It was hard to have super high expectations for Pride FC’s “Beasts From The East 2” card. The event was just a few weeks removed from the promotion’s first-ever “Shockwave” event from the Tokyo National Stadium, which saw a turnout of 90,000 or 70,000 fans, depending on who you ask (albeit an impressive number even if its somewhat outside of that attendance range).
Like most promotions, Pride has a formula of presenting smaller events in-between big events. But unlike the current-day UFC, where the smaller events feature lower-ranked talents, Pride’s big shows still had big names. But those would receive real lay-up pairings.
“Beasts From The East 2” certainly had a significant number of matchups like that. The Nagoya Rainbow Hall card carried easily some of the best heavyweights at the time (Igor Vovchanchyn, Heath Herring, Kevin Randleman), oh and it also had this guy named Anderson Silva. But most folks were placed in pretty lopsided matchups.
A big litmus test for this card, in my opinion, was staff predictions that Sherdog put together. The entire seven-member staff was in agreement about the results of about half of the card. A lot of performances were less about who would win, but instead how one of the fighters would win.
Looking past the pummellings that took place lower on the lineup, there was a pair of fights that seemed like a big deal. Pride FC wrote another chapter in the ultra-popular Gracies vs. The World storyline, as Ryan Gracie took on Shungo Oyama in the main event.
And in what I would argue was the highlight of the card, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson took on Igor Vovchanchyn. Let’s discuss the show.
If A Star Wasn’t Already Born…
Quinton “Rampage” Jackson was an established name by 2002. However, he certainly hadn’t yet become the legendary MMA figure that people know him as now. He had earned a pair of finish wins in Pride against low-level names by this point and appeared in K-1 once. Apart from a 2001 submission loss to Kazushi Sakuraba, Jackson had yet to face anyone big in Pride.
But that changed on this 2002 night. Jackson put together a stellar performance against Igor Vovchanchyn in the co-main event, arguably finally marking his arrival to the promotion.
By late 2002, Vovchanchyn wasn’t the biggest name in Pride. He had lost to Heath Herring and Mario Sperry in the past. But with his success from the recent past, namely making it to the 2000 Grand Prix finals and earning seven wins in that year alone, he was still one of the biggest names you could defeat in the promotion.
This fight was a statement win for Jackson. He nearly pitched a shutout against Vovchanchyn. He grounded and pounded his way to victory, stopping Vovchanchyn in just over seven minutes.
Jackson scored one of his trademark dramatic slams to the canvas early in the fight after Vovchanchyn tried to pull guard. From full guard, Jackson started unloading with punches. Vovchanchyn briefly escaped and returned to his feet, but another big slam from Jackson took the fight back to where he wanted it to be. He continued to land punches, hitting both the head and body of Vovchanchyn. Suddenly, a right hand to the body of Vovchanchyn hurt him in a way that signalled the fight was over.
You could tell immediately that something was broken or damaged. Rampage could tell, and despite being in the heat of a ground and pound exchange, he backed off and looked at the referee to do something. As Vovchanchyn continued to be solely focused on his rib injury, the referee stopped the fight. It wasn’t a brawl like some might have expected. It wasn’t the type of fight that had fans out of their seats. But it was a dominant performance over a respected name, which was massive for Rampage. It was easily the biggest win in Rampage’s career by that point.
Stephen Quadros was about to crown the moment as “a star is born.” He caught himself, arguing that Jackson was already a star before this fight. He was onto something there. Whether he was a star already or not, Jackson’s performance against Vovchanchyn was a massive turning point in his career. Soon, we’ll be discussing his busy and incredibly noteworthy 2003.
Team Gracie Picks Up A Point
If you didn’t care about the high-stakes heavyweight clash between Rampage and Vovchanchyn, it’s possible that you were interested in the main event. Ryan Gracie made his return in the headlining spot against Shungo Oyama.
Pride’s obsession with matching the Gracie family against others lasted years and was a massive deal. A testament to the popularity of these fights is the fact that this bout was positioned as the headliner over many of the promotion’s biggest and most successful names.
It seemed like Pride wanted to transfer the “Gracie Hunter” success of Kazushi Sakuraba onto many others, if possible. You beat one Gracie, you get another. That’s the type of position they were in with Oyama this weekend. Just three months prior he overcame Renzo Gracie.
From one Gracie to another, this time facing the less MMA-tested Ryan.
Ryan Gracie had an impressive debut in 2000, putting away Tokimitsu Ishizawa in just over two minutes. He had a rough go after then though, losing to Kazushi Sakuraba and then being taken out of a fight against Ishizawa due to an injury.
While Gracie was a couple of years removed from his first (and only at that point) moment of glory in MMA, anyone who counted him out was a fool. He showcased his sharp grappling in this fight, catching Oyama suddenly and putting an end to their contest in just 97 seconds.
Oyama earned top position, getting off his back after being taken down by Gracie. Oyama hoped to score with damage from this position, but that didn’t work out for him. One of his arms was caught by Gracie suddenly, allowing him to put on an armbar for the submission finish.
Gracie got some momentum back with the win and put the Gracies back on top for the time being. While we won’t see him again for another year or so, he has a few more big wins set for sometime in the future.
A Trio of Mid-Card Finishes
There was a trio of finish victories in the middle of this card. Like a lot of fights on this lineup, they were in real one-sided matchups. But let’s run through them nonetheless.
Mario Sperry finished RINGS veteran Andrey Kopylov in the first round, slicing his lip open with a soccer kick. The cut was deep and gnarly, and definitely justified a stoppage. The win turned things around for Sperry after losing to Murilo Rua earlier in the year.
Heath Herring, easily one of the top names at heavyweight in Pride at the moment, was up next. Dan Rose of Sherdog described him as the “second-best.” He put away somewhat unknown Russian Yuri Kochkine with strikes in just over seven minutes.
After seeing the first minute of this fight, it felt inevitable that a finish would eventually emerge. Herring took Kochkine down after a flurry of punches. After a bit of battling on the ground, a series of hard knees from Herring forced a finish. In 2001, Herring lost a title fight to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. But now, he had earned back momentum with a pair of wins in 2002. He’ll have a pair of huge challenges coming up, facing both Fedor Emelianenko and Mirko Cro Cop over the next year.
Undefeated Paul Filho won his promotional debut against Akira Shoji. Filho had previously beaten Yuki Kondo and Minowaman in Japan, so he wasn’t an unknown name by this point.
Pundits were seemingly split on this one, but it ended up being a dominant win for Filho. He tried for a takedown but was put on his back after a sprawl position. In a finish similar to the main event, Filho then put together an armbar to earn a submission.
Filho will return to Pride in 2004 in a rematch against Shoji. He’ll be a recurring character for the next few years as we discuss Pride and then later WEC as well.
Three Big Names Earn Not-So-Big Wins
To be candid, the start of this card was a slog. Since Pride followed the ruleset of a 10-minute opening round, then a pair of five-minute rounds, some fights would take up a 30-minute block of the program. When one fight is boring, that’s okay. But when you get three of the slowest matches of the evening one after the other, it becomes a battle to get through.
The first three bouts of this card went the distance. Don’t get me wrong, that’s no signifier that they were bad fights. Although I will say this: One was bad. The other two were not very exciting.
Kevin Randleman dominated NJPW mid-card wrestler Michiyoshi Ohara. Randleman had Ohara in trouble immediately, but seemingly never did enough to actually put away the wrestler. “He throws the right hand and then backs away,” the commentary said. “Ohara’s not dangerous, so he has nothing to be worried about.”
The crowd, which seemed excited at the start of the fight, had essentially fallen silent by the end of the bout. The broadcast was bored. They started talking about Randleman’s hair color. Former UFC Heavyweight Champion Randleman won his highly anticipated Pride FC debut, but the performance disappointed many. “It was sad,” Bas Rutten muttered.
Guy Mezger was up against Yoshihisa Yamamoto. While Mezger was clearly winning the fight, Yamamoto was to his credit fighting back. Mezger out-landed and hurt Yamamoto at points. “You’re tough,” he said after the Japanese talent ate a soccer kick to the head.
Also returning to Pride was Anderson Silva. Yet to compete in the UFC (we’re still actually many years away from that), Silva was earning a reputation in Japan. He won his promotional debut just earlier in the year, beating Alex Stiebling.
Silva’s opponent was the infamous Alexander Otsuka. Otsuka had a reputation in Pride for being too tough for his own good. By this point, he had a record of 4-10, with a large number of those losses being grand beatings.
Otsuka, despite losing, put up a solid effort against Silva. He earned takedowns, had control, and tried for ground and pound. While I thought this fight was quite close, the judges didn’t have any doubts. The submission attempts from Silva and his damage earned him the win. The fight back-and-forth, but it didn’t feel like beating Otsuka proved much. Otsuka was known for losing to guys, so to have a close fight against him might have been a bad look if anything.
Back To UFC 39 For A Second: The Heavyweight Situation
Last week’s Throwback Thursday covered UFC 39. I’ve been able to do some extra reading about the event and wanted to touch on that a little more.
I was really curious about why Tim Sylvia ended up getting a UFC Heavyweight Championship shot next, and not Gan McGee. They both competed on UFC 39, and it felt like Sylvia’s win was a bigger performance. McGee had just stopped high-profile fighter Pedro Rizzo early, and Sylvia put a beatdown on Wesley “Cabbage” Correira.
It seems like there was just more momentum around Sylvia. Maybe it was because of how fan-friendly his win over an incredibly tough Correira was?
I read a column on Sherdog that really pointed out the temperature around McGee at the time: “Is Gan legit? Man, I seriously doubt it. He may be down the line but right now his biggest credentials are landing a right hand on the on again off again former slugger Pedro and the fact that he trains with Liddell. He just doesn’t figure into current UFC Heavyweight plans.”
I genuinely believe that, along with Sylvia’s pre-UFC credentials (winning a one-night Superbrawl tournament), the style of fight that he had against Correira gave him some serious buzz. It event earned him some mainstream coverage.
ESPN’s Bill Simmons attended UFC 39 and wrote a column that is really worth checking out. It’s a time capsule in many ways: Some jokes that wouldn’t fly today and a review of the event in a very blunt style that I feel simply worked more in the bygone real blog era of the internet. It also showed a sort of struggle that some viewers have felt about MMA in the past. While he considered MMA more entertaining than boxing, he felt the violence of some beatdowns was a little too extreme. He would strongly feel this in the moments when a knocked-down fighter is out of it and not defending himself, but his opponent is still going in for punches. “We were about two more punches away from witnessing [Phil] Baroni kill someone with his bare hands. A little unsettling,” he wrote.
But to circle back to the main point, he dedicated a huge chunk of his UFC 39 piece to Sylvia vs. Correira. While he equated the match to “amateur night,” he really found something entertaining in the toughness of Correira. It was the highlight of his night, so much so that he left shortly thereafter, missing the main event.
There was a lot of buzz surrounding that fight between Sylvia and Correira. When reading news pieces, it was the second-most talked about fight on the card.
Even though it felt like Sylvia’s win over Correira might have earned him a title shot, it seemed like overall people weren’t super satisfied with the heavyweight title picture. But history would show that Sylvia and McGee would be in first and second place for a shot over the next year.
Even with a heavyweight champion finally back in place with Ricco Rodriguez winning the vacant title at UFC 39, it felt like the division was a little all over the place. That same Sherdog column didn’t seem too happy with the promotion’s roster, insisting that UFC should bring in some Pride FC talents. It was also assumed at the time that Josh Barnett would return to the UFC immediately after his Nevada drug test suspension would expire. Instead, he would head over to Japan for the next few years, eventually landing also in Pride.
When looking at this Pride 22 lineup, which just features some of the promotion’s top heavyweight names, it’s clear that they had the better roster. Their pay, which Dana White said had fighters receiving “10, 20 times more than what they should be getting paid,” was luring many talents away from the UFC. How UFC deals with this and tries to sustain its own heavyweight division is something we’ll be watching as time goes on.
Next Thursday: Tito Ortiz Meets Ken Shamrock At UFC 40
Next week, we’ll zoom ahead to late November 2002 when UFC 40: “Vendetta” took place. The card was headlined by a light heavyweight title fight between Tito Ortiz and Ken Shamrock. Ortiz will be trying to keep alive his lengthy title run in what was billed as a blood feud. The fight is Shamrock’s return to the UFC after a brief run in Pride, and his first-ever title fight in the promotion.
While it wasn’t billed on the UFC 39 broadcast, there are many other major appearances in the lineup. Chuck Lidell will return in the co-main event, Matt Hughes will put his welterweight title up against Gil Castillo, a still-undefeated Robbie Lawler compete, and more.
I haven’t seen UFC 40 yet, as I go into all of these watches blind. While UFC 39 was stellar in how it played out, UFC 40 looks like the better card on paper. We’ll see how it goes and will compare the two shows.
Also next week, I’ll have a big news catchup. I’ll be reading through a ton of 2002 archives this week and figuring out what the word on the street was back then. We’ll have a whole section devoted to that.
We’ll come back to Pride FC in two weeks when we watch “Championship Chaos 2.” That card, from the Tokyo Dome, will have appearances from Kazushi Sakuraba, Wanderlei Silva, Antonio Nogueira, along with a few others.
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