10-22-2006, 08:04 PM
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Keyboard Warrior
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: One of the outer rings of Hell
Posts: 9,653
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continued...
Quote:
Butterbean beat Sean O Haire. Luckily, this fight did not go long. A lot of people took this as an early intermission. O Haire closed in for a takedown, but Butterbean rocked him with punches from a close distance. O Haire dropped to one knee and Butterbean continued with punches until it was stopped. Butterbean got a big reaction to his promo after the match.
The show then had a long intermission. This was likely a bad idea for a PPV, but it worked fine live. It helped concessions and merchandise. By the end of the show merchandising was almost completely wiped out. Most of the merchandise stands were closed and the little remaining product was moved to one lone concession stand. That only had a few t-shirts, hands and other smaller items. The Pride girls were introduced in the ring, and Nobuhiko Takada came out to speak to the audience. He said Pride is here to stay, and announced a follow-up date in February. He brought out Hayato Sakurai, Hidehiko Yoshida and Kazuyuki Fujita who said hello to the American fans.
Josh Barnett defeated Pawel Nastula. Nastula looked really good in defeat, which is the story of his career. There was a long clinch in the first round, and Nastula eventually got the takedown. Barnett was able to stand, but Nastula got another takedown. Barnett caught Nastula in an ankle lock at the end of the first round. Nastula was saved by the end of the round, but Barnett apparently found a weakness in Nastula s game. In the second round there was another clinch. They exchanged on their feet, where Nastula surprisingly caught Barnett with a hard punch. He then took Barnett down. Nastula went for an arm bar, but Barnett escaped and Nastula caught him with the ankle lock a second time for the tap. Nastula got a nice reaction after the crowd, and Barnett put him over in his post fight comments. Barnett has real potential to get over in the United States.
Wanderlei Silva was introduced, and got a superstar reaction. He called out Chuck Liddell. He said Liddell doesn t want to fight him. This was your typical grandstand pro wrestling challenge. The story of this was the crowd reaction. Just a few months ago in the same city at UFC 61 when this fight was announced it got very little reaction. But on this show, the crowd reacted really big to this.
Mauricio Shogun beat Kevin Randleman. Shogun was also really popular with the crowd. Randleman had his typical intensity. He scored a takedown immediately. Shogun got the heel hook and Randleman didn t defend it properly. Shogun cranked it and probably did major damage to Randleman. However, Randleman just lay there, screaming in pain and refusing to submit. Shogun transitioned into a knee bar and had that at a nasty angle, and finally Randleman submitted. This was an unbelievably gutsy performance by Randleman, who even limped out in the main event to second Mark Coleman.
Fedor Emelianenko beat Mark Coleman. They ran a really good video package prior to the match, that portrayed Coleman as this family man underdog going against the Soviet menace Fedor. It didn t work entirely, as the crowd loved Fedor and preferred him to Coleman. Fedor got another standing ovation. In the first round, Fedor blocked Coleman s takedowns and punished him standing. Fedor went for a guillotine choke but Coleman got out. Coleman finally got a takedown but Fedor stood right back up. Fedor hit some nasty punches, but Coleman kept going for the takedowns. Coleman s face was badly busted up, but they let him continue.
In the second round Coleman went for the takedown again and got it, but Fedor quickly caught him with an arm bar just like in the first fight. After the fight Coleman was in tears and tried to tell his young daughters that he was okay. These poor traumatized girls came in the ring and hugged him. He brought them over to Fedor, but they seemed scared of him in spite of his friendly smile.
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