chute Boxe feels fresh, and every day brings new motivation.

I also received a lot of advice on striking from Fedimar. According to him, for

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sparring partner.

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There are so many resident fighters and you’re never at a loss to find a

 

striking in MMA, it’s enough to have a good jab with a one-two or a one-one-two. One-one-two. In Portuguese, it’s um-um-dois. I also adopted my fighting stance to the style Fedimar recommended.

“OK, Sakuraba. From this stance, um-um-dois. This is your new style!”

And in reverse, I started teaching some ground stuff to the Chute Boxe guys. A mutual, positive exchange of techniques that work. From here, my change to Fedimar’s “new style” might just reach perfection. In the middle of a world so different from that of Japan, I was able to spend my time wisely and make significant progress.

My return home was September 28. I ended up staying in Brazil for about five weeks. This was the first time since having children that I’d spent such a long time away from home. The one thing I felt bad about going to Brazil for was my children. My youngest son is still just one year old. He must have been missing his dear dad.

“I’m home! It’s Papa!”

Returning home after such a long while away, I said that, looking at Kami and

“Hey, it’s Papa! Come’ere!”

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weren’t just running to jump into my arms.

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the kids who were hugging each other. But, they were bashful and somehow

 

My son wouldn’t look up to meet the eyes of his parents, just looking down embarrassedly. When kids meet someone they haven’t seen in a long time, they tend to get embarrassed or to brighten up. I could read my son’s mind.

“I’ve seen this old guy somewhere before but who was he?”

I’d let them completely forget my existence.

The day before the event, October 22, for the first time since I’d ever stepped into the PRIDE ring, I skipped breakfast, hoping to make weight. I was even heavier than in my third fight against Silva, 92.4 kg (203.7 lbs). I had received a straight and simple Portuguese word of advice from Fedimar, “Porrada!”

The day of the fight, Fedimar and the coach Rafael Cordeiro accompanied me. To make an impression on the audience that I was a part of Chute Boxe, I prepared my entrance gag. I went to Tokyu Hands and bought a bald wig and drew Silva’s head tattoo on it with magic marker, the plan being to put that on my head, put my hands together and stretch and wiggle my wrists the way he always does.

Then, the fight. There was a “star aura” emanating from the entire body of

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the image and color of Chute Boxe. There was no need to go too far with props.

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But with Fedimar and Rafael right next to me, that could have a bad effect on

 

Shamrock. There he was, Ken Shamrock, built up from Pancrase and the UFC. Wow, he looks cool! I couldn’t help but feel my heartbeat rise.

“Whoa, it’s the real Ken Shamrock!”

However, the opening bell forcedly tugged me back to reality. Shamrock kept his distance from me, not really making any forward moves. No overextending, just waiting for his opponent to move. The flying knee I’d just learned in Brazil, even if I decided to launch it, with this kind of distance between us, there’s no way it would meet its mark.

Fedimar is right next to me. Ninja and Shogun and some other Chute Boxe guys are also watching us from ringside. For those guys that had given me so much support, I really wanted to represent Chute Boxe and show my techniques to the utmost in this fight.

With my opponent hiding inside the safety zone, there was nothing I could do but leap in. Um-um-dois, um-um-dois. I smacked Shamrock’s left hand with my right. I directly followed that with my left straight. I could feel in my fist that unique feeling that comes from hitting another person.

um-um-dois, um-um-dois.

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focused either. I chased my opponent’s failing body, following my rhythm,

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I could see that Shamrock was losing some of his energy. His eyes weren’t

 

Suddenly the referee jumped into my field of vision. As I swam in a flood of cheers, I made my way back to my corner. My dad Fedimar met me there with an expression like he was hugging his just-born son. I looked at his smiling face and felt tears well up.

“Daaad! I won!!”

Ninja, Shogun and the other Chute Boxe fighters picked me up, as uplifted and excited by this victory as I was. This is my new family. You guys, you are all my

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important friends.

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You can see that unlike any other gym, the Chute Boxe dojo is firmly held together by a tight bond. There is no room at all for jealousy or bad blood. I heard someone on Brazilian television say something about that. You can train in a really positive way with a lot of guys at Chute Boxe. You can share in rejoicing together with a lot of guys at Chute Boxe. A lot of thoughts rose up from inside my chest. While hugging Fedimar, I thought all of this, that it was really good that I was able to meet the people at Chute Boxe, from the bottom of my heart.

In the ring, the scene was painted with a mood of celebration. In that air like a splash of water came Shamrock to complain to me about something. It seems he was saying he wasn’t knocked out. The ref stopped it too early.

As my left straight went through his face, his power switch definitely turned off. The thing is, as I continued hitting him, the second or maybe third punch woke him back up. I knew he was sleepy, and the ring is no place for that, so I used my punches to tap and wake up the sleepy Shamrock. Usually when an opponent comes to me with something like this, I just try to be respectful and accept it.

Shamrock felt okay at that (did he?) and left the ring.

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“One more? Okay!”

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“Okay, let’s fight again. One more!”

 

November 17, preparing for New Year’s Eve, I flew once again to Chute Boxe in Brazil. I learned the dangerous art of opening the opponent’s guard with my hands and dropping bombs from the top. Maybe it’s something like slapping hands in front of your opponent's face to confuse him in sumo*. Malandro. When I entered the dojo, everyone looked at me pointing and yelled this.

*

 this is called Nekodamashi in Japanese, “the cat’s trick.” Sakuraba later used press

conference and entrance gags with him as a cat with this Japanese phrase written on his body 

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“Malandro!”

 

Conclusion at the end of continuous troubles I’m going to HERO’S!

A phenomenon that completely goes without saying, they were floating a match between myself and Tamura in 2005, and for the New Year’s Eve event, one more person, Minowa** (Ikuhisa), was decided to be my matchup. At that time, I would’ve never thought that this would turn out to be my last fight in PRIDE.

Minowa is one of the fighters I like. At his entrance, the way he can energize the place is amazing. Just with his appearance, the crowd shrouds him with feelings of expectation, he has a really strange power. And he has the heart of a pro-wrestler. He’s a fighter I hope continues more and more into the future.

                                                             **

 he uses the suffix –kun, implying a friendly relationship 

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came to my house. Actually, I also received a phone call from him directly after

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The fight is over, it’s 2006. Right at the start of the new year, FEG’s Tanikawa

 

the Arona fight. It wasn’t me that answered though, it was Kami. He said something like “it’s been awhile since we’ve had dinner together…” I told Kami to tell him, “if it’s just dinner or something like that, anytime is fine.” This was just about when it turned to the new year, 2006, in Brazil.

It’s actually been a number of years since I have met Tanikawa. That time, I was still a Takada Dojo fighter and my contract was until the end of March. He didn’t bring up anything about it, you quitting Takada Dojo? You going someplace else? Or any such best-left-alone topic. We just exchanged some light talk and split.

I had already decided not to renew my contract with Takada Dojo around June of the year before that. On April 1, 2006, I legally became a free agent. Besides me, there were a lot of other free-agent Japanese fighters competing in PRIDE. At first, I looked into, not through Takada Dojo but as a free agent, how to continue in PRIDE.

There was no idea in my head at all about choosing HERO’S. There were a ton of talks between myself and Sakakibara.

But, it was not so possible for me to change the situation surrounding me even

matter what I did, I couldn’t break off ties with some things in my past that I needed to break free from.

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make a compromise because of problems on the financial front or anything. No

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if I can change the environment by being a free agent. It wasn’t that I had to

 

I love PRIDE. Even now, this feeling hasn’t changed. That I was able to go out and make it in the world is all thanks to PRIDE. I really feel grateful, and I held nothing against PRIDE that would make me leave.

On the other hand, day after day I received “love calls” from Tanikawa. Gradually, my feelings started to sway. I was worried. It was difficult, painful, painful. PRIDE and HERO’S are arch-rivals. If I talk to the PRIDE people, they say, “Stay with PRIDE.” If I talk to the HERO’S people, they say, “Come to HERO’S.”

I couldn’t see which way I should go, what the right move was. Should I stay or should I go? I asked a lawyer I know for his opinion. He wasn’t so up on MMA. He was something like the most neutral of people around me. What he told me in his somewhat objective position was “You should go to HERO’S.”

The lawyer’s simple and decisive words released me from the maze of my own thoughts. The next day, we went together to tell Sakakibara about the conclusion we’d derived. Sakakibara quickly gave us a surprised “Huh!?” expression on his face. Something had ended, and something else had begun. This all happened the day before my first appearance in HERO’S on May 3

would like for me to come to Yoyogi the very next day to greet the audience.

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From the HERO’S side, Tanikawa said that if I had made the big decision, he

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standing in the Yoyogi ring.

 

Somehow feeling humble and embarrassed to go out to the public like that, I made a plan to wear a mask. That said, there was no time to order one, so I had to go with one of the Tiger Mask masks I already had. And Tanikawa, he had no problem at all with the mask. And with that, my plan proceeded for seeing the HERO’S mat for the first time.

Only a small group of people even knew I was going to enter the ring. Figuring my appearance could cause a complete change in the atmosphere of the event, I asked that the fighters that would compete after me be told in advance about the whole thing. Only the referee, Wada (Ryougaku), was kept in the dark.

“When I go to the ring, make sure Wada is made to sit ringside. Please, just make sure this happens.”

I don’t know anyone that deserves this kind of thing, screwing around, more than him. His reactions are always funny, as I’ve been messing around with him since he was working as a referee in U-Inter. If I were to just get up into the HERO’S ring without a hint or warning, what kind of reaction would he have? I think this would be the biggest surprise I’d played on him yet.

May 3, I bury my head very deeply in the parka hood, throw on sunglasses, and

who is going to call me to the ring. Barely meeting a soul, I slip backstage.

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myself in the locker room. I don’t even get together to plan with Maeda (Akira)

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sneak into the event hall. Avoiding people’s eyes, I move quickly and hide

 

The same day, an ominous announcement resounds through the hall, “What is this about Silva coming?” This rumor too added excellent cover for me.

After a little while, I put on the mask and head to the entrance gate. There, Uno (Caol) was doing a bit of prep for his match. Ah, hi.

“Let me introduce you to the warrior of warriors.”

These words from Maeda were my sign to head to the ring. “The warrior of warriors” from “the man inside man.”* Should I say that this raised things up… Maybe it was because I was wearing the mask, but as I jumped through the entrance gate, I couldn’t feel any response from the audience.

Straddling the ropes, I immediately looked for Wada. There, there! The reaction I’d been hoping for. His gaping mouth told the story of his shock. I don’t know if it was because he was so surprised, but if you looked closely at his shaved head, right in the center, one hair sprouted straight up. I stifled my laughing while playing around a bit with the ring announcer. After that, we broke up with a wild dash. Like a car squealing its tires, we left the event hall

*

 alternatively: “man among men,” but this is less close to what he said 

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behind us as if we were being chased.

 

For a few days after, I don’t remember whose idea this was, but I vanished from Japan. The day after the event, we explained the gist of things at the press conference, but after that, I was on the lam away from the country until

My destination, Guam, Los Angeles, and Brazil. First, I spent two weeks in

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time like this would really suck.

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the heat dies down. Getting busted by the mass communications people at a

 

Guam. There was no direct flight from Guam to LA so I temporarily returned to Japan and took off for LA the next day. I just waited there, besides going to see the UFC that Royce was fighting in.

In my 5th floor hotel room, I accidentally spilled water on my pants. Cold! While Kami remonstrated me like a child that had done something bad, she took the soaked pants out onto the balcony to dry.

“That makes me think, where did I put my cellphone?”

A few minutes later, I realized that I had been keeping the cellphone in my pocket. But no matter how much I groped around in the pocket, no cellphone would come out. It didn’t fall on the floor either. Kami called a security guard and soon a big search was underway. What was found, after it had fallen from the 5th floor, was the body of something, something that was no longer a cellphone.

My cellphone had really been in my pocket. When the pants dried, it fell far, far, to the ground below. The shock when it hit sent pulverized pieces scattering.

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Ugh.

 

Kazushi Sakuraba’s Unwritten Story [Interview]

Interviewer: Kazumasa Fujimoto [KF]

KF: At Chute Boxe, Fedimar is really cut out for giving guidance to pros, too,

depending on whether he is there or not. There were always days when I didn’t

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KS: The atmosphere around me in my training in Japan completely changes

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isn’t he…

 

feel the usually nervous tension I always feel, and those were exactly the times when Fedimar was in Japan. And then when he would go back to Brazil, the air in the dojo would tighten back up again.

KF: Nowadays, you don’t have a school club activities leader…

KS: Yeah, like that (laughing).

KF: Is he strict in training?

KS: After training, all the fighters would gather together in a circle and then Fedimar would say something. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but later on Takahashi said to me, “he was really mad today.” After all, he does get mad. Something like, if a fighter trains right, he will win, but if he doesn’t train right, he can’t fight. He also really praises the fighters. Like “good punch” and so on. He’s really good at that.

KF: Knowing when to use candy and when to use the whip

KS: Yeah. Usually, he treats everyone nicely, he has warmth. Like, after the

KS: All the guys at Chute Boxe, even though I had been their enemy up until

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KF: That’s nice to hear.

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Arona fight, when I went to Chute Boxe, Fedimar asked after my feelings.

 

now, they all welcome me. The first time I went to the academy, they all greeted me with applause. And after training, they would invite me saying things like, “Come on, let’s all go out and eat together!” They’re really good guys.

KF: When he was mad, what was it about?

KS: The first time I saw him mad, he said something like, “You guys are all Chute Boxe guys, so work well together and stop fighting.” I thought to myself, “But the one fighting the most wasn’t Fedimar?” (bitter smile) Because he did things properly when he was younger, so he can teach the younger guys. Fedimar has a young son now. It seems his kid got a baseball bat as a present. He swung the bat at the TV and broke it. In the car, Fedimar had the bat with him, and when I asked him, “what is this, for self-defense?” he said, “My son destroyed the TV with it, it’s dangerous so I can’t leave it at the house.”

KF: He seems like an energetic child

KS: The first time I met him, he was really shy. He had a toy figure of me. He has a lot of figures of fighters in his house, so when Fedimar said, “here’s the

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real Sakuraba,” he got really embarrassed.

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Chapter Three – “Anger”

No more shoot!? From my HERO’S debut to the development of problems

The concrete itinerary for my participation was decided around the middle of May. It was also decided that the stage for my HERO'S debut would be the August 5 Ariake Coliseum event. The match would be in a tournament to decide the light heavyweight champion. Uh, tournament!?

"Uhm, didn't I tell you I don't like tournaments?"

Tanikawa moved as slippery as an eel through my attacks, finally going for the pin. In the end I was seduced and got flipped, and I was pushed into the

magic."

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given the old NWA champion a run for his money. It's what they call "Tanikawa

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brackets of the tournament. Tanikawa's negotiation technique would have

 

Not exactly in exchange for that, but I was able to put forth a few ideas on the format for the matches. In normal HERO'S bouts, the format is two rounds of five minutes each and a single extra round. To take the opponent down, get position, and work for a submission all within such a short time limit verges on the impossible. With these five-minuters, a heavy punching striker has an absolute advantage. I could tell him that for a grappler, the rules were extremely harsh.

They listened to me, and the bout format they chose to use, for the light heavyweight tournament only, would be an irregular one with a 10 minute first round, and the second and third rounds would be 5 minutes apiece. The weight limit for the HERO'S light heavyweight tournament would be 85 kg (187). For me, this is a really easy class to fight in. The rules included no kicks to a person on all fours, slightly different from PRIDE rules but not enough to bother me. I was told that my fight wouldn't be the main event either. Like this, I will be able to show the audience a fight with the emphasis on fighting.

My opponent was Kestutis Smirnovas. With a name so long you think you'll end biting your tongue when you say it, and get this, his nickname is "The Lithuanian Nobuhiko Takada." His entrance theme is a training montage just like Takada's. I see, it's going to be like this. For me who just quit Takada Dojo

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“And of course, you’ll change his entrance song for the fight with me?”

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to end up with an opponent like this, Tanikawa is also malandro.

 

“No, it won’t be changed.”

“Uhm, can’t you take it a little easy on me just with that?”

“It’s the song he uses every time, he says that’s the way he wants to make his entrance.”

“……”

Well, if my opponent wants it that bad, what can ya do. I reluctantly agreed to letting Smirnovas use it. As this is my debut fight in HERO’S, they’ve made the entrance order so that I go in first, then Smirnovas. I’m nothing more than a newcomer in HERO’S.

And with that, everything was set. From here, it’s just stepping into the ring, but then an explosion of Tanikawa magic. As the day of the event got within range, Tanikawa started asking me about fighting in the main event. Of course, I refused.

“Because I really don’t want to do it”

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“……”

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“Can’t you… I’m begging on my life!”

 

I’m a sucker when it comes to being pushed like this. Being begged like “I’m begging on my life!” – there’s no way I can turn it down. Tanikawa, he has skills, doesn’t he. If I were a woman, maybe I would’ve been spending many a night with him. Iyaan!*

I got to the event and was waiting in the locker room when Yamamoto (Yoshihisa) came in from behind muttering, “What the hell’s this? It’s a complete class reunion.” I was there, Minoru Toyonaga was there, Wataru Takahashi was there. It really was, everyone here was an original member of the Takada Dojo.

Originally, Yamamoto and I had separate locker rooms. But with a crowd of people talking like this, you can really relax. We took it upon ourselves to bring the name board from Yamamoto’s room and put it in front of mine. We turned the place into an instant class reunion meeting hall.

While it was my HERO’S debut, I wasn’t really nervous. My mental state, the same as always. I just have to show the techniques I’ve been polishing up in training. At the crucial moment when I entered the ring, hearing Smirnovas’ entrance song, I didn’t feel any mixed feelings that might’ve raised my

                                                             *

 a feminine cat sound of submissive refusal 

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Only, when I really looked out at where I was standing, I could tell that the

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temperature.

 

HERO’S ring was a bit more cramped when compared to PRIDE. This means that a guy going for a takedown will immediately end up by the ropes. It’ll interfere with the back and forth of the match, too. The area of the ring makes me think twice and I wonder if it’s going to become a topic of debate in the future.

I don’t really remember much of the fight. For some reason, what stands out to me in my memory is eating a good punch and that my opponent had really strong hips. Shooting in, even getting right into the pocket, Smirnovas would refuse the takedown with ease.

It was established later that the strength of his hips was that this Smirnovas had used a trick. A rare experience. The next day, after having guzzled some liquor, I saw an unknown name in the list of people that called me on my cellphone.

It bugged me, so I called my friend that I’d gone drinking with the previous night and he said, “The call came when you were drunk last night. You don’t remember?” Hearing this, I somewhat remembered talking to someone on my cellphone. I think I was insisting, “Come here now and let’s drink.” Ah, it’s coming to me… I’d been attacked by the exact same feeling the day after my

depths of my brain. I predicted that, “From the start, he’ll come at me,” but

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My corner’s evidence and the videotape fished my memory from the bottom

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fight with Smirnovas.

 

Smirnovas just wouldn’t leave the safety zone. And if I moved forward, I’d eat a snappy punch to the face from him. When my head had left the arena, the ref jumped between us to stop it.

“Hey why did you stop it!?”

Thinking it was a referee stop, I was up in the referee’s face in an instant complaining. I might’ve dropped but I was instantly back and aware.

After, “don’t move,” the match continued. Knowing I had to go for the takedown, I went for Smirnovas’ legs. Here, Smirnovas fully demonstrated his robo-hip power. No matter how I off-balanced him, he wouldn’t go down.

“Whoa, this guy has strong hips! What should I do…”

After checking this part on video later, it turned out it was nothing. He was simply grabbing the ropes. If I get him a little off balance, the ropes. If he feels like he’s going to fall, the ropes. On and on, the same thing over and over. Not knowing the big picture, I kept obediently shooting over and over like an idiot.

In the end, tired from fighting, Smirnovas kindly fell flat. I heard my corner

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“Hm, going for an armbar would be better here than striking wouldn’t it?”

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yelling, “Hit him! Hit him!”

 

I went very carefully to stretch out his arm. The submission win, my superb love. I did it! And just as the fight ended, they thrust a microphone at me. The thing is, maybe from being hit in the head a lot, I couldn’t think at all of what to say. There was nothing I could do but ask my corner, Minoru Toyonaga, for advice.

“Yo, Minoru, what should I say?”

but I’ll work hard from here on so please be rooting for me.”

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“Hello. Nice to meet you, I’m Sakuraba. Why am I here? I only half-remember,

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“How about ‘Nice to meet you’?”

 

After such a really newcomer greeting to the audience, it was time for my usual course, hospital, hospitalization. After this fight, the one thing I viewed with suspicion was the ref’s timing in stopping the match. It’s true that I got hit in the face a lot and even ate one strong enough that I lost consciousness for a moment. And there was even a comment in an MMA magazine article that the fight should’ve been stopped at the moment that it appeared I’d gone out.

“Hey, Minoru! Are you trying to get Saku killed!?”

A few days later, Shimo came into my hospital room screaming. It seems he still hadn’t yet seen my fight with Smirnovas. I rewatched the match on video with him. Losing conscious, hospitalization, it’s always the same. The swelling in my face receded beautifully the second day.

I was moving while getting hit, not pressed up and lit up. I was listening attentatively to both the referee and my corner. Inspecting the video from a kind of third-person perspective, it seemed to me that that wasn’t a point where a match should be stopped. After watching the video, Shimo agreed, saying, “Eh, you don’t stop it there.”

it will always be in an analog world. People are judging people, so no matter what we do, the timing will always end up scattered across the graph.

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for every match and there is a lot of divergence. No matter where MMA goes,

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However, and this is a difficult point but the timing of referee stops is different

 

The October 9 Yokohama Arena event, I’m not participating. Tokimitsu Ishizawa, who I’ve known of since I was an amateur, lost his match against Carlos Newton due to a referee stop. Ishizawa, having eaten an uppercut from Newton and looking like he was on the ropes, fell to the mat. But he immediately regained consciousness and shot on Newton’s legs. The match was stopped here, with Newton winning by TKO.

This was probably stopped too quickly. Ishizawa and his cornerman Takahashi (Yoshiki) fiercely contested the stoppage. After the bout, there was a meeting in the locker room that went something like this.

“Is it because of the way Sakuraba’s match went in Ariake that ref stops have gotten quicker?”

“Well, we could I guess say it is Sakuraba’s fault…”

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And they reached agreement on that…… Am I a plague on HERO’S!?

 

Into the semifinals – an unavoidable absence And my NYE opponent has been decided

I don’t remember much of the details of what transpired around this time. My anger at the situation remains uncontrolled and probably chased my memory off away somewhere.

As I left the hospital, it was being announced that my opponent in the tournament semifinals could be “him.” There was a full roster of Japanese fighters in HERO’S. I had always had a vague idea from the start, “sometime, I’ll have to go up against a Japanese fighter,” but that situation called upon me much sooner than I’d thought.

In the end of September, I was hit with horrible vomiting and dizziness during

simple terms, it’s a condition where a fine bone in the neck puts pressure on an artery causing insufficient bloodflow that makes a lack of oxygen in the brain

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vertebrobasilar artery bloodflow insufficiency.” To explain such a name in

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training and was taken to the hospital. My illness was called, “Possible

 

causing dizziness and fainting.

A buildup of damage over many years was the cause. From my high school years onward, my neck had always been bad. In wrestling, you would get thrown by the neck, landing headfirst into the mat. And if you absorb that kind of shock again and again, sooner or later your neck is going to bite the dust. It’s like eating a piledriver over and over for days, to give an easy to understand example.

As well, in sparring, whether it’s a rear naked choke or a neck crank, you’re always having moves that put stress on the neck done on you. It’s almost kind of inevitable that you’d have problems. Like that, a bunch of little things piled up and built momentum until it exploded.

After the Smirnovas match, at the hospital a doctor said to me, “Please keep a good watch on your condition before you start training again.” But being bored and having nothing to do except train, I started sparring again right as September hit. Doctors’ advice and cold sake both work better later.

Strictly speaking, I hadn’t actually been diagnosed with vertebrobasilar artery bloodflow insufficiency, but there was a high possibility that I had it. Taking

Even now, I’m no good at TV commentary. I could give a number of answers to

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it live in one of the TV seats.

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that seriously, I didn’t fight in the October 9 Yokohama Arena event. I watched

 

a technical question like, “From this position, which person has the advantage?” But I have no answer to something like, “What is the mental state now of this fighter?” Only that fighter knows. I’m a pro-wrestler, not someone with ESP that can reads what’s inside other people’s minds!

On top of that, the arena is so muggy, and I’m in a tuxedo, causing me to sweat so much that my handkerchief fails to mop it up. I don’t think there is any way that I could come to like commentating.

Smirnovas was put back into the tournament in place of me. The brackets put Smirnovas against “him,” and Oyama (Shungo) against Melvin Manhoef. My prediction was that “power fighter” Manhoef would take the tournament. Skill-wise, I would have to say that his are still being formed, but you really have to be careful against the physical ability and power of black athletes.

But in the final, Manhoef committed an egregious error. He had gotten his arm trapped up and just decided to lift his opponent and slam him to the mat. And in an instant he was tapping from the armbar. It’s just like when I fought Randleman. It’s such a waste. If he hadn’t gone for the slam, he might’ve had a chance.

me in the TV seat.

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tournament champion seat, gleaming? “Him.” He called down from the ring to

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The champion was decided, and who was it sitting in the light heavyweight

 

“Sakuraba, please have a full recovery. I’m waiting for you on New Year’s Eve.”

To tell the truth, I thought to myself, “Why don’t you give it a rest.” Can’t you just be happy with winning? What’s the point in raising my name at this point.

Only, I had already dropped off of one card, and in my mind there was a feeling of, “who’s my opponent for New Year’s Eve going to be.” And then Tanikawa

I attended the October 23 press conference in Osaka. "Dynamite!! 2006" was

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there’s no one but him.” As for a reason to refuse, I was unable to find one.

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came to me after the match and put it to me, “For your fight on New Year’s Eve,

 

announced there and the “me vs. ’him’" bout was made official. I immediately returned to training. The training consisted of sparring four times a week and weight training two times a week. Sparring was Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and weight training was on Wednesday and Saturday. After a training session I would go to the hospital for electric muscle stimulation or go to get a massage. I wasn't vomiting or feeling any dizziness this time, and as far as conditioning goes, I was progressing relatively well. "I've heard he's slippery." I came to hear this kind of rumor but I didn't really give heed to it. That after their fight, Manhoef complained that he was slippery. That in his judo years, the same claim was made and he was forced to change his judo-gi whereupon he immediately lost by ippon. I caught wind of things like that, too. The HERO'S rules clearly lay out that you can't apply or affix a number of items to your body (oil, vaseline, topical pain relievers, massage oils and creams, gripping material on the soles of feet/shoes, etc.) from the weigh-ins before the fight all the way up until after the match is over. The day of the event, hair gel as well is not allowed. This is common knowledge for anyone involved in MMA. This far into the game, there's no need to recheck

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meeting.

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the rules, right. He also signed off on the acceptance sheet at the rules

 

The bout is happening at the New Year's Eve event. This ultimate NYE battle is being broadcast live throughout the entire nation in the same time slot as "Kouhaku Uta Gassen." For FEG, and for the world of MMA, this is the most important event of the year. Not to mention that he's the HERO'S champion. That he would openly foul in such an important event is something I couldn't even imagine. As an event with people all throughout Japan watching, there's no way he should break the

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rules, as long as he's a pro.

 

Mystery case, opened The puzzle of the disappearing right leg

Two days before the event, December 29, we settled in Osaka. Before the event starts, we slowly make our way through a diet of checking my entrance music, having interviews for TBS and the HERO'S official site, holding meetings, photo sessions, etc. At the press conference it's made clear for the first time that my fight will be the main event. "Of course!!"

Tanikawa previously, "because I don't want to fight in the main event..." He hadn't heard a word. I was half beginning to give up. And at the crucial

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press conference the day before the event. I had already given my notice to

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The order of the fights this year wasn't told to any media even up until the

 

moment, I open the box, and of course I really am in the main event. Tanikawa magic has gone too far! I use all of the remaining time to go back to the hotel and play videogames. The day of the event, I'm to board a shuttle bus with other athletes to move to the arena, arriving there just before 12. The opening is at 3. My fight won't start for a whole bunch of hours. Each fighter was given his own time to do a ring check. I just think it's a pain in the ass, so I haven't done any ring checks ever since I was fighting in PRIDE. That way, even if I show up at the event right before my fight starts, there's no problem eh heh. I digress, but against my better judgment up until now, I've been using a store-bought boil-and-bite mouthpiece in all my training and in all my fights. A pro fighter usually has a dentist make one, and uses that as his own custom mouthpiece. I think it's a pain to go to the dentist, so I've been using a boil-and-bite continuously. "If you're going to do something, go all the way" is my doctrine. "It'll be fine if I show up at 1:30, right. So, I'll go later by taxi." I can be a little selfish here and nothing will happen (something did happen though......).

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been warned in advance against doing this, I can’t be late.

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I skip the shuttle bus, waste some time, and head there by taxi. But as I had

 

Looking back on it now, it was truly a day of rage. After the event opened, bout 0 started, with Kaneko (Ken), who I'd been training with. In the opening moments, Kaneko had gotten his way into mount position against his opponent, Andy Ologun. Watching the fight on the monitor in the locker room, I had confidence in Kaneko winning. But at this point, Andy was just holding on from the bottom, causing the match to stall. The referee ordered them to break, and the match resumed from standing. Bam...... For a grappler, working from after you get a good position is where the match is won or lost. His fight actually starts once he gets there. So, what is it where a guy can just hold tight, hugging from the bottom, forcing a restart on the feet, and he doesn't even get a yellow card? Shaking with anger, my shouting echoed through the room. "This is fucked up! Why are they standing them up from here!? Why didn't they give a yellow card to the stalling fighter!?" A Gracie manager came into the room. I'm also a member of the Gracie family (Renzo told me). So I think if I tell him my story, he'll understand. "Hey, you think it's screwed up, right!"

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"Ah......"

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"We've been dealing with that crap for years!"

 

With those deep words, my anger helplessly defused itself. This day, Shimo also came along with my corner. He's come along with us so many times, but this is the first time we will be going together to the ring. And we'll look the same. Both wearing a Tiger Mask mask, an orange gi, and fingerless gloves. L-size gloves. I don't wrap my hands, so this size fits perfectly. For Shimo, who's a pitcher, he has really wide palms so I prepared XL's for him, but there was way too much space, so we changed to L for him as well. Heading to the ring, it'll be me first, then "him." I was told by the people at TBS broadcasting the event, "Sakuraba, enter after him," but I firmly rejected it. This is only my second fight in HERO'S, and the guy I'm fighting is the champion. The person in the position of a challenger is me. Right before heading to the ring, Shimo stepped onto the elevator below the stage humming a song to himself that I thought I'd heard somewhere before. Eh, that phrase, could it be!? "Yo, Shimo, today it's "Dynamite!!" Not that song!" "But it's something like 'Dun, Dun, Dudun' right?"

But this light-hearted atmosphere didn't last for long. For Shimo, this is his first

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he can't stop cracking up. We look at each other and both burst out laughing.

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I have to say, Shimo is a really funny guy. We're about to head to the stage and

 

experience of walking the ramp through the audience to the stage. He began fidgeting like a kid trying to hold in his pee. "Saku, what should I do!?" "Just look straight ahead and stand there, okay." "Shit! Damn. I'm so nervous." "Any second this elevator is going to start lifting us up, so please just look forward and walk." "What about the mask!" "We're going to take them off and throw them into the audience. When it's time to do that, I'll say so. Listen, the song started."

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"Whoa, I'm freaking out. What the hell!"

 

But when the elevator started to move, the twitchy shaking that had controlled his body instantly stopped. A pro, after all. Where did all his flustering go. He showed no signs of nervousness, making his way down the long, long ramp. "I know what it feels like now for a fighter to head to the ring. They have to really focus, coming out through all the people." Shimo expressed these impressions as we arrived at the ring. Right? Let's go to

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Dun, Dudun."

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the ring together sometime soon again. But next time, without any of this "Dun,

 

Finally, at my first New Year's Eve HERO'S event. I went to face “him” in the same state of mind I'm always in. There was nothing in my head about the rumors from his judo era or anything. What was in there was, and it goes without saying standing in an MMA ring, just nervousness. Royce (Gracie) gave flower bouquets to me and "him." Royce quietly said to me, "Porrada!" (Beat his ass. Kill 'em.) I replied, "Muito, muito" (I'm gonna go at 'em). And then, ... the bell rang. Bit by bit, closing the distance on him, I was using the double knee technique I'd learned at Chute Boxe, beng beng. Even if I do say so myself, it made a good impression*. At the press conference the next day, he said that he had a broken bone in the right side of his chest, and I can't think of any other way that could've happened than with my double knees. Maybe, definitely, it must be! I want to believe! I had just a little smidgen of confidence in my striking. Timing it off a punch, I shot in. He managed it showing some agility and I wasn't able to get control over the lower half of his body. After the double knee, I shoot for the second takedown. This timing was right in the groove and I was able to grab a real hold of his heel with my right hand. This was the first time in the match that I touched his body. His supposedly trapped right leg, in the next instant, disappeared somewhere.

 he makes a Japanese pun, where usually the Japanese character meaning "hand" is used in

the word for "response." as in his knees creating a good response. He replaces “hand” with "leg." 

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*

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He's so slippery! “I can't fight like this.” "Whaaat?" "What's this?" "Did he just slip out?" "He's slimy!?" Many doubts filled my mind. Question marks were floating around my head. I felt my fighting spirit waning. My ability to focus was off. The fight had just started. Neither of us had been moving so much as to cause a lot of sweat. And does sweat cause this much slipperiness?

this point I don't want to believe and can’t believe that this champion would so

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credibility to the rumors I had heard about his earlier Judo days. However, at

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It left a strange feeling in my hand, like after having grabbed an eel, adding

 

overtly break the rules in such a major event. Did he really lube his body with something he wasn't supposed to? There’s no way! So what just happened a few seconds ago, really? He was definitely slippery. He was absolutely slippery. What the, what the, what the...... With my thoughts all messed up, I threw a low kick. The kick hit his groin. "Um, he's slippery." While waiting for him to regain composure, I started speaking to the judge at ringside. But my way of phrasing it was bad. I should've stated it more clearly, "Please check his body." If I had used a word other than "slippery," and expressed the situation better, it would've led to a different result perhaps. This is one point of reflection for this fight. The fight was immediately resumed. Low kicks were his main attack. And so, to bring it to the ground, I have to set up the shoot. While he may be slippery, I had no choice but to adapt my style to try to win. I shot in on him again. He was moving forward on the offense, so I was able to get in really deep and hook his leg. It happened in a single move and gave me full confidence in getting a takedown. I cinched his left leg with both arms. However, again leaving the same strange feeling on my hands and arms, the

"He's got something on him!"

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"I knew it, he's slippery!"

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leg disappeared. I was really certain.

 

The question marks in my head turned into exclamation points. My will to fight vanished entirely. This was no longer a fight. I really need the referee to stop it. My opponent needs to have his body checked. There was still some space between us. "Time! Time!" Even going for a shot in on him again, he would have nothing of it, “he” who could boast of having such a special feel to his skin. His punches pushed me into the ropes. "He's slippery!" "That’s illegal!" "Check him!" During the rain of punches coming down, I appealed to the judge. Focusing all my energies on trying to tell them the truth of what was happening, I had no

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room to think about how to counterattack.

 

But if I could just grab his arms or legs, then I could somehow affect his balance but, unfortunately my head was on top of the bottom rope. The rope was in the way, and I couldn't move my body at all. I don't know if the referee was aware of this or not but he persistently said "Action." Though I'm not Shirou Koshinaka, I wanted to yell "I can't move!" "Action!"

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"Move! Move!"

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"No, it ain't action!"

 

"I can't move!" "I'll stop it!" Anyway, the fight was stopped because I didn't move. To avoid a referee stop, I acted like I was setting up an armbar. Of course slipping I couldn't do a thing. I tried hugging his leg, but as predicted it slipped, too. What am I supposed to do!? "He's slippery!" "Where?" "His entire body!" Because I was riled up, I don't remember this exchange clearly. Just after the bell rang, it seems I and the judge had an exchange something like this. But is ten minutes really this short? Didn't the first round end a bit too soon? "It's a TKO," my cornerman Takahashi (Wataru) came to inform me. His punches had not yet inflicted any critical damage. "The 103rd hit, 104th hit, 105th hit..., soon the 108th hit. What am I, a Buddhist temple bell?” I was calm enough to be joking around like this. Well this is a joke but, differently from the Smirnovas fight and the Silva fight, the fact is that I remained conscious

"Why!?"

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with the judgment.

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throughout! Also, he clearly violated the rules. I was in complete disagreement

 

"He's really slippery!" I was about to explode in anger. The palms of my hands, though I didn't notice during the fight, had a coconut-like sweet smell. The evidence is right there. "He's slippery! He's definitely put something on!" I protested to the referee and the ringside officials. There was no way I was going to let his actions slide. Could anyone allow such a thing? You know, I can

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"If you make any more objections, I will call a foul.”

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at least tell the difference between oil and sweat.

 

With these words, the referee tried to stop my protests. The butterflies in my stomach wouldn't calm down. Feeling like this, I won’t be able to calm down and enter the ring again. I can't believe anyone right now. Returning, I could hear the voices in the stands. Even the audience didn't agree. Among them, there were a lot of people that had come from afar to see me. I'm sorry. Forgive me. "I can't believe it. I will object until they listen." Yelling things like that, I withdrew to the locker room. On the way there, the group of referees camping out around the HERO’S staff room appeared before me. I couldn't bear being there. I barged into their room and continued my objections. I vented everything: My opponent's body was covered in something that shouldn't be there, that his skin was really slippery and about the smell that remained on my hands." Please wait a bit, I will go get the person himself," one referee said to me. As I was told, I went to smoke in the locker room next door while I waited for his arrival. I tried using my manager's nose for confirmation, saying, "Hey, there's a sweet smell!" while moving my palm toward him but he said, "It just smells like smoke." I put the cigarette out in haste. After a little while, Maeda

"Yeah, so please don't drink tonight."

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"He used something on his skin!"

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(Akira) came into the room.

 

"Hey, the smell on my palm......" "Yeah, you better not drink tonight." Maeda, worrying about my physical health, and me, appealing against "his" violation of the rules. The two conversations wouldn't quite mesh. The cigarette smoke lessened it, but there still was a faint smell left on my palm. Satou (Takenori), who was in the corner for bout 0 with Kaneko and also in the corner for my fight, also gave evidence saying, "the smell in the ring was clearly different between Kaneko's fight and my fight. During the main event, there was a fragrance like an everlasting summer." I gathered proof. Coming near the end, he still hadn't showed himself in front of me. I received word from the referees that they checked his skin in the presence of my the cornermen but they didn't find anything abnormal. My suspicions were not cleared up. After the fight, I went to the hospital, then returned to the hotel, then made a mad rush for the party. According to what Shimo learned at the hotel, the other fighters in the event were all talking amongst themselves about what "he" did. I heard that at the event, Royce also was complaining to the production staff, saying, "This is unforgiveable! Next time, I'll fight that fucker!"

perfectly by the rules of the game. He understands the importance of rules,

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probably Shimo. Shimo is from the world of professional baseball, abiding

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Of course, at our party too, it was the main topic. Among us, the most mad was

 

and is the type to realize the gravity of someone breaking them. We went til morning, washing and washing our anger-splattered hearts with alcohol. It was verging on the sunrise of the first day of the new year that I returned to my hotel room. Before long, bright rays from the sun started to brighten the streets of Osaka. From my window, I could see a fresh new rising sun. I put my hands together, hung my head low, and prayed.

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"Please let nothing happen this year."

 

Kazushi Sakuraba's Unwritten Story [Interview] Interviewer: Kazumasa Fujimoto [KF] KF: Besides training, how did you spend your time in Brazil?

delicious. Also, this was scary, but Fedimar owns some camping land, and horses and cows and the like graze there. There's also sheep there, and one

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place there. They serve pizza with chocolate and bananas on top. It's really

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KS: They took me to a lot of different places. There's an amazingly good pizza

 

time, I approached their pen and the whole flock came charging at me. That was scary. Fedimar was saying, "It's OK, no problem," but I was like "This is bad! This is really bad!" The sheep were scowling at me. I tried not to look them in the eyes. KF: Did you encounter any danger on the streets? KS: It seems Curitiba is a pretty safe place. My third time there, they brought me to a favela at night, by car. Opening the window a bit, there was a strange medicinal smell. Tominaga was there and he freaked, saying, "Let's go back quick!" We started moving slowly and he was going, "My god! My god!" (laughing). When the children there see adults, they all get scared and take off running. I wanted to see where those kinds of kid gather together. KF: Is Curitiba city-like? KS: Yeah. It has a somewhat European feel. KF: Is PRIDE seen by a lot of Brazilians? KS: Yeah, they watch, the people with money do. It's on PPV there. They watch it late at night. When it's around 4 or 5 in the evening here, it's 4 or 5 in the morning there, so you go out drinking, then go right from there to a rich

KS: Like that.

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KF: Like Rikidouzan after war...

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person's house.

 

KF: Did a lot of people come up to talk to you? KS: Taxi drivers would get on their CB and say, "Sakuraba's in my cab now." KF: You're a celebrity. KS: Because I was an enemy in Brazil. KF: The period with the Gracies. KS: Right, right (laughing). And on the streets. In downtown Curitiba, there was a building there that would be perfect for a dojo. Fedimar was crazy about the place, but the price was a bit too much. "I'm wondering whether or not to open a dojo here and I can't decide. Sakuraba, you should do it!" "Me? I couldn't..." And then this old guy near us said, "Sakuraba, if you open a dojo here, I'll join." I was happy for someone to say that to me, but thought, "If this

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old guy's my only student, it sure as hell isn’t going to work out" (laughing).

 

Even if they're going to take a photo with their cellphone, they always ask first.

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KS: Nothing. I really got familiar with Brazil. People do things neatly, Brazilians.

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KF: Did you have any troubles in your personal daily life?

 

KF: Japanese people would be shy to ask, right. KS: Yeah, that too. From our perspective, it's because we know if we're doing something wrong. It's the same as taking a sneak shot up a female student's skirt with a cell phone camera! If someone tries to take my photo with a cell phone camera, I always refuse, even if they ask. No cellphones. A regular camera, okay. Ah, one time when I was in Guam, when I was going to my training place, I drove in front of a fire truck. The light was red so it was stopped, but fire trucks have a microphone, right. The speakers blasted, "Sakuraba, come on! Picture!" (bitter smile). Out of nowhere, my name was called. It couldn't be helped so I pulled a U-turn and took a photo in front of the fire truck. KF: You mean, they wanted to take a photo with you so they told you to come back...

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KS: Right, right. If someone did that in Japan, it would be a huge problem.

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Chapter Four - "Reform"

The fight that caused harsh criticism across the net There was decisive proof!

“I hear there’s video footage out.” I think it was about 6 o’clock in the evening of New Year’s Day, 2007. Some damaging news flew my way that had the power to change the NYE decision. But to me, the “damaging” news was positive. As the case turned out to be, it there was not only circumstantial evidence, but physical evidence as well had been quickly found.

on the train and had a quiet meeting. The anger from the night before was still

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checked out from the hotel and got on the bullet train. We sat facing each other

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The day after the tournament, I took a short forgivable nap, and soon after, I

 

strong. I had no plans of giving up the complaints. I was in a state of mind where I wasn’t sure If I could get by without drinking. A bit after having gotten home, the sound of my cellphone beeping was ringing in my drunken head. It was from my manager. Was he going to talk work so early in the new year? He had just spoken with a company that makes TV programs a few minutes earlier, and said excitedly: “I got a call from a TV company about a different matter, but it seems they have actual footage of the ‘scene of the greasy crime.’” The director actually saw it, they said. It’s happening. My confidence in the validity of my statements increased. The people watching the fight must’ve had some doubts about it. So after all, the fight world really is a shady world. There might’ve been viewers with such feelings as well. The MMA genre is in danger. We immediately requested a “retrial” from FEG. Why didn’t they see their own mistake? Is there a fault in the check system? There was a need to seriously shine light on this problem. Tanikawa promised to “investigate.” I can’t make a stake for my life and future in such an environment riddled with gaps and blind spots. My manager also came in strong, letting it be known that reconsideration of the details of my contract was on the table. In HERO’s rules, it is decided that in the case of

complaints verbally with tons of objections, we also went on and made a formal written complaint according to this rule. It was submitted on January 10th. So

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writing within 2 weeks from when the match ended. While we were making

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voicing a complaint against a ruling, it must be submitted to the promoter in

 

then, if we can confirm the existence of the video, the case should be just about solved. I can avoid gulping down liquor then, too. However, TBS, which has the video, would be closed until the 7th. So no matter how much fuss I make until then, the video won’t show itself. Close your eyes, and wait for good news… I can’t stand waiting! My butterflies showing no sign of slowing down, wiggling and fluttering inside my body. What am I supposed to do about this feeling. That’s what I’m so pissed about. On the 2nd, I called Maeda saying “I won’t just let this happen!” I also informed Fedimar who was in Japan for the Otoko Matsuri of all the things going on. Even my gentle Brazilian father was furious. The situation was completely different from when I lost against Silva. Silva fought fair and square, and won. There are no fighters in Chute Boxe that would act dishonestly. So you can get along with them well whether you win or lose. Last year’s summer (2006) when I went to Brazil, Silva said to me “Happy birthday!” That he remembered my birthday like that shows that he really cares about me. Though, right now I don’t feel like reciprocating that love. Silva, I’m sorry. On New Year’s Day, I also got a mail from Takayama, “So, he was slippery, wasn’t he?” I called him immediately and vented my feelings, “Oh man, he was

Here, a friend found a new point of suspicion. It was when we were watching

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On January 3rd, I went to a New Year's party at the house of an acquaintance.

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slippery like crazy!”

 

the NYE fight. It was a scene from just after “he” was announced as the winner. “Hey, what’s this, Kiyohara’s shirt has oil on it.” Hearing that, you could see, when “he” hugged his corner, Kiyohara (Kazuhiro), it seemed something rubbed off on his shirt. They wrapped around each other, but Kiyohara had a strange expression of coldness on his face, like he was bothered by something (it seemed). Takayama and the others immediately reported it to Tokyo Sports. It seemed like many net users took it up as a topic. I don’t use the internet at all. Or rather, I can’t use it. I have no idea how to use a computer. I’m not even quite sure how to turn the power on and off. There’s a mysterious inverted L-shaped button. I still don’t know what the function of that strange button is. What does “enter” mean? I know “U-inter” but… I can’t use machines that have more buttons than a cellphone. So, these are all things I’ve been shown by other people, such as from webpages. The NYE fight created a huge debate on the internet. A huge torrent of speculations and doubts. With the “slippery problem” as the main focus, there were also many people making claims to sponsors through mail and phone. There was also a website that had lined up photos of all the contestants’ gloves, investigating the brass knuckle affair. When I was shown this page, I got excited about how far things had gone.

bringing about a fair judgment was this internet “protest rally.” To the people

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Basically, I don’t like the net very much. But I think one of the main factors

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This fight certainly has aroused a lot of suspicion even on the internet.

 

who struggled hard in the online “ring,” I would like to take this opportunity to

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thank you. Everyone, thank you. I am grateful.

 

For the sake of the future of MMA Good medicine tastes too bad!?

He’s on the screen, like putting mayo on salad, putting cream on his skin directly from the bottle. Some people we don’t recognize with passes of a different color than ours are carefully rubbing it in. His skin is completely white. A European!? January 10, I saw the video at a hotel in the city. The refs had already held a meeting on it on the 7th or the 8th and verification of what he had been doing

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“It smells, right”

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backstage was made with the video. Resolution was soon at hand.

 

To the cameraman’s question of, “what’s that?,” he smiled and gave an immediate answer. On that face, you couldn’t even find a trace of a feeling of guilt. There was so much cream applied to his skin that his entire body was white. No, “applied to,” isn’t right , “caked on.” The cameraman, maybe because he was bothered by the situation, zoomed in on the label of the cream bottle. The videotape ended there. As well, they showed me footage from the hotel after his hands had been wrapped and the logo mark on his gloves was peeled and seemed like it would fall off. The wraps around his fists were incredibly thick, maybe even 2 centimeters. The glove size was 3L, two sizes above the average baseball player. They say this is the same size that 6’11” Semmy Schilt wears. As for the logo mark, it was confirmed that it started peeling from hitting the mitts. Maybe because it got in the way, but he himself took off the mark portion and threw it. If the sponsors saw this scene, they’d probably burst into tears. And besides that, isn’t it shameful for a grown man to litter like that. I’ll try to be careful about littering.

From the conclusion, it seems he had been applying heat-insulating cream. When you first apply that cream, it’s light and almost powdery, but with sweat

lack of knowledge, but you have to say he’s certainly lacking the sense of a

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this right before the fight? Was it done in bad faith, was it a blunder, there’s a

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or water it becomes slippery like a lubricant. Why did he apply something like

 

professional. In our sport, too, there is a rule that states, “it is against the rules to apply even a dab of something to your skin.” You’re not going to get away with getting caught driving without a license and saying, “I didn’t know that while it’s okay with a bicycle, it’s not okay with a car.”

And at the New Year’s Day victors’ press conference, there was something a bit more important he should’ve brought to the fore than saying he has an oversweating problem. If at that point he’d said, “Oh yeah, I put cream on my skin,” it wouldn’t have broken out in a riot. That would’ve been the point where things should calm down.

Of course, I wouldn’t be able to say that I’ve never erred. At the same press conference he said, “there’s no fighter that stops when he’s told ‘time.’” Right. It’s true that point in the fight wasn’t a place to stop at. My timing for calling time was bad. And I should’ve used a different approach to get the attention of the officials. What I have to reflect on from my actions are those two points.

The next day, the 11th, the changing of the bout result to a no contest and the forfeiture of his entire purse, etc. were officially announced at a press conference. There was nothing in our protest document about how we wanted it handled. There was no request from our side that we want it handled this

disqualification. It isn’t a problem of money, but if you lose by disqualification,

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According to HERO’S rules, a no contest is an even bigger deal than a loss by

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way, or we want it ruled that way.

 

you only forfeit 10% of your fight purse. From Tanikawa, I received an explanation that a no contest ruling is the heaviest punishment. Afterwards, an indefinite suspension was added in.

On the 11th, the day that the press conference was held, I made a public statement saying, “I’m not satisfied.” I had said this to the FEG side earlier that morning. The meaning of my words was misinterpreted, breathing life yet again into more speculation. I meant that I wasn’t satisfied because if I hadn’t raised this formal protest, no one would’ve known what he did.

On the 10th, when I was watching the video, the rule director and the referee that presided over our match directly acknowledged their error and apologized to me for it. Thinking about letting time bury this whole thing, it of course really could’ve gone that way. But, FEG and the people that judged the matter reacted to my grumblings with an earnest attitude looked into it to find out what actually happened. Because of that, I felt inside me a feeling of staying and helping HERO’S become even bigger. As for hard feelings for the referees, that dealt well with the situation, there are none, nothing. I even feel grateful. As for “him”…… “nothing” again, but in a different meaning. Because our paths will never cross again. I put a lot on that fight, but he had nothing in it……

rematch. It’s to send out energy, to keep the fight up, to live another day, to the fans, who buy these not-inexpensive tickets, and make their way all the

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fight. If he can’t look me in the eye and apologize, I can’t smile and make a

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Our work, to use a simple phrase, is to give dreams to the people watching our

 

way to the arena, the viewers at home that choose MMA over Kouhaku to watch, the children holding onto dreams of the ring, the 140 judo babies that came up in the ring. The children can’t hold onto the dreams when the adults are driving without licenses.

On the 17th, this time I held a press conference and let people know what was on my mind. “No contest,” in a word, means the fight wasn’t able to reach its end. For a fight with no real conclusion, I got hit 105 times. I don’t want this

points for improvement in the rules, a whole number of problems. The points to be looked at and changed, they cannot simply be left as is, they must be really

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This one match on NYE exposed the inadequacy of the fighter checking system,

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kind of pain for nothing.

 

looked at and changed. I requested to Tanikawa that the fighters be made to go to rules meetings. Because I was thinking, if the fighters and the referees can meet and exchange all of their opinions, won’t they be able to build an environment that’s more ideal for the fighters and the fans?

The 18th, the day after my press conference, there was a rules meeting at which, from the fighters side, Uno (Caol), Tokoro* (Hideo) and myself rushed to attend. We talked about that for us ground fighters, we don’t really touch our opponents’ chests and backs. What we grab is usually the back of the neck, the elbows, the back of the knees, the ankles. We told them all that we would like the fighters’ bodies checked before every match with special attention given to those areas.

Uno also asked them about whether the bottom rope is really necessary, as it prevents movement. The changes would be made quickly for the March 12 Nagoya event, with the places for putting on gloves, taking off gloves, wrapping hands and cutting all put together into one room. As well, the ropes were changed from five to four, and the vertical ropes from two to one, with some room opened up for offense and defense against the ropes.

It is a 10-year story of MMA events in Japan coming to be held regularly like

                                                             *

 he uses the suffix –kun, implying a friendly relationship 

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that one match on NYE to help MMA to take one big step in its growth. If that

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they are today. The history of competition in it is still short. I am wishing for

 

happens, getting hit 105 times was worth something. Good medicine tastes

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bad.

 

Liquor -> Brazil -> PRIDE The improbable return home realized!

As the after-scent of NYE came to fade in the middle of February, I was contacted by FEG. They asked if I would participate in the March 12 HERO’S event in Nagoya. No way. A pain in the ass. After my NYE match, I went an entire month without any training. There’s no way I would be able to pull myself back into shape by then. I want to concentrate on clearing “Blue Dragon” on the Xbox. So it’s not the main event? No, that’s not the problem. Our back and forth started to get prolonged.

But I didn’t know the right techniques to defeat Tanikawa magic. Just as time was running out and it was going to be called a draw, Tanikawa slyly moved in for the seduction. It was decided I’d fight about two weeks before the event.

arm and still not feeling into it, headed out for Nagoya.

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Who is he, this guy? An American porn magazine? I tucked the Xbox under my

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My opponent would be Yurij “Playboy” Kiseliov, a fighter with no credentials.

 

“I’ll show up to fight, but please let me stay out of the press conferences.”

They went along with my request. If I show up at the press conference, without fail someone is going to ask me about NYE. It’s over. I have no intention from here on out of ever talking about that matter again. The January 17 press conference was the last.

As for the fight, even though I was still mentally fatigued, I was healed by the sweet feeling of a “give up” win. My corner was saying to me, “Calm down! Calm down!” so without even being bothered, I kept the fight going at my pace. If I can live out the rest of the year with no problems like this, it would be nice. After more than a year away, my return home was unexpectedly realized just as I was thinking that.

At an event called CAGE FORCE on March 17, my training partner Takahashi scored a KO win. That night, I had dinner with friends. We celebrated Takahashi’s victory with alcohol and light eating.

“Takahashi! Win! Good fight!”

Feeling happy and drunk, I called Fedimar in Brazil. As would be my habit, I

It was around 12 at night. In Brazil it was just lunchtime. At that time, right

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of my brain, only those simple words, “Win!”, “Good fight!” come to me.

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can’t remember what we talked about. Digging again and again into the center

 

next to Fedimar was DSE’s Sakakibara. Fedimar handed the phone to him and it seems I was repeating to Sakakibara, “I want to have a fight.”

Probably, and I say probably because I have no memory of it so that’s all I can say, this case of drunkdialing is the one thing that lead to me having another match in the PRIDE ring. A few days later, an official offer from DSE came floating to my feet. When I had moved to HERO’S, I had let Tanikawa know, “I also want to fight in PRIDE.” I answered without thinking really deeply about it.

“OK. I’m not injured either. And for me to appear in PRIDE now is also interesting, isn’t it.”

The first opponent they sounded me out for was Silva. The April 8 PRIDE 34 card had a big “X” where Silva’s opponent should be. Because of a number of different circumstances, Silva was unable to fight in the event, but that “X” was really me.

However, this isn’t something that I can just pass judgment on by myself. If I’m going to fight in PRIDE, FEG also has a say in it.

I told the person that called me from DSE, “Talking directly to me could cause

by coincidence that day, DSE was also holding a conference, at Roppongi Hills. It was the day that it was announced that PRIDE 34 would be the final PRIDE

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had flown to the US for the “Dynamite!! USA” announcement conference. Just

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problems, so please talk with FEG.” On March 27, I also called Tanikawa, who

 

under the management of Sakakibara et al and that it would be transferred over to the new owners, the same company that owns the UFC.

I had a talk with Tanikawa just as April came. We talked, confirming the schedule from then on out and some other matters. I suddenly made a preemptive strike.

“I really wanna fight in Saitama…”

“Eh, hold up”

“I really wanna fight next week!”

“Enough about that. If you fight here now, PRIDE might really die.”

“But I want to fight”

“Okay, how about this time you just greet the audience. And next time, maybe September or October, you fight.”

For the first time ever, I got a win over Tanikawa. From there, the talks went

But if you look from the side of PRIDE, I was a traitor, sleeping with the enemy.

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time in some years, myself, Sakakibara and Tanikawa all sat at the same table.

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really well and my return home became official. For that to happen, for the first

 

There were certainly some people not so happy with my return.

On April 8, I arrive at the event by car and the staff came to meet me. A strange atmosphere. Their dealing with me was also very businesslike. Hm, maybe I am after all a traitor….. One of the staff, when we were alone another time in the past, had shown me photos of his children. Maybe talking with me around other people is hard for him.

Backstage, the people that came in to say hello were Sakakibara and Fedimar. Fedimar asked me to bring my t-shirts as a souvenir. An inexpensive job! When I arrived inside, the Chute Boxe guys were at ringside absorbed in a match. Of course, I wasn’t there to hand them out to people in the audience, so after the match they came to my locker room. A bunch of muscular men, acting like old women gathered at a bargain sale, scrambling for the t-shirts. It brought a smile to my face. I wanted to pat each one of them on the head.

I had a quick meeting with Sakakibara to make arrangements. Here I heard for the first time that Tamura had rushed to the event. I went in, called by Sakakibara, and next, Tamura entered the ring. Taking the mic from Sakakibara, we addressed the crowd. The flow of it was something like this. I start to talk saying, “I don’t remember the details of the call at all” and

Anyway, no matter how old you get, home is always a good thing. Coming to

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brain-with-no-stamina self, I was dumbfounded.

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Sakakibara gives me a bitter smile, saying “Knock it off!” As my usual

 

the stage, I could see a scene spread out in front of me I’d only recently seen in fond memories. The fanatic audience, the wild enthusiasm in the air, and in the center of it all, a giant white “PRIDE 34” logo painted on the white mat. The audience greeted me warmly. The inner corners of my eyes started to get warm. The PRIDE ring, a place I never thought I would find myself in*. A thousand thoughts mixed in my head. Without me having a say in the matter, the tears come pouring out. Sobbing like I haven’t since watching reruns of “Dr. Kotoh – Medical Clinic.”

In the ring, Sakakibara told the audience with great emotion that he hoped for a match between myself and Tamura to be realized in PRIDE under the new management. The person with the most extraordinary desire for this match to take place was Sakakibara. From years back, I'd been waiting for a moment, not like this in plain clothes, but where Tamura and I confront each other in costume. My feeling hasn’t changed. Of course, I’d need the OK from FEG, but

*

 he uses agaru which is standard for “going up” as in the literal and figurative meanings of

moving up into the physical ring and moving up in greatness to be a part of PRIDE 

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I’m ready whenever.

 

But with Sakakibara stepping down, the person that worked so fervently to try to make this match would be stepping down. Considering the realities, the chances of my and Tamura’s fists meeting in the PRIDE ring seem low. What Tamura was feeling when he was standing in that ring that day, I don’t know. I don’t know if the match will ever be made, or if we both will go on to retire without having ever fought.

industry, I would like to fight in PRIDE again. I don’t care who my opponent is. Someday, I surely will make my way up into that ring again. This time, it was

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traitor appeared in the ring, but if that starts people talking and activates the

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For me personally, though there maybe some people filled with disgust that a

 

only for greetings. Next will be a fight. When I get that feeling of wanting to

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step into that ring again, of course, I will call Fedimar, and I’ll be drunk.

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Getting the runaround with medical checks Please be nice to me, Dr. Grandpa

If I’m remembering right, Tanikawa said, “You can skip the June event, so I want you to be in the March 12 Nagoya one.” The June event would be the June 2 (the time there) Los Angeles “Dynamite!! USA” event.

The arena was the grounds for both the ’32 and ’84 Olympics, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It is a colossal stadium - just the stands seat 90,000 people, and the ground brings it to well over 100,000.The place might even surpass Tokyo National Stadium where the very first “Dynamite!” event took

point, I wasn’t entertaining even a single offer. I was told, “You can skip the June event,” so I just believed it had nothing to do with me.

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The Los Angeles event was officially announced on March 27 LA time. At that

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place.

 

But just as we came into April, everything changed. I had said, “I want to fight in Saitama” at a meeting. Tanikawa then came to ask me about fighting in “Dynamite!! USA.” I was so wrapped up in the talk of PRIDE 34 that I completely forgot about Tanikawa’s back-and-forth skills. And with that, not quite knowing how exactly it happened, it was decided that I would appear in the LA event. I was supposed to have gotten a victory over Tanikawa this time, but in the end, it was a match declared a draw due to injury.

“Am I going to have to go 90 minutes again?”

When I heard the fight card, I blurted that out. My opponent’s name: Royce Gracie. A day I can’t forget, May 1, 2000. I fought him in 6 rounds of 15

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minutes each.

 

If you think just time-wise, we fought each other 6 entire fights’ worth. So I didn’t really see the need for a rematch at this point. Besides, he had come to me before my NYE match and said “Porrada!” and had taken my side showing indignation against “him,” so while I can’t say it’s at the level of friends, maybe we are at least above acquaintances. What I mean is, at least for me, it makes it a hard fight.

But already at this point I heard that Royce had begun training for the fight.

The fight would be five 5-minute rounds. Because of the California Athletic

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I rushed to Brazil and started training with Chute Boxe again.

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And I’m not one to quit while I’m ahead. Nothing to do but fight. On April 22,

 

Commission, 10-minute rounds weren’t allowed. Oh well. I usually spar in easily digestible pieces of 5-minute rounds. Five rounds of five minutes each, that doesn’t require any special training.

But this time there were some slight changes to my program, with my past morning training, afternoon weightlifting, evening training 3-piece set switched so that it was a 2-piece set with weights and evening training put together. The 2-piece set let me take some of the burden off my body. Partly because of that, I was really able to get back in fight shape. And then I received some shocking news from my manager.

“They’re not allowing tape.”

The Athletic Commission was not allowing any fight to take place with a fighter that is taped up. I was informed of this mid-May. My knees are so bad that I can’t even sit seiza-style. To try to go out and fight without them taped is beyond ludicrous.

“Well, I won’t fight then.”

That’s what I said to my manager. After that, going back and forth with him,

cannot be rough or uneven in shape, cannot be made from material harder than ligaments, etc. I give up. A non-rough supporter? Am I supposed to just

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fine. But even then, the Athletic Commission has conditions - the supporter

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we eventually learned that while taping isn’t allowed, the use of supporters is

 

stick on some heat pads and fight? Hey, I’m an old woman!

This supporter problem nagged me until the day before the fight. Comparatively speaking, the California Athletic Commission is downright strict, with no foundation of set rules to explain anything. It’s a completely mysterious organization. The rule that the supporter can’t be rough includes the outlawing of putting scotch tape on it. I suppose they measure the height of any unevenness in millimeters. The standard was never made clear.

Damn, I have a problem. The supporter I use in practice has some plastic on the side parts of it so I probably can’t use it in the fight. I rushed to find someone that could make me a custom one. The ones they sell in shops don’t fit right. But even then, I doubt one could be made from scratch and make it in time for the day of the fight.

So, take a store-bought supporter and make some alterations to it. There was no other way left. I returned to Japan on May 18. My doctor found someone and I quickly made my way to them. There, they just took measurements and said they would mail the supporters to me later. It was unclear what the commission would say was okay and what they would say was no good, so I

with the people making the supporters. Then on the 22nd, I took off for LA. Coming back to Japan, I was only able to rest one day, on the 21st.

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On the 20th I appeared on a talk show. After that, I made a quick stop back over

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asked them to make a number of different ones.

 

When I got to LA, I didn’t stay downtown where the other fighters and staff stay, but near the beach at Marina del Rey. From 7am the next day, the 23rd, start the medical checks at a commission-appointed hospital. If you don’t do the checks, the commission withdraws your permission to fight.

The next few days, I got a taste of “runaround” hell. Different from Japanese general hospitals, in Los Angeles, there’s a “hospital building” in which a number of different hospitals exist and in which a number of different doctors operate.

The doctor that the commission selected as our final judge was an old man that worked there as a resident doctor. First, he checked my heart.

“I hear yesterday, that doctor touched the dicks of Choi Hong-man and Yoon Dong-Sik.”

I heard this from my interpreter before returning to the medical checks. That’s sexual harassment! And from a man! As the check was underway, I was strictly focused on watching this old man’s movements. Hoping not to be touched, I

middle of the check, comes back, then goes right back out again. It turns out he was doing the same check to a bunch of different fighters in a bunch of

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This old man, he’s quite a suspicious fellow. He leaves the room right in the

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kept a hold on my twig and berries.

 

different rooms at the same time.

I suppose it was because of that but he was really hurried with me. I can’t speak English. So, I brought an interpreter right into the medical check with me.

First, the old guy asked questions. Then the interpreter would repeat it to me in Japanese. And then I would answer. And the interpreter would convert my Japanese answer into an English one for the doctor. The doctor said in rapid fire succession:

“And I just asked that! Please just answer the questions!”

The old man had gotten pissed at the interpreter. Between the two of them, they just couldn’t converse. In the midst of their mismatched exchanges, the doctor finally made a gesture to me to drop my pants.

“And not just the pants, your underwear too. Show me reeeeal good.”

I didn’t think I’d be going all the way to America and then have to reveal the full monty. The old man was using both hands to hit my pelvis on either side of my

Maybe this geezer has a fetish for Asian dongs.

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it seems only three people received this special check, myself, Choi and Yoon.

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dick. What kind of exam is this? Even now, it is still an unsolved mystery. And

 

Along with this, I had to deal with a bunch of other pain in the ass stuff that day. There was an intelligence test. I suppose this was to test for brain damage. “LA” “DOG” “4” “WHITE.” Before the test, the old woman doctor instructed me to memorize these four words.

“In the middle of the test, you’re going to be asked what the four words were, so please say them then.”

By the way, the third word, “4,” I was asked for my favorite number, so I chose it based on that it’s a bad omen in Japan*. I had a little bit of a battle with this “4.” It’s not my favorite number or something so I kind of forgot I had marked it down. “LA” “DOG”…… What was my favorite number again? I sat there in bewilderment.

And then, they give you a 2-digit number, then add one digit to it, and then another, and you have to remember it all the way up to seven digits. After that was some math problems and diagrams, it went on and on like a kindergarten test. And then at some odd moment, “LA” “DOG” “4” “WHITE.” I’m not that much of an idiot.

That day, only the ECG results were bad. I got another heart check at another

                                                             *

 “4” has the same reading as “death” in Japan so it is considered an unlucky number. 

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doctor stubbornly refused to accept the results. In the end, I wouldn’t receive

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hospital in the same building. The check came out fine this time, but the old

 

permission on the 23rd. I still hadn’t gotten an MRI, so the final decision would come the next day.

Finally, the 24th, I go in the afternoon to a different hospital to get my MRI. The doctor there said, “It’s a pain, right? I’ll help you get it finished today.” He called ahead to another hospital to put me in for an ECG. But when I went to that hospital at the arranged time, the doctor in charge seemed to not be there. The appointment was for 4:30 in the afternoon. The doctor had gone home at 4:15. What’s that!?

How many buildings have I been to now? The 25th, and yet again, to another hospital. For the first time ever in my life, someone handed me a pacemaker.

“Keep this attached to your body for 24 hours. It’s now 2pm on the 25th, so at 2pm on the 26th you can take it off.”

“Can I watch porn with this attached?”

“No problem.”

No matter what I ask, “Okay.” If that’s the case, what’s the point of wearing

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“Sure.”

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“Can I drink?”

 

the pacemaker, I thought to myself. And they said I could take it off at 2pm on the 26th, but every hospital in LA was closed for a 3-day weekend until the 28th. So, at the earliest, I’d receive the final judgment on the 29th. And even if there’s no problem with the medical checks, there’s still the supporter problem. I’d started to hear rumors that Choi wasn’t cleared and wasn’t going to be

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fighting. As for me, I’d half-given up.

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A lot happened in America, but Muito, Dynamite!

Right after arriving in LA, I noticed an important fact. The hotel TV doesn’t have the red, yellow and white connectors. So I can’t connect my game console. And I can’t watch my BO0WY DVD (Japanese rock band) either. It’s an extreme thing. I couldn’t do any practice either, until finishing the medical checks. And then, because I can’t play games or watch DVDs, there is really nothing to do. In other words, I’m free every day. I really hate being put in situations like this.

I ran to the electronics store right away. In the store, they had a 20” LCD screen going for 299 dollars. Wow, cheap. There was also a 10% discount for items in stock. With a price like that, you just have to buy it. So, without

Bo0wy DVDs.

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with my cellphone. I was a happy camper, filling my days with games and

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hesitation I did. After that, I escaped from the boring days of playing around

 

I heard that Royce wants to change from five 5 minute rounds to three 5 min rounds. “Whaaat, 7 years back he was asking for no limits…” Well, no matter how many rounds, if one of us doesn’t pass the medical checks, it won’t matter in the end. Just like me, Royce was punished by the commission and had to run around from hospital to hospital. I don’t know why but Choi, Royce and myself were treated quite strictly by the commission. In the end, Choi, who was scheduled to fight Brock Lesnar in the main event, was for some mysterious reason blocked from entering the ring. Poor guy.

Two o’clock on the 26th, I was released from the pacemaker. On the 27th, I did light running on the beach. The 28th, I started practice with Chute Boxe USA. And on the 29th, I grabbed my pacemaker and went to the hospital once again. My heart was OK. They didn’t find anything wrong in the treadmill test. The MRI went smoothly. I passed all the tests. I was finally done with all the medical exams.

Next up, whether the supporter deal will work out. If they say, “This supporter is no good,” I planned to not fight in the event. Of course, based on the endless pain in the ass of the medical exams, I was thinking that they wouldn’t say OK in the first place.

head before that.

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at the rules meeting, but just to be sure, we met directly with the commission

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The supporters arrived on the 31st. There would be an official check on June 1

 

“Ah, this is no problem. You should pass the check tomorrow.”

The old man just picked up the supporter in his hand and quickly said okay. He didn’t bother to check the roughness, whether it was no harder than ligaments or anything. It really was disappointing, it was a half-assed check.

There was a problem with the number of layers of the supporter. I had used a non-slip thin supporter and then the main magic tape supporter over that, and then finally a supporter over that one to cover the magic tape, so I was planning to use a three-layer supporter.

“Is there a reason for you using three layers?”

“Yeah, my knee……”

“Your knee? Then you should go and get your medical check redone.”

“Uh…… Well, no, two layers would be fine. I don’t need three.”

There was no way I could object. I decided to just use two of the three layers

public weigh-ins, and the rules meeting. At the weigh-ins, I unveiled the

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The day before the event, there was an afternoon press conference, then

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I’d gotten. By the way, I’d gotten real revenge on the old man.

 

traditional Japanese art (?) of drawing on your stomach*. I literally cracked myself up with how funny I found what I was doing.

Standing in the restroom, I first draw lips around my belly button, and from then on, I’m alone and bursting, unable to control my laughter.

As I stepped onto the scale, I started imitating the breathing techniques of Rickson, moving my stomach muscles all around to make the face I’d drawn move. When I did that, the needle on the scale kept moving. I can’t get

*

 he uses the word haragei which means “expressing oneself without words or gestures” but it

is written with a Japanese character meaning “stomach.” 

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weighed like this.

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The old man that had checked my supporter the previous day was yelling from the side, “Don’t move! We can’t get your weight!” Completely ignoring him, I kept on wiggling my belly around. In the end, he tucked his head in his hands shouting, “No~~~!” Ahaha, I screwed around with him a bit. Revenge: successful.

I found out that day that my match had been changed from five 5-minute rounds to three 5-minute rounds. Without my knowledge, at some point it had just been decided.

Just sending one person to the rules meeting was fine, so I asked my cornerman Takahashi to go. Of course, the rules were explained in English.

“It seems there’s no stopping the fighters and having them restart in the center in the same position, but otherwise, it’s the same as HERO’S rules.”

By the way, my supporter, mouthpiece and costume all passed without problem. And with that, finally my participation was made official.

We arrived on June 6 at the arena around 2 in the afternoon and checked out the ring. The mat space was wider than in HERO’S and felt perfect. But the

I’m trapped.

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the other 3 ropes were all flopping around. If I get pushed up against the ropes,

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ropes were really slack. The top and bottom ropes were both pulled taut but

 

After that, I went back to the hotel for a short rest. At 6, I got on the bus with Tokoro, Kim Min Soo and everyone, heading to the arena once again. We were supposed to arrive at 6:30. But near the arena, police were controlling traffic and we couldn’t seem to find a way to get directly to the coliseum.

At this rate, we won’t make it to the 7:00 opening. We got off the bus right there and headed out on foot. Along the way, an elementary school kid in the passenger seat of a car saw me and shouted with a really surprised face, “Ah! Sakuraba!!” All of the fighters that are going to be in the ring just walking down the street like that. I guess it could be surprising.

We arrived around 6:45. Without even changing clothes, we all attended the opening like that. From that point all the way up until my fight, the commission guy was stuck to me like glue. He checked the contents of my backpack. He stood in front of my locker room backstage inspecting my behavior. There were restrictions on where I was allowed to eat. Eating and drinking in the locker room forbidden. The only thing you could put in your mouth was water. Besides for warming up, you weren’t really supposed to leave the locker room. They really had a strict set of rules in place.

My entrance gag had been decided long ago. My opponent is Royce. I had to

                                                             *

 a Japanese pro-wrestler 

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When I entered, I took them off one by one and threw them into the audience.

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return to my roots, I had to go as Strong Machine*. I had three layers of masks.

 

I was able to feel just a little of what Mil Máscaras* must’ve felt.

And then, the fight. Royce was throwing his special front kick. Backstage, I had been practicing just to check the kick and throw punches, beng, beng beng.

This really ended up working. I really got him in the face early in the match. It felt good in my hand. Royce, fallen on his butt, doing it just like last time, throwing upkicks from the bottom. And every single kick in change hitting the knee. Just as I wondered if it wasn’t hurting, from the second round there were

*

 a Mexican pro-wrestler 

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no more kicks. I think it probably hurt.

 

But, no matter what, it was a difficult fight. On top of everything, the supporter was weaker than tape, so I was distracted with thoughts worrying about my knee.

Royce, now standing, and I get both arms around his chest. Royce stayed there, pushing me up against the ropes. I had this same kind of offense and defense

quite reach his head. When I threw what felt like a really high knee, it would hit him in the stomach. With that, he buckled a bit. A chance. The next knee I

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In the second, I tried throwing knees. But Royce is tall, so my knee couldn’t

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seven years ago, didn’t I.

 

threw hit his head. This was such a good hit it probably bruised my knee. Royce, not liking strikes, shot in.

“You can knee him! If it had been PRIDE, I could’ve, but”

As I sprawled, that’s what I thought. Next, in the third round, I got a hold of Royce’s arm and just then the bell sounded. Everyone knows the result, I lost

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by decision.

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Royce’s cornerman, Royler, and Helio were offering words of gratitude and shaking hands with me. I shook hands with all of them, but for some reason, only Rodrigo backed away. Maybe even now he still thinks of me as gay.

The reason for the loss resides in me. I should’ve been able to finish the fight.

“Ahhhh, I wanted to finish him.”

A lot of things in America left me mentally fatigued. The next time I fight overseas, I hope it’s not in America but in Brazil. And writing it here, it just might come true. I’ve been going for so many years now. So, I’m not going to fight at the event in July. Well, everyone, good night. Let’s meet again next

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time in Brazil. Muito, Dynamite! Porrada! Obrigado!

 

Kazushi Sakuraba’s Unwritten Story [Interview]

Interviewer: Kazumasa Fujimoto [KF]

KF: I would like to know what you think about how much longer you will go.

KS: I’ll fight another two, three years, then think it over then.

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KF: You are really admirable. You have so much energy.

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KS: Another two, three years.

 

KF: How often do you plan to fight? Your pace now is to fight about two to three times a year.

KS: About that much is good. If I don’t have injuries or anything, I could see myself doing four fights in a year.

KF: You have also just started to put out some good young fighters. I don’t think you’re quite ready to leave it all to the young generation of fighters but…

KS: No way.

KF: So, you want to do it all yourself?

KS: Yeah.

KF: From now, do you want to have a last spurt?

KS: I don’t have a desire in me to do something like a retirement match; I want to simply vanish.

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KS: Just disappear in a flash.

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KF: I don’t think anyone would forgive you if you did that.

 

KF: In your career, is there some one thing that you’d like to do before you leave? For example, to fix the rules of MMA or…

KS: There’s nothing. I only want to feel good and fight.

KF: What about the mysterious murmurs we’ve been hearing about you opening your own dojo?

KS: There’s no place. We found a good place but it turned out to be an illegal construction project.

KF: Around the time this book will go on sale…?

KS: It won’t be ready.

KF: Too bad. Well, what kind of dojo do you want to make it, even if you just talk about your dreams?

KS: Dreams? (laugh)

KF: You shouldn’t be laughing. Forming a fight family all under one roof, when

KS: Yeah. Like Chute Boxe, even if I’m not training, just to go there and watch

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Boxe?

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you open your dojo – this will be a first for you. Will the model for it be Chute

 

other people training. If I can make it a place that a lot of people come to, I’ll be happy.

KF: Is there a type of fighter you’d like to bring up?

KS: Of course, an incredibly powerful and good fighter. Not a guy that’s got great strength or a guy that’s really aggressive, but a guy that’s got cunning, and makes subtle moves in his fight activity.

KF: For MMA, being cunning is a very important element.

KS: Not just for MMA. I think it’s true for all sports. And not just sports, also for shogi and chess. I don’t mean “cunning” as a bad thing. I mean to think it all through about a lot of things and fight like that.

KF: To go wherever your opponent isn’t expecting you to go…

KS: Yeah.

KF: That really takes a special sense, doesn’t it?

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KF: Maybe a person that likes tricking other people would be really good at it?

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KS: Hm…… I wonder……

 

KS: Hm, I don’t know. If a person is strong and can use that strength in their fights, that’s the right kind of athlete. They use their strong points. Like Michael Jordan in basketball. He’s really damn good isn’t he. I’d be happy to bring up an athlete like that.

KF: The kind of person people see and say, “That guy, he’s good!”

KS: Yeah. When Michael Jordan is looking one way, he’s passing in a completely different direction. It’s amazing, and passes between his legs and all that.

KF: Well, the, finally, a message to the readers… This time, we didn’t have any stories about excrement right.

KS: Now that you mention it, yeah. I wonder what happened… We didn’t have any poop talk. I guess we ran out of luck.

KF: What is this fancy talk of yours…

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KS: I also want to become a great and cunning fighter. Malandro!

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