Everyone loves a great MMA fight, sure, especially if it’s one between two great fighters or with massive stakes involved. Sometimes, though, like any other sport, MMA can get really, really weird.
The UFC has had its fair share of fights that turn out weird – see Werdum vs. Browne (the second time) or Palhares vs. Miller, but for the most part, their stranger fights were a product of randomness, rather than downright odd matchmaking.
Bellator has become well-known in the Scott Coker era for their “freak show” fights like Kimbo vs. Dada or Shamrock vs. Gracie, but in reality those are few and far between. The real place for weird MMA fights was – and is – of course Japan.
Japanese MMA is a little different to its US (and international) counterpart, in that the bigger promotions have always treated it as an offshoot of pro-wrestling rather than a sport in its own right, which largely means that anything goes, especially in terms of matchmaking. And while promotions like DREAM, K-1 Hero’s and Rizin FF have put on their fair share of weird fights, nobody did a real freakshow quite like Pride.
It’s been a decade now since Pride closed its doors following the Zuffa (UFC) buyout, and the majority of their roster migrated to the UFC. And while most MMA fans would like to remember the Japanese promotion for putting on great fights like Fedor/Nogueira and Silva/Rampage, some of the weirder fights that took place in the white ring are equally memorable.
In Pride’s early days the use of pro-wrestlers such as Nobuhiko Takada, Tokimitsu Ishizawa and Yoshihiro Takayama in MMA fights was a common occurrence, but for the most part, the fights they were involved in were regular fights, even if the wrestlers tended to show less skill than their pro-MMA counterparts.
More memorable for their weirdness to me are some of the completely random fights that Pride put on involving obscure fighters and fights that featured odd refereeing or officiating decisions that left everyone scratching their heads.
Thanks to the wonders of UFC Fight Pass, all of these fights should now be pretty easy to find, so please, check them out! Here are five really weird fights from Pride FC.
#1 Mark Kerr vs. Hugo Duarte – PRIDE 4 – 10/11/98
At the time of his run in PRIDE, Mark Kerr was the most feared Heavyweight in MMA. A world-class wrestler who’d won the NCAA Division I Championship in 1992, Kerr had come into MMA in 1997 and had immediately made his name by winning a brutal one-night tournament in Brazil.
Following this, he moved on to the UFC at the behest of friend and training partner – and former UFC champion – Mark Coleman. Kerr immediately had success in the Octagon, winning the Heavyweight tournaments at UFC 14 and UFC 15 with relative ease.
Unfortunately, this was during the “Dark Ages” of the UFC, and with a limited audience, and political and financial issues plaguing the promotion, Kerr made the move to Japan and Pride, largely for the bigger pay cheques.
It’s easy to understand why Kerr became a star in Japan. At the point of his arrival, he was most likely fuelled by PED’s (Kerr has admitted to this in various interviews and had a well-publicised struggle with drug addiction) and essentially looked like a superhero, supposedly weighing around 260lbs with 5% bodyfat.
His first PRIDE fight was weird enough – a DQ victory over infamous kickboxing champion Branko Cikatic, who tried such tactics as hanging onto the ring ropes and elbowing Kerr’s spine before the referee finally had enough and threw out the fight. After a relatively pedestrian squash win over ‘The’ Pedro Otavio at PRIDE 3, Kerr was matched with Brazilian Vale Tudo veteran Hugo Duarte at PRIDE 4.
Duarte had been in the UFC for a very brief time – a lone fight at UFC 17 in a loss to Tank Abbott – but his main claim to fame came from his unsanctioned ‘Gracie Challenge’ fights with Rickson Gracie on Pepe Beach and then in a Rio parking lot. Duarte lost both fights to Rickson but still held a reputation as one of the better Brazilian Heavyweights at the time and as an all-round tough guy.
So you’d think a fight with Kerr would be fun, right? Well, you’d be wildly wrong.
After an early takedown from Kerr, Duarte tied the wrestler up from his guard and the weirdness began. The two fighters began to exchange some dialogue that was impossible to understand, until Duarte began to attempt to talk to the referee – but rather than speak normally he barked like a seal.
From there Kerr decided to exit the guard....leaving Duarte on his back in the butt-scoot position, doing some cycling motions like he was taking part in some kind of core strength exercise class. More seal-barking followed but at least Duarte was able to make it out of the first round despite taking some odd hammer fists to the feet from Kerr.
The second round was as strange as the first. Kerr was able to cut Duarte open with a strike from top position, but following a referee check, the Brazilian was deemed able to continue. Duarte responded with – what else? – more barking before some SCREAMS OF PAIN caused the referee to step in again.
Rather than throw the fight out, the referee decided to get into an argument with Duarte, while the Brazilian rolled around the ground like Cristiano Ronaldo after a slightly late tackle. Somehow the fight made it into a third round, largely due to Kerr’s confusion with Duarte’s odd behaviour, and the third round began with Duarte launching himself to the ground immediately, refusing to get up despite Kerr’s prompts.
Eventually, some offence from the top caused Duarte to attempt to crawl out of the ring – twice – and this was finally enough for the referee to stop the fight.
The genuinely bizarre behaviour of both Duarte and the referee make this fight one of the weirdest in PRIDE history; Kerr did fight in a more passive way than he had before but this was most likely due to Duarte’s weirdness I’d say.
I mean, where else would you see a fighter barking like a seal?
#2 Murilo ‘Ninja’ Rua vs. Alexander Otsuka – PRIDE 27 – 02/01/04
This fight makes the list largely for an odd officiating decision than anything else. It’s not actually a bad fight per say but it’s the only MMA fight I can ever remember that actually took place twice on the SAME SHOW.
Coming into the fight, ‘Ninja’, the older brother of future PRIDE and UFC champion Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua, was recognised as one of the top 205 lbs fighters in Pride and in the world.
He’d had a couple of losses to fellow top contenders Ricardo Arona and Kevin Randleman, but for the most part, he was a feared man, as he’d beaten the likes of Ikuhisa Minowa and Daijiro Matsui with a ruthless style that tended to involve a lot of stomps to the head and soccer kicks.
His opponent Otsuka, meanwhile, was on the opposite end of the spectrum – a Japanese pro-wrestler who’d come into PRIDE in the early days of the promotion, he’d lost the majority of his fights, usually badly too. Coming into the PRIDE 27 his record was a mighty 3-12, with at least one of his wins being a potentially fixed fight.
On paper, this was as big a mismatch as PRIDE could’ve booked during this period, but Otsuka was usually tough enough to at least put up a fight before the inevitable loss. Unfortunately for the pro-wrestler, things went downhill fast this time.
The opening round began with a Ninja leg kick that led to a clinch, and from there the Brazilian went to work with some knee strikes. One knee was errant and struck Otsuka in the groin, and things got weird from there.
It was pretty clear right away that Otsuka was in no fit state to continue. Upon closer examination, his CUP WAS BROKEN and he was clearly in a ton of pain, and eventually things got so bad that he was stretchered out of the ring and to the back.
Okay, so errant groin strikes have caused premature stoppages throughout MMA history and in fact, PRIDE had seen two such incidents; Rampage Jackson landed a low blow on Daijiro Matsui and was disqualified, and when Wanderlei Silva landed a groin shot on Gilbert Yvel, that fight was declared a No Contest.
This time, though, for reasons beyond my comprehension, PRIDE officials decided they could restart the fight...later in the show, once Otsuka had recovered. Fighter safety? Ha.
One fifteen-minute fight later, Otsuka – with a new cup, you’d hope – and Ninja were back out there. Otsuka clearly hadn’t fully recovered and succumbed to an arm triangle choke about halfway through the round.
Why PRIDE decided to do this I still don’t know. I could understand a rematch on a later show or even the questionable disqualification as had happened to Rampage, but when a dude gets taken to the back via stretcher he really shouldn’t be back out there later on. This was bizarre.
#3 Mark Kerr vs. Yoshihisa Yamamoto – PRIDE 27 – 02/01/04
PRIDE 27 was evidently a weird show, between Ninja/Otsuka and then this one. PRIDE had planned a Heavyweight Grand Prix for 2004 and wanted Kerr to be part of it, so he was matched here against Yamamoto – a pro-wrestler and RINGS veteran with a middling record of 13-16-1. It was expected that Kerr would pick up an easy win, even coming off such a long layoff.
It wasn’t to be, but not exactly for the reasons you’d expect.
Sure, Kerr didn’t look as physically powerful as he’d done in his previous run, as you’d expect I guess if he were off the PEDs, but Yamamoto didn’t seem like he would be a match for the ‘Specimen’. Kerr opened the fight by shooting for a takedown as was customary for him, and from there he picked Yamamoto up and delivered a high-impact slam.
As soon as the fighters hit the ground, though, it wasn’t Kerr working for some ground-and-pound. Instead, Yamamoto reversed over to top position, full mount to be exact, and rained down punches onto Kerr until the referee stepped in.
Confusion followed until the replays confirmed what had happened. Kerr had spiked his own head into the mat during the slam, knocking himself out without Yamamoto needing to do a thing. Announcer Mauro Ranallo – a pro-wrestling enthusiast currently working for WWE – dubbed this the ‘DDT effect’.
The hype for Kerr’s return was immediately deflated in the most bizarre fashion possible, giving him another weird fight on his PRIDE ledger. He would never compete for PRIDE again, although he did have some more MMA fights before he retired.
Yamamoto meanwhile, rather than being allowed entry to the Grand Prix, was placed in another qualification match....this time with Mirko Cro Cop. You can guess how that one ended for the poor guy!
#4 Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Aliev Makhmud – PRIDE 29 – 02/20/05
PRIDE 29 was a show filled top-to-bottom with fun squash matches, basically the kind of stuff that PRIDE did best. This fight, unfortunately, was not one of them. A weird addition to a card that was mainly filled with legitimate contenders and rising stars.
Tamura, who was massively famous in Japan for his career as a pro-wrestler and also in the defunct RINGS promotion, was a legit fighter for the most part, although by the time he came to PRIDE his best days were clearly behind him.
As far as I know he was always angling for a fight with Kazushi Sakuraba, but instead he’d lost three of his first four PRIDE fights to Wanderlei Silva, Bob Sapp and Hidehiko Yoshida – and had only picked up wins over pro-wrestler Nobuhiko Takada and kickboxer Rony Sefo. He was then matched with newcomer Aliev Makhmud at PRIDE 29.
Who, you might ask? PRIDE and MMA fans were equally baffled by the signing of Makhmud, a wrestler from Azerbaijan who was apparently representing amateur wrestling governing body FILA. He was making his MMA debut, which I suppose wasn’t too odd for PRIDE at the time. Built like a tank, Makhmud looked like he meant business at least.
That didn’t exactly turn out to be the case. After bull-rushing into a clinch, Makhmud then decided to use the most bizarre fighting tactic I’ve ever seen in MMA, leaping forward towards Tamura without throwing any offence, basically jumping right into Tamura’s kicks and knees. I guess the plan was to set up takedowns? Who knows really.
Eventually, some would say inevitably, one of Tamura’s kicks landed to the groin, and things got REALLY odd from there.
Rather than take the logical route of having a doctor check poor Makhmud over, the PRIDE officials decided the best course of action would be to allow his corner to apply ice on his crotch. And then FAN his crotch with the Azerbaijani flag. Really. This ended up taking what felt like an hour but was probably around five minutes or so.
Eventually, the fighters restarted and having seemingly learned nothing, Makhmud leapt forward again right away, this time landing a left hand. Tamura fired back with some kicks, and rather than respond, Makhmud, decided to wildly wave at the referee, for reasons only known to him.
The referee seemed as equally bemused as everyone else and only became more confused when Makhmud threw a Jean-Claude Van Damme style spin kick with terrible form, almost tumbling through the ropes in the process. That was enough to baffle even Tamura, who threw a glancing combo that caused Makhmud to grasp his crotch again and gesture wildly at the referee again.
Finally after some more waving, causing Tamura to back off, Makhmud’s corner threw the towel in, ending the whole bizarre deal.
Honestly, I can’t even provide an explanation for this one. I don’t know what Makhmud’s gameplan was, why he kept waving and grabbing his crotch, nor why he was fighting in MMA really. Just check it out on Fight Pass and FEEL THE CONFUSION.
#5 Henry ‘Sentoryu’ Miller vs. Wagner ‘Zuluzinho’ de Conceicao Martins – PRIDE 30 – 10/23/05
PRIDE 30 was a weird card in general – it also saw the strange Sakuraba/Ken Shamrock fight, the debut of obese Romanian judoka Alexandru Lungu, and a surprisingly terrible fight between Sergei Kharitonov and Fabricio Werdum. For sheer hilarity though you can’t top Sentoryu vs. Zuluzinho.
First, some background. Sentoryu – real name Henry Miller – was a Japanese-American former sumo wrestler who’d come into PRIDE in 2004 for reasons beyond my comprehension, if I’m frank.
After looking like you’d expect a sumo wrestler to look at the time of his debut, which was a loss to former WWE wrestler Giant Silva, he’d trimmed down a lot and looked like he was beginning to improve by late 2005 despite still not winning his fights. He’d last fought in July, losing to James Thompson by KO.
Zuluzinho meanwhile was brought into PRIDE following six wins on the Brazilian regional scene, but he was largely there due to his heritage – his father, Rei Zulu, had made a name for himself in a famous Gracie Challenge match with Rickson on the beach, similarly to Hugo Duarte. He was also HUGE.
I mean, Sentoryu was a big guy at 5’9” and around 300lbs. Zuluzinho stood at 6’9” and tipped the scales at well over 400lbs. These were two of the biggest men to ever fight in MMA, point blank. The fight though was weirdness on an equally big scale.
Zuluzinho opened the fight with a clinch and went to work with some knees to the body of the slightly smaller Sentoryu. If you’ve been following the trend, you’d have guessed that one of those knees would strike Sentoryu’s groin. The referee called time....but rather than really check Miller over, he seemed more worried about Zuluzinho’s shorts.
Maybe he was given a pair of XXXXL rather than XXXXXXXL? Anyhow, following a restart, Sentoryu shot in for a takedown and all hell broke loose. Zuluzinho attempted to defend the takedown, and in the process, his shorts began to slip down.
The thought of this possible wardrobe malfunction was apparently too much for the PRIDE officials to comprehend and while the referee inside the ring went crazy, a couple of the officials working on the outside of the ring leapt up onto the apron and began to lunge for the Brazilian’s shorts, I guess attempting to pull them back up.
Zuluzinho continued to defend the takedown, throwing a couple of knees, and as Sentoryu ducked a little lower to try to complete the takedown, the referee called for the bell.
The official result was a TKO for Zuluzinho, infuriating Sentoryu who seemed unhurt – the replays seemed to show the knee strikes missing and Zulu’s thigh kind of catching Sentoryu on the top of the head at most. No, it seemed that the officials had panicked and stopped the fight in order to prevent Zuluzinho from losing his shorts!
When you consider the fighters involved, the reasons for the signing of Zuluzinho and the downright insane finish, I think this might be the weirdest fight in MMA history. If you’ve got some spare time then check it out on Fight Pass. You won’t be disappointed!
Zulu would incredibly go on to fight Fedor Emelianenko in his next fight, and really that fight’s worth checking out too, for different reasons of course.
These are just five of the weird and wonderful fights we’ve seen over the years in MMA. If you can think of any more – from the UFC, Bellator, PRIDE or anywhere really – feel free to chime in with comments!
Until next time....
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