The PRIDE thread

[909]

I just watched it for the first time in like twenty years but tbh I think Nog beating Bob Sapp is the most important and arguably best win in the history of MMA. As great as Big Nog was this was still an era of MMA with rudimentary tools, and more specifically rudimentary defensive BJJ tools and transitions. I guess so much as those tools apply when fighting someone that much bigger than you.

The trajectory of the sport is different if Sapp wins the fight. Crowds and fighters alike default to power power power as the answer over skills and cardio. Everyone races to get bigger. Big guys who can’t fight become seen as super talent. Fedor’s fight against Nog means less. Bob Sapp didn’t have a Pride contract. There’s a lot of variables about the whole thing that could have gone differently. Lesser men than Nog wilt when they get spiked on their head. They give up when a 375 pound roid freak is on top of them pounding them.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

That’s one of the craziest fights I’ve ever seen, that piledriver ruined nog’s neck, he was never the same after that. Which is incredible considering the career he had after anyway. Apparently they wanted to do a rematch but nog’s team refused it.

It was like an evolved and more violent version of Royce vs. Kimo.

 

[909]

I also wonder what Sapp would have been if Cro Cop didn't destroy him in kickboxing.

For anyone who hasn't seen it. We really miss out on a lot of aura and presentation by there not being any strong Japanese MMA/kickboxing org.

 

[Mickey Massuco]

I also wonder what Sapp would have been if Cro Cop didn't destroy him in kickboxing.

For anyone who hasn't seen it. We really miss out on a lot of aura and presentation by there not being any strong Japanese MMA/kickboxing org.

Bob Sapp broke his orbital bone in this fight, that’s why he reacted the way that he did. People thought that he was afraid to get hit in his fights but I think that’s a brutal injury and he just couldn’t absorb punishment the way that he could before. He took a couple of big punches from Hoost in their first fight, shrugged them off and kept coming forward.

I do think after a while he realized it was easier to take dives for money as he would still draw, rather than deal with the lifestyle of being a legit full time fighter who is grinding it out in training regularly. Also, he wasn’t a typical fighter with a wealth of martial arts training; in addition to training to get ready for fights, he would have to spend lots of time learning all these skills to improve his rudimentary game. That’s a lot of work and then throw in injuries like the orbital bone and the fact that it would hinder his ability to take a punch the same way, he took the easy money.

People don’t realize this guy was a legit superstar, his fight with Akebono drew 54 million viewers. If he had the fight with Mike Tyson like they wanted, it would have gotten Mayweather vs McGregor illegal streams numbers, I mean if they had illegal streams back then.

A truly unique character and fighter in the history of the sport. A lot of people hate the fact that he took dives, but I can’t bring myself to care all that much. I guess it’s because it was expected and nobody really was surprised by it. That’s unlike when fighters take dives now in the ufc which is supposed to be, for all its faults, legitimate in terms of what happens in the cage.