#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.
