Sakuraba jumps to Hero's

[Dangerous A]

From the Observer site...

 

 

In news that rocked the Japanese wrestling and MMA scene, Akira Maeda introduced Kazushi Sakuraba after intermission at tonight's Hero's show as the company's new star.

 

Sakuraba, the pro wrestler who put Pride on the map with his wins over several members of the Gracie family in 1999 and 2000, took the promotion from struggling to sell 5,000 tickets at shows to selling out the Tokyo Dome on more than one occasion.

 

Sakuraba came out wearing a Tiger Mask, as a tribute to one of his childhood wrestling idols, and it was announced he would debut with Hero's in August.

 

Pride is expected to hold a press conference tomorrow in response to this.

 

With Sakuraba, and potentially Brock Lesnar, as additions, along with the star power of Kid Yamamoto, Hero's has made a major statement in regards to what promotion will be considered going forward as the most successful MMA group in the world.

 

Winners of the main matches on the show tonight were Kid Yamamoto over Kazuyuki Miyata, Yoshihiro Akiyama over Katsuhiko Nagata, and Don Frye over Akebono, all as expected.

[Your Paragon of Virtue]

Holy shit. Unfuckingbelievable.

 

In other news, Don Frye beating Akebono probably made him the number one contender for the Hero's HW Title.

[RavishingRickRudo]

Sakuraba in an environment where they are not trying to kill Sakuraba will be interesting. Unless it becomes an environment where they are really trying to kill Sakuraba... then it gets REALLY interesting.

[Hawkius Maximus]

If you haven't seen it, Saku's entrance and promo are up on Youtube. It's funny that like...the fan's don't pop. They don't BELIEVE it.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XQFWXAQHzY&search=Sakuraba

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijsQ_1qLlI0&search=Sakuraba

 

You can just sense that they have a "...what the...fuck?" reaction. They don't pop for anything. Could be because he wore that tiger mask, or whatever, but they didn't know what to make of it. You can hear the excitement, but it's like their holding it in becaus ethey don't want to be worked somehow and it's NOT him.

[RavishingRickRudo]

Is there anything even comparable in pro wrestling to sak jumping? Hall was never as big or meaningful to the WWE as Sak was to PRIDE. Hogan wasn't so much of a surprise when he got to WCW.

[Lei Tong]

More proof that money talks.

 

Of course, considering Sak's shape and K-1's relatively weak divisions, this has no real competitive meaning.

[jwpeer]

No wonder K-1 has so much cash, Sammy is like a huge sponsor of them, and that's a HUGE company in japan.

[Guest Brian]

Is there anything even comparable in pro wrestling to sak jumping? Hall was never as big or meaningful to the WWE as Sak was to PRIDE. Hogan wasn't so much of a surprise when he got to WCW.

 

The closest would have been Hart, had they not fucked things up.