Archive for the 'judo' Category

The debut of Satoshi Ishii, Beijing 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist at heavyweight for Judo in Mixed Martial Arts is official. He’ll make his debut on the World Victory Road: Sengoku New Year’s Eve special against other former Japanese national hero and Olympic Judoka, Hidehiko Yoshida. While the date is not set in stone yet, watch for it to be on the 31st or the 3rd.

If on the 31st, it is a bold move, competing with a possible DREAM/K-1 Dynamite! show and the other array of Japanese entertainment that happens on New Years Eve. NYE in Japan is a big deal for television, with combat sports formerly being some of the main attractions. Dating back to the wrestling boom days up until about the death of PRIDE, there has always been an attraction to ring in the new year, but eventually, as Japan is a fad-based culture, it wore off.

The Japanese audiences have lots of choices when it comes to programming on New Years Eve, and most are simply looking to watch what will be the most-talked about program. It will take a lot for MMA to become this most-talked about program again, is Ishii the man to bring this change? On top of that, Sengoku is generally very careful when it comes to prospects, and are throwing Ishii immediately into the fire against a veteran, which smells of desperation. Yoshida’s debut was against a fellow Judoka as well, the man we know and love, Don Frye.

As most of you who come here once in a while may know, we have some Judo enthusiasts in the ranks, from our favorite dude to send to Strikeforce events to stalk Dave Meltzer, Andrew Wallace to our gentile Canadian scholar Kendall Shields. Both have been valuable contributors to this site and the project as a whole and will continue to for as long as they feel like talking about people grappling and hitting each other. Well, both have decided to start up a blog about their Judo exploits, news in the world of Judo, links to Judo matches and so on. If you remember from our Olympic coverage over the summer, Judo love can be incredibly infectious and I found myself, a guy who has to work at 6am staying up until about 2 in the morning watching Judo on the internet, waking up to catch the finals, going to work and throughout the day in cubical land streaming all of the judo that I missed while I was sleeping.  So go ahead and bookmark their blog, add it to your news feeder and so on. Judo!

This Saturday, ZUFFA presents their best-ever lineup of semi-main events and undercard bouts.  UFC 88 is stacked top to bottom with compelling matchups in four weight divisions, many with title fight implications.  Though it lacks a title bout or the kind of transcendent matchup which would cap off a truly classic card, it’s a night of fights which, on paper, should not disappoint.  Our panel -

• CH: Chris Henderson
• AC: Alan Conceicao
• TH: Thomas Hackett
• DW: Dave Walsh
• LC: Lee Casebolt

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Last night I reread the foreword to Kyuzo Mifune’s classic The Canon of Judo (1954). It includes this:

“Judo is now looked upon with a sense of hope and expectation, not only in Japan but throughout the world. The reason for this expectation and support can be found in the fact that judo embodies in its clear and rational movements the basic conditions for the most natural and unfettered human activity. The techniques and even the essence of judo are made possible solely by its fulfillment of these basic conditions.”

And this:

“Independence has been restored to Japan, and yet world peace still eludes us. True peace is the desire of all mankind, and this means working toward a world free from all forms of evil. Judo contains many aspects of this truth; it knows no borders, and is loved by spiritual people regardless of their nationality.”

A little over the top? Sure. But only a little.

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Anyone sick of Olympic judo (etc) coverage around here? Yeah, me neither.

In fact, whenever I feel like I’m burning out on MMA (like lately), I try and catch some jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai (etc.), and I would encourage anyone to do the same.

The cold fact is that fighters in MMA’s shallow talent pool are all trying to learn a variety of techniques, leading to more and more amatuerish fights making TV, and sometimes you end up feeling like you’re watching the same sloppy stalemate fight over and again. Sloppy boxing. Clinch. Knees to the body. Someone gets tripped. Groundwork that goes nowhere. Standup. Zzzzzzz… been there?

Of course, now and then an MMA bout seems to have it all… and as you can see from this video, it appears that they have been happening for more than 50 years. This is one of six fights between Carlson Gracie and Waldemar Santana which took place in the 1950’s. Props to Andreh Anderson( himself a Carlson Gracie black belt) for posting this to Underground Forum. What I’d give for the full version!

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Perhaps you’ll recall from our Judo Primer last week that one of the stories headed into these Olympic games was the almost complete lack of faith the Japanese press had expressed in captain Keiji Suzuki ever since he crashed out in the second round of the world championships in Rio. Unfortunately for the 29-year-old former Olympic and world champion, he’s done it again. And probably for the last time. Suzuki was upended by a morote gari for ippon in his first match, and faired no better in the repechage.

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In a recent special report on the business of sport, The Economist wrote:

“The Olympics will allow broadcasters to show off their ability to present lots of sport simultaneously. They used to be limited to one event at a time. Now they can put several on at once, using digital channels and websites, as well as making highlights available online for days afterwards. Fans of judo should thus be as easy to satisfy as those of the 100-metre sprint.”

And that really speaks to me.

While the early mornings are starting to get me, a little — I haven’t been up this early for five consecutive days since I gave up my paper route, which was not yesterday — I remain thoroughly impressed with the availability and quality of the streaming judo. The CBC is showing only the finals of the women’s -70 kg and the men’s -90 kg, so we join the competition very much in progress.

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The first thing to say about the fourth day of judo competition in Beijing is oh my lord what a throw. Ayumi Tanimoto’s uchi mata counter to French world champion Lucie Decosse’s ouchi gari attack, that is. You can see that here. And you really should. It was slick.

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OK, now Japan can start losing it. Three days and six divisions into this tournament, and only one gold? Add in the two bronze, which gives Japan the medal lead, and it’s not as bad as it could be, but at this point this has the makings of a minor national disaster. Both Japanese athletes were out of the main draw and into the repechage early, while some slightly obscure judo nations came out on top.

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The Japanese can breathe a little easier after day two on the mats. After the disappointment of Hiroaki Hiraoka’s first-round flame out and Ryoko Tani’s failure to capture a third-straight Olympic championship, Mastao Uchishiba did everything expected of him en route to Japan’s first 2008 judo gold.

I should point out that Judovision.org has been doing a great job of assembling all of the most important matches — sometimes clipped, sometimes in full. The site has been up and down the last couple of days due to the increased Olympic traffic, but it is definitely worth a visit. I am told that the NBC site makes many of the matches available to US viewers through their “Rewind” feature, which is probably worth your attention as well. Certainly any of the medal matches can be seen at Judovision, but you might need to dig around the NBC site if you’re after something particular from the prelims.

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