Pride 19: Bad Blood - Results

[Guest Army Eye]

Tom Erikson defeats Tim Catalfo by rear naked choke.  2:37 into Round 1

 

Alex Steibling defeats Wallid Ismail by unanimous decision.

 

Rodrigo Gracie defeats Daijiro Matsui by head and arm choke.  :28 into Round 3

 

Carlos Newton defeats Jose Landi-Jons by armbar.   7:14 into Round 1

 

Heath Herring defeats Igor Vovchanchyn by unanimous decision.

 

Don Frye defeats Ken Shamrock by split decision.

 

Antonio Nogueira defeats Enson Inoue by triangle choke.  6:15 into Round 1

 

Vanderlei Silva defeats Kiyoshi Tamura by knockout.  2:30 into Round 2

 

 

A few quick notes:

 

- Newton vs. Pele was great action!  Pele acted like a dick after the match.

- Herring won the decision, close match, the difference maker was probably the yellow card that Igor received in the third round for non-aggression.  Herring on the other hand did not get a yellow card for headbutting Igor.  There will be some controversy surrounding this decision.

- It looks like Shamrock's conditioning failed him again.  He was EXTREMELY gassed after Round 2 and nearly got knocked out by a flurry of punches from Frye early in Round 3.  Shamrock still has the skills, but whether it's his age or his body or what, he just doesn't have the stamina to fight at an elite level any more.

- Enson did not tap to the triangle.  The ref had to stop it and Enson was unconscious for a little bit.  Then when he sat up at first he fell back down on his face.  A couple minutes later he was up and seemed to be ok though.  Enson put up a good fight but was clearly outmatched.  He escaped a chicken wing and a head and arm choke before eventually getting caught in the triangle.  Minotauro REALLY put on a clinic.  Very emotional speech for Enson; this was his last fight of course.

- In the main event, Silva completely dominated Tamura.  Tamura had almost no offense but managed to hang on for a while.  In the second round, Silva finished it with a WICKED right hand that landed flush on the jaw.  Tamura stayed down for quite a while.

 

Pride 20 was announced for April 28.  To my knowledge they did not announce any matches for it yet.

[Guest Hit Squad]

Sounds good, I would have liked to see Shamrock and Frye settle it for the record.

 

They gotta release this on DVD soon.

[Guest Brian]

Newon and Pele had the fight of the night. Shamrock/Frye was close with the judging, moreso than I expected.

[Guest reverse knife edge]

"It looks like Shamrock's conditioning failed him again.  He was EXTREMELY gassed after Round 2 and nearly got knocked out by a flurry of punches from Frye early in Round 3."

 

I'd say he was gassed after the first round. Shamrock's best days are far behind him but I was really impressed with the guy on two fronts:

 

1. After two rounds of locking up after only a few punches, Shamrock had the balls to just let loose in an exchange. Not a smart decision (Frye's a much better striker and Ken paid the price) but a brave one.

 

2. After the knockdown, Shamrock survived on pure willpower. The fact that he even tried to get up says a lot. At that point I really thought Frye was going to ground and pound his way to a victory but somehow Shamrock was able to work his way back on top. That was impressive.

 

The fight ended with a couple minutes straight of both guys trying to cinch in ankle submissions. Round 2 was the shits but I thought the last few minutes really salvaged the fight.

 

Other thoughts:

 

Newton vs. Pele was indeed the match of the night. Again on the guts front, Newton was almost knocked out with a knee to the head at one point and hung on to get the submission.

 

Minotauro is awesome. Didn't watch the last Pride but his submissions looked awesome against Mark Coleman and the same held true here. A little scary to see Inoue get choked all the way out, but you have to give him credit for refusing to tap.

 

Silva remains a badass. Wonder if they're just gonna keep feeding him Japanese until another rematch with Sak?

 

One more thing. The announcers suck. Pride really needs to upgrade their English language announce team. Maybe they can lure veteran UFC color man Jim Brown out of retirement.

[Guest Brian]

Tell me you did not just say that. Bas was so fucking funny last night.