Kazushi Sakuraba

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[Jingus]

Has he done much worth watching in New Japan over the past couple of years? Because in his UWFI matches that I've seen, he was competent-but-forgettable for the most part. Sakuraba is maybe my favorite shootfighter ever, but I've never seen him do anything in worked matches which made me think he was a great rassler.

[El-P]

So, is PRIDE pro-wrestling, Dan ?

[Tim Cooke]

Doesn't make the list as he was middle of the pack in UWFI though if he worked more with Tamura or went to RINGS, it may be a different story

[ohtani's jacket]

So, is PRIDE pro-wrestling, Dan ?

I probably wouldn't vote for Sakuraba, but if I did I would compare his MMA career to his early UWF-I and Kingdom work as well as his later New Japan return. I wouldn't vote for him solely on the basis that I think his PRIDE fights were great up until the Silva massacres, but I do think his MMA career informs his pro-style work. It's hard for me to watch his early shoot style stuff and not think of the what he accomplished in MMA, and likewise it's hard to watch his present day matches without thinking of the beatings he took in his later MMA fights. It's all part of his career narrative and the fact you should ignore it or dismiss it because a shoot style wrestler went one step further and had a shoot is something I'll never fathom.

[El-P]

Who cares about a "career narrative", if such a thing even exist, overlapping from pro-wrestling (aka "pretending") to MMA (aka "fighting for eal") ? Sakuraba did pro-wrestling and he also did MMA. He's judge for his pro-wrestling accomplishments here. What he can do in a MMA match doesn't matter one bit to me. Are we gonna use Brawl for All to gauge Steve Williams toughness next (his toughness as a"pro-wrestler" was definitly part of his "career narrative") ? Are we gonna study Alberto Del Rio's MMA matches to judge him as a worker ?

 

PRIDE wasn't pro-wrestling, apart from a few worked matches, which were the last remains of the UWF shoot-style pro-wrestling culture, and because it was needed for some guys. This is also the closest to "fake shit" pro-wrestling ever got, since PRIDE was supposed to be the real "real deal".

[ohtani's jacket]

On one hand, I've got people telling me that careers are just as important as how good a worker a guy was, and on the other I've got someone telling me career narratives don't exist. Steve Williams and Alberto Del Rio didn't have significant MMA careers. Why are you trying to pretend they did? Anyone who thinks Sakuraba's present NJPW work isn't shaped by his PRIDE run is kidding themselves .Apparently, he had a big pause in his pro-wrestling career and the PRIDE/MMA stuff never happened. Give me a break. I don't really have any interest in a long, drawn out argument about what MMA was in Japan in relation to pro-wrestling since it barely exists anymore in the same way that shoot style barely exists, but I believe my original point was it was something I would keep in mind in regard to candidates such as Sakuraba. Funaki and Tamura if I were to vote, which I'm not. Others can draw a line in the sand if they like.

[El-P]

Steve Williams and Alberto Del Rio didn't have significant MMA careers. Why are you trying to pretend they did? Anyone who thinks Sakuraba's present NJPW work isn't shaped by his PRIDE run is kidding themselves .

 

How wasn't it significant ? Steve Williams career in the WWF was basically derailed totally because of his loss in Brawl for All. Alberto del Rio used a shoot-style finisher because he did MMA before.

 

I don't care that Sakuraba's current NJWP career is shaped by what he did in PRIDE. It's not relevant to how good a pro-wrestler he is/was. It's just a gimmick at this point, like any other gimmick.

 

Let me put it like this : the fact Kurt Angle won a Gold Medal at the Olympics did shape his entire pro-wrestling career. It was his entire gimmick too. Still, it has nothing to do with how good (or not) he was at *pro-wrestling*. Because amateur wrestling, like MMA, isn't pro-wrestling. It's not a work. It's as simple as that to me.

[ohtani's jacket]

Do you really think Steve Williams had something left in the WWF that would have added to his career? Something outside of some Al Issacs fueled rumour about him being Vince's corporate champ and the latest in a long line of guy meant to be brought in to feud with Austin. Nobody cared about del Rio let alone his finisher.

A gimmick isn't relevant to how good a pro-wrestler is? You're not high on any wrestler because of how well they played their gimmick? If Sakuraba's MMA career isn't relevant to his NJPW run then how come he has a quasi-shooter gimmick and keeps getting put in quasi-shoot style feuds? It doesn't mean a great deal to me how conscious people are of it, but if Shibata has a shooter gimmick then Sakuraba's past has to be just a tiny weeny bit relevant.

 

You don't think Angle had a weight of expectation on him because he was an Olympic gold medalist? People didn't want him to be an outstanding pro-wrestler because of his amateur credentials? Really? They didn't think he'd be like Brisco, Hodge, etc? My point really is that it would be something I would be mindful of. For example, Angle's matwork is disappointing to me since he was a legitimately great amateur. It's in small details like that where it matters. Now that I think about it, I actually think it's bullshit for me to think that such and such a luchador trained under Diablo Velasco and therefore he's legit, or this guy trained under Karl Gotch, or this guy under Riley, and therefore they're well schooled and yet MMA doesn't count. I don't think it's the be all and end all, but it's part of the parcel.

[El-P]

If Sakuraba's MMA career isn't relevant to his NJPW run then how come he has a quasi-shooter gimmick and keeps getting put in quasi-shoot style feuds? It doesn't mean a great deal to me how conscious people are of it, but if Shibata has a shooter gimmick then Sakuraba's past has to be just a tiny weeny bit relevant.

 

Relevant as far as his identity goes, yes. But how good he was as an MMA fighter or not means zilch, because MMA isn't pro-wrestling. It's really simple. You can enjoy how much his pro-wrestling character derives from his MMA career, but in the end, how good of a pro-wrestler he is really has nothing to do with how good a shootfighter he was. And trying to make a case for pro-wrestlers career by taking in accounts how good they were as MMA fighters (or whatever fighting *sport* they played) is irrelevant to me.

[Loss]

I think his MMA experience is relevant in the sense that he was able to use it for credibility in the worked world of pro wrestling, which added a dynamic to his matches that may not be there otherwise. I think it would be interesting to compare all the wrestlers that were seen as the "real deal" and see who leveraged that and got the most out of it.

[Childs]

On one hand, I've got people telling me that careers are just as important as how good a worker a guy was, and on the other I've got someone telling me career narratives don't exist.

 

I think the career argument is that being a great worker for a year does not carry the same weight as being a great worker for 10 years. That doesn't strike me as particularly connected to whatever El-P is saying about career narratives.

 

I agree with you about Sakuraba's shoot career informing his recent NJPW run (in a good way) though he lacks either the peak greatness or the career weight to come anywhere near my 100. He's a rare case though. Tamura was a great pro wrestler before his shoots, and I don't see them shaping my view of him. I don't see Suzuki's Pancrase work having a huge impact on his latter-day style either, though I guess it adds to his aura as a dangerous guy. I'm a bit less clear on how he's viewed by the fans.

[Timbo Slice]

Saku and Yano is the best tag team in NJPW and they should run it more often.

 

Won't make the list, but he's intriguing.

[Control21]

He didn't have many matches but the natural talent skill and had is too much for me to overlook, and it clearly translated to the MMA world. I think that speaks volumes, and he always considered himself a "pro-wrestler" so it's hard to ignore that factor. His matches with Kanehara, Tamura, and Otani are among my favorites. He's still going strong today, and his longevity is hard to overlook now as well. 

[Reel]

The 2016 version of this discussion pretty much sums up my thoughts on Sakuraba. He's one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time, before, and after, that he was a pro wrestler. But outside of being a compelling wrestling character because of his MMA bonafides, his in-ring output isn't anything of note. Like he's what the 7th best guy in UWFi, the 5th best guy in Kngdom, and then he's MMA superstar Kazushi Sakuraba in New Japan after that. I know people have liked his NOAH run, but I don't really see it. He's old, broken down, and way too often does dumb stuff like turning hs back to Kenoh and letting him kick him a bunch for no reason, not to mention some truly awful strike exchanges. 

[Ma Stump Puller]

44 minutes ago, Reel said:

The 2016 version of this discussion pretty much sums up my thoughts on Sakuraba. He's one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time, before, and after, that he was a pro wrestler. But outside of being a compelling wrestling character because of his MMA bonafides, his in-ring output isn't anything of note. Like he's what the 7th best guy in UWFi, the 5th best guy in Kngdom, and then he's MMA superstar Kazushi Sakuraba in New Japan after that. I know people have liked his NOAH run, but I don't really see it. He's old, broken down, and way too often does dum stuff like turning hs back to Kenoh and letting him kick him a bunch for no reason, not to mention some truly awful strike exchanges. 

I definitely agree with this. Seeing Sakuraba do NOAH-style strike exchanges with Marufuji and just outright letting him chop him as hard as possible with no resistance makes zero fucking sense. When he isn't doing that, he's doing incredibly slow, tenseless technical work that gets overextended a lot. He's great in short bursts of action but anything paced longer is a struggle.

 

[Control21]

2 hours ago, Reel said:

The 2016 version of this discussion pretty much sums up my thoughts on Sakuraba. He's one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time, before, and after, that he was a pro wrestler. But outside of being a compelling wrestling character because of his MMA bonafides, his in-ring output isn't anything of note. Like he's what the 7th best guy in UWFi, the 5th best guy in Kngdom, and then he's MMA superstar Kazushi Sakuraba in New Japan after that. I know people have liked his NOAH run, but I don't really see it. He's old, broken down, and way too often does dumb stuff like turning hs back to Kenoh and letting him kick him a bunch for no reason, not to mention some truly awful strike exchanges. 

I think Sakuraba was easily one of the best guys in UWFi and Kingdom by the time he came around. I guess that's a more subjective issue but his matches with Tamura and Kanehara were just so good from a technical perspective. 

[Reel]

I'm not sure that shootstyle Sakuraba is better than Billy Scott, and I love Billy Scott, but I'm not voting for him GWE, and excluding Sakuraba's post-prime run in NJPW and NOAH, which I think is mostly meh, their output is similar. 

[Control21]

I checked out his matches against Marufuji and Sugiura from 2021. I thought both were really good. Especially against Marufuji in August. He still can deliver if you ask me.