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Bow-Tie Reviews: PRIDE Final Conflict 2005
By Matt D. | March 20, 2008
There aren’t a lot of fights going on this week, so I figured I’d start a new feature: The Bow-Tie Aficionado Reviews DVDs of Events That Happened Years Ago
Catchy title, don’t you think?
For my first installment I am going to look at Pride Fighting Championship: Final Conflict 2005. This event took place on August 28th 2005 at Saitama Super Arena in Saitama Japan. Final Conflict 2005 featured the semi finals and finals of the middleweight grand prix.
Grades:
Kazuhiro Nakamura vs. Igor Vovchanchyn: C+
Ricardo Arona vs. Wanderlei Silva: B+
Alistair Overeem vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua: B
Fabricio Werdum vs. Roman Zentsov: C+
Tank Abbott vs. Hidehiko Yoshida: C-
Fedor Emelianenko vs. Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic: A-
Ricardo Arona vs. Mauricio Rua: A
Overall: B
This was a good event. The only thing that keeps this from being a great event is the unevenness of the matches. For the most part matches were either great or they were terrible. The only “good” match was the Overeem vs. Shogun match. But this is still a must see event simply for the Cro Cop vs. Emelianeko match, and the conclusion of the middleweight grand prix.
I know this event happened years ago, but I don’t want to give spoilers to people who don’t want them. If you want a more in depth breakdown keep reading below…
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Kazuhiro Nakamura vs. Igor Vovchanchyn
Result: Nakamura by unanimous decision
Grade: C+
This fight was reserve match for the middleweight grand prix, so if a grand prix competitor would have gotten hurt the winner of this fight would step in. Because of that this fight was 2 rounds, one 10 minute round and one 5 minute round. I gave this fight a C+, because overall it was a pretty boring fight. Most of the fight took place on the ground with Nakamura in control. I like good ground fights, but this was not a good ground fight. Nakamura was able to do little on the ground. He never had Vovchanchyn in serious danger. Vovchanchyn wasn’t able to do any damage at all. So after 15 minutes the unanimous decision went to Nakamura.
Ricardo Arona vs. Wanderlei Silva
Result: Arona by unanimous decision
Grade: B+
This was a middleweight semi-finals match, so this was 2 rounds. Silva and Arona hate each other. This was a fight between Chute Boxe (Silva) and Top Team (Arona) when such things really mattered. This was destined to be a great fight, and for the most part it was. My biggest problem with this fight was that it was only 2 rounds. Silva never had a chance to come back. Arona starts the fight off with a nice trip that is able to knock an already off balance Silva down. From Silva’s guard Arona is able to do a good amount of damage before the referee stands them up about halfway through the first round. Arona is able to get another takedown and land more damaging punches from the guard. The second round is more of the same. Silva is the slightly better fighter as far as standup goes, but Arona is able to get a quick takedown, and Arona lands punches from Silva’s guard for much of the second round. Silva’s loss is his first middleweight loss in five years.
Alistair Overeem vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua:
Result: Rua by TKO at 6:42 of round 1
Grade: B
Good fight overall. Overeem starts the fight with a quick takedown. Overeem goes for a guillotine choke (he had won his last 5 matches with guillotine chokes), but Shogun slips out and takes top control. From the top Shogun is able to land blow after blow until the ref is forced to stop the fight. Overeem just looked overmatched in this fight. After he missed his guillotine choke it was pretty much over.
Fabricio Werdum vs. Roman Zentsov:
Result: Werdum by Triangle Arm Bar at 6:01 of round 1
Grade: C+
Zentsov is part of Fedor Emelianenko’s Red Devil Sport Club. Werdum was part of Team Cro Cop (or whatever the hell it was called). So this basically was a fight to help hype the heavyweight title fight coming up. Zentsov was basically over matched the whole fight. His only chance came in the middle of the first round when he tried for a choke. He missed the choke and ended up getting taken out with an arm bar shortly after.
Tank Abbott vs. Hidehiko Yoshida:
Result: Yoshida by GI choke at 7:40 of round 1
Grade: C-
If Zentsov was over matched I have no idea what to call Tank Abbott. He seriously had no clue what to do in the ring. His 30 pound weight advantage allowed him to lay on Yoshida for most of the fight, but he simply couldn’t figure out anything to do. After the ref stood them up halfway through the first round, Abbott and Yoshida exchange punches, and Yoshida gets the best of the exchange. If you go around trying to call yourself a “pit fighter”, you can’t let a judo guy out punch you. Yoshida’s blows stun Abbott and allow Yoshida to take his back and mercifully end the fight.
Fedor Emelianenko vs. Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic for the PRIDE Heavyweight Title:
Result: Emelianenko by unanimous decision
Grade: A-
This was a excellent fight. A good example of how dominant Fedor can be against tough opponents. Fedor dominated Cro Cop the whole fight. The only thing Cro Cop was able to do was land a nice high kick in the first round that led to Emelianenko’s nose bleeding the rest of the fight. But in reality that probably was worse for Cro Cop, because every time Fedor would get on top of him and land punches he would also bleed on him. If you ever want to see why people think Fedor is the best fighter in the world, this fight would not be a bad place to start.
Ricardo Arona vs. Mauricio "Shogun" Rua in the finals of the PRIDE Middleweight Grand Prix
Result: Rua by KO at 2:54 of round 1
Grade: A
Explanation: After Arona’s dominating fight against Silva I really thought he would do better against Silva’s Chute Boxe teammate Shogun. This fight starts off with Shogun trying a ridiculous jumping spin kick straight out of a Van Dam movie and missing. This leads to Shogun getting taken down early by Arona. Shogun doesn’t stay on the ground for long and quickly gets to his feet and wins a nice exchange. This leads to Shogun taking Arona down and quickly landing some bombs. Arona is knocked out at about the three minute mark by a series of hammer fists. Chute Boxe storms the ring and celebrates, and all is once again right with the cosmos.
Topics: DVD Reviews, PRIDE |