Aoki vs Melendez

[Kebal]

Threat of the Day: Watch Your Arm, Gilbert

http://cdn.cagepotato.com/www/sites/default/files/590aoki.jpg

(Sure, you'll save a few bucks going to an unlicensed chiropractor, but you wind up paying for it in other ways.)

From a new report on MMA Junkie:


Shinya Aoki is not sorry he broke Mizuto Hirota's arm this past New Year's Eve, nor is he sorry about his actions afterward. Aoki (23-4 MMA, 0-0 SF) caught Hirota's right arm in a ghastly hammerlock in the first round of their "Dynamite!! 2009" bout and cranked until the limb visibly – and audibly – broke. As Hirota grimaced in pain on the mat, Aoki stood overhead and flipped the bird at his opponent. And though he faced a wave of condemnation that included his dismissal from a teaching position at the gym in which he belongs, Aoki has no regrets.
"No (I don't) because it happened during the fight," Aoki told MMAjunkie.com through his translator during a media day promoting his upcoming fight with Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez (17-2 MMA, 7-1 SF) at Strikeforce: Nashville..."Sometime in the future, it may happen," Aoki said. "I can't deny that it will happen again."

Of course, it had already happened twice before during Aoki's combat career: When he snapped Keith Wisniewski's arm in Shooto, and when he dislocated Kuniyoshi Hironaka's arm in a grappling match. The man is very disrespectful towards arms, basically, and he refuses to feel bad about it. Of course, what really got Aoki in hot water after the Hirota fight was his Stockton-style celebration, which I can't really see him doing in the U.S. against a guy he has no personal history with. But the bottom line is this: Don't be a hero, Gilbert. If Aoki has your arm, just tap, unless you want to spend the rest of the year in recovery. Aoki's already pissed off about the shorts situation. But for a Strikeforce championship belt? Dios mio, he gonna carve you up real nice.

[Kebal]

het hele stuk trouwens

Shinya Aoki is not sorry he broke Mizuto Hirota's arm this past New Year's Eve, nor is he sorry about his actions afterward.

Aoki (23-4 MMA, 0-0 SF) caught Hirota's right arm in a ghastly hammerlock in the first round of their "Dynamite!! 2009" bout and cranked until the limb visibly – and audibly – broke.

As Hirota grimaced in pain on the mat, Aoki stood overhead and flipped the bird at his opponent.

And though he faced a wave of condemnation that included his dismissal from a teaching position at the gym in which he belongs, Aoki has no regrets.

"No (I don't) because it happened during the fight," Aoki told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) through his translator during a media day promoting his upcoming fight with Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez (17-2 MMA, 7-1 SF) at "Strikeforce: Nashville."

Aoki makes his U.S. debut April 17 on the CBS-televised event after a decorated career in Japan that's only recently come under fire for his behavior this past New Year's Eve.

Known for the colorful pants he wears during his fights, Aoki has won 14 of his 23 victories by submission, and often, by unusual or risky maneuvers that others rarely pull off.

He holds a special aura among grappling enthusiasts within the MMA community who believe he is the best pure submission grappler in the game.

Melendez is a seasoned ground-and-pound artist in addition to a respectable stand-up game, and that's a big part of the intrigue behind the April 17 fight: whether he can stay away from Aoki's slick moves on the mat.

The hold Aoki applied to Hirota was not in the Rolodex of common submissions. But the speed and force in which he cranked it produced a devastating result.

That force, Aoki said, was the result of being overtaken by an "outside force" in the fight's final moments. The force caused his aggression and subsequent in-ring outburst.

It was the final bout in an event that pitted DREAM fighters against World Victory Road's Sengoku fighters, and the score was even when the two met in the co-main event. Aoki said there was a special urgency to the bout because of Hirota's Sengoku belt.

He's not quite sure why the feeling arrived at that moment.

"The thought came down to me," Aoki said. "Maybe the bad thought came down to me."

He said it was the first time he experienced such a feeling during a fight, though two viral videos show him damaging the arms of opponents Keith Wisniewski and Kuniyoshi Hironaka in past competition.

Aoki said he is not trying to hurt his opponents, though.

"I just want to win the fight," he said.

When he faces Melendez, Aoki is not allowed to wear the grappling pants that have allowed him to catch many a fighter. But he thinks he can stop the Strikeforce champion before he takes any real damage.

"It's going to be a very great fight (with a) quick submission or knockout," he said. "Either way, it's going to be a first-round fight for him (or) for me.

"I can take his pressure, but finally, I'm going to win."

Aoki did not, however, rule out that he could be overtaken by that "force" once again.

"Sometime in the future, it may happen," Aoki said. "I can't deny that it will happen again."

[sikkwittet]

aoki op sub

[I_LOVE_KNOCKOUTS]

Moeilijk, moeilijk...

[Socra]

Fucka you Gilbert!!! :finger:

[Kebal]

nog wat Japan vs USA gepraat van cagepotato


http://cdn.cagepotato.com/www/sites/default/files/Shinya_Aoki.jpg
(There's a reason the Japanese version of The Fonz was never as popular.)

Because of his limited English skills and the general lack of western media access to him, we don’t get to hear from Shinya Aoki in his own words all that often. As a recent interview with Japan’s Gong Magazine (then translated for Fighter’s Only) confirms, that’s a damn shame. Aoki more or less refused to get bogged down in the normal/boring technical discussion about how his style matches up with Gilbert Melendez’s, and instead cut right to what he feels the stakes are in this bout:



“Japan’s best comes to USA. This is amazing...my technical side is evidenced by my long career. It is the same as my old fights so it does not need to be discussed. Instead, the most important point is this: ‘If Aoki loses, it is over for Japan’

“I love Japan and it is certain that if I lose, Japan will become a colony of US MMA. Some maniacs say that USA's MMA is the best but I do not worship US MMA so this is big war to me, just like my fight against [Sengoku champion] Hirota [on New Year’s Eve].”


So, let’s see what we’ve got here. Completely overblown nationalist rhetoric? Check. Inflated sense of self-importance coupled with a reference to yourself in the third person? Check. Giving us a simple, but compelling narrative to explain why this fight matters? Total check.
This is exactly the kind of thing that will play wonderfully in the American MMA scene, which almost just makes you sad that we haven’t had more Aoki in our lives before now. But let’s not kid ourselves, Aoki needs the U.S. even more than we need him. He admits that he’s run out of interesting fights in Dream. There are a couple of intriguing possibilities for him in Strikeforce, and of course the talent sharing arrangement between the two organizations means we could see some of those fights on Japanese soil as well.

But what Aoki really needs now are fresh challengers and a fresh narrative. The whole, 'I'll kill you if Dream tells me to' stuff? That doesn't work as well against other Dream fighters, and we already saw what he did to his rival in the other major Japanese promotion. He needs new objects to prove his fierce allegiance against. If he can convince fans that the fight is a struggle of national pride, so much the better.

[sikkwittet]

funny stuff weer

[d4nd3l10n]

Die gekke Melendez weet wel hoe hij jappen een beatdown moet geven. Gewonnen van Rumina, Kawajiri, etc...

Moeilijk man deze. Maar ik ga toch voor Melendez, puur omdat het bij StrikeForce is. Of zou ik toch voor Idiokie op sub gaan?..

Hmmm moeilijk, moeilijk. Odds: 0/90 vs 0/90 :D