Archive for the ‘Shooto’ Category

Thanks to @lakzs and @bodychoke on twitter for the idea to post these old forum entries from Pato regarding some of his encounters in Japan.  Some of this may be old news to you, but for those that have not read it, such as myself, they are VERY cool to read.

There is so much that I could say and also a lot of stuff I shouldn’t say lol. For the most part, I had a great time in Shooto. Especially when it came to the Shooto fanbase. They are pretty hardcore . They remember the smallest details when it comes to each fighter. I had fans come up to me and tell me they all sorts of the little things I did during many of my bouts. Stuff that your average fan would never pick up on. In regards to some of the fighters, I had some interesting run ins with some of the fighters while at Shooto events and away from them. I wrote about this experience on another forum in the past, so here it is again:

Meeting Makoto Ishikawa for the first time:

First met him at a kids wrestling tournament here in Japan. Abe and him are good friends. Both are the head coaches for their kids wrestling team (AACC and PureBred Omiya). Not to mention they had a wicked fight against each other in Shooto. If you haven`t seen it, make sure you do. It is quite an entertaining fight.

At first, I noticed Abe-san talking to him and I made my way over so I could finally meet the `wildman` of the Shooto lightweight division. As soon as I got close, Abe-san immediately introduced me. Ishikawa was quite delighted to meet me. The funny part was that right away he was checking out my physique. He started to touch my biceps and was totally amazed. Right from there, the guy whips off his shirt and was like, dude check out my pipes! Then he proceeded to flex his calves! Check these badboys! Next thing I know he was telling me to take my shirt off so we could compare lol!

There I was in the middle of a gym at a kids wrestling tournament with no shirt on with a shirtless Ishikawa standing beside me. There were parents and other coaches from other teams all looking at us while were in a total flexing competition. Finally Ishikawa turned to Abe-san and told him to take his shirt off and join in the fun! Abe-san kindly declined. Gee, I wonder why

On a side note, Ishikawa is one of those fighters that his record does not do him justice. He is always exciting to watch no matter the outcome. Some fights worth watching are him against Hiroyuki Abe (as mentioned above), His fight with Lion Takeshi was entertaining. Also, his last fight in DEEP against Barbaro44 (Yoshihiro Tomioka) was fun as hell to watch too.

Oh and watch his fight against Rumina Sato. Not so much for him though. That fight was `Moon Wolf` at his best!

They announce us both, applause from the crowd; the bell rings. Right off the bat I come out hesitant. I remember thinking I wanted to come out into round 1 and control the distance and perhaps take him down. Instead, I lunge in like an idiot and clinch with him and got tripped to the floor for my efforts. Hioki uses his length and leverage very well. He gets everyone with that same clinch takedown. I try to get up, (and I do) only to be tripped again and Hioki effortlessly moves from side to mount. It’s funny, Rumina Sato was did the commentary for this fight and I remember after this sequence of events he says: “What’s Carvalho doing? He’s looking like an amateur out there!” So Hioki had mount and was trying to posture and rain down punches. He throws a few and I try to shrimp out only to be stopped. Then quickly, I reach around the upper part of Hioki back so that he can’t posture to hit me some more. As Hioki tried to pry me off, I switch to a bridge and roll and reverse the position. In Hioki’s guard and I try to pass. Hioki has heavy hips and good leg work. I try to do a double underhook guard pass I pass to side for about a second. (funny how people forget certain parts of the fight lol). Hioki manages to get to a front headlock position and rolls back into guard. Then, I try the same pass and Hioki tries to get to his feet and I do a half hip throw. He comes up again shortly after and I completely botch trying to put him down again. I remember him bouncing slightly into the rope. Hioki lands on top in my guard. He quickly goes to the same guard pass he used at the beginning of the round. Man, he puts a lot of pressure! I couldn’t keep him there. I remember thinking, “fuck!, he’s gonna mount me again!” He goes right through my guard and back into mount. “This sucks!” I try to shrimp out and he again stops me by putting his leg up with his heel against my hip. I get caught kind of sideways while he is mounted which is a dangerous position to be in with Hioki. For a split second, I wondered if this is how this was gonna end. Getting stuck in that position meant that Hioki could begin to set up his mounted triangles etc. I dug deep and I managed to square up and hold Hioki in as I did before. He postures and starts throwing punches down. I manage to shrimp and roll and get my guard back with my legs in front of me. I remember one more big punch came raining down. I defended well and it didn’t land. The round ends. Not a good start to the fight…

Going back to before the fight. During my own training, I was helping Mastoshi Abe train for his fight that same night versus Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Daniel Otero. Since Masa was fighting a jiu-jitsu black belt, I thought it might be important for him to work a lot of technical stand ups, side and mount escapes. Funny thing is, he didn’t need to use any of them. Myself on the other hand, I had to use all the mount escapes I had just shown him in order to survive that first round with Hioki lol. Back to the fight… In the corner, the ref starts yelling at me to stop pushing off the ropes with my feet! “What!? What are you talking about ref?”. He yells at me again to keep quiet and not argue. “WTF!?” If anyone out there remembers that fight, please tell me if at any point during that fight I did anything near what he said I did. Sigh… During that moment, that is when you really had to focus and motivate myself to come out strong for the next round. I just remember thinking to myself, I don’t want to walk out there and lose knowing that I didn’t do the best that I could. So in simple terms, I said, “Fuck it!. I am gonna find a way to beat this guy or die trying.” Round 2…

We come out, Hioki was still very confident. I remember throwing a one,two and miss completely. Still don’t got my distance down. Hioki throws a jab to a hard leg kick. Hioki comes in again and the switch came on. I counter with a combination head, body and high kick. The kick lands, but I didn’t put enough hip into the kick to follow through and drop him. However, it created some impact. Hioki then taunted me and throws a leg kick back. I know that kick hurt him though I begin to check his kick and find my timing and distance. I start to throw more and come in with more head movement. Hioki is beginning to back pedal. I start to find my jab and right hand along with my left and right high kick and leg kick. I start beating Hioki in the exchange every time. I always finish with the better strikes. Hioki shows good poise and moves away. I start to fire and Hioki clinches with me. He pushes me into the corner and I manage to turn Hioki back to the corner. This time, I get a stronger and better clinch then him. I manage to get him tighter with his under hook trapped and throw him towards the centre of the ring. I end up in Hioki’s half guard. Again, I botch it on the ground. I was uncertain as to whether I wanted to focus on his hips to pass or go toward his head and put shoulder pressure and pass or just plain strike. This is exactly what you don’t want to do in a fight; Think too much!. This is something that you need to drill in the gym non stop and have your game ready so when you end up in a certain position, you immediately know what you want to do. All of a sudden, Hioki pushed my hips and I think wanted to get an ankle first, but since I didn’t want to get stuck and play the footlock game, I accepted the sweep instead. So now I am under Hioki again and he’s in my guard. After he pretty much destroyed my guard in the first round, the smart thing to do is simply not play this game with him. So I pushed his head and did a technical stand up and we are standing with an over-under and under-hook clinch. I push him into the corner and land a few knee strikes to his legs. The ref brakes us up. Back to standing, we exchange, I catch his kick and switch to a single leg, push him into the ropes and switch to an ankle pick and take him down. So now I am in Hioki’s butterfly guard and I thought that this would be my chance to actually do something properly on the mat. Redeem myself on the mat so to speak. However, Hioki kept half of his body under the ropes. Now, normally, the ref would push us back to the centre. For some reason though, he never did that… Round 2 ends…

Now back in the corner and I am sure I got round 2. We are even going into the 3rd. I have to either dominate or put him away. I look across the ring to see Hioki slumped over in his corner. He knows he is losing momentum. So I get up out of my bench and begin to yell “Woooo” lol I am starting to feel it and I am enjoying being back in the ring. Man, what a good feeling. I couldn’t help but smile and enjoy the moment. I am doing what I love to do most in life…Round 3…

We come to the centre and touch gloves. I start to do my typical bouncy footwork and make it hard for Hioki to find his range. He starts throwing leg kicks, but finds air. One, two, one, left high kick. The left high smacked him in the face. However, it was only my foot and not my shin. I start to throw inside leg kicks and I knew I wanted to get more inside to do damage. So I started to use more head movement and fakes. I begin to corner him. Combo of punches to high kick. Sato at some point during the commentary mentioned how I barely move my body when I launch my kicks. Thus making it hard to see it coming. He says something like: “No motion” lol. The reason why I used my left lead high kick a lot was due to Hioki’s length. He is a tall and long fighter for a FW. So I use that lead kick as a “jab” along with my hands. It worked well actually. I remember Hioki then even changed from an orthodox to a southpaw stance in hopes of messing up my timing a bit. Again, I kept him back pedaling and managed to land a couple of good combos, but Hioki kept composed and managed to circle himself out of the corner. I also remember after landing some good strikes in the corner, Hioki actually taunts me again, gesturing for me to come in. I thought, “Wait, no. You are losing the exchanges, you come to me!” Then I took one step back and waved him forward hehe. Even the crowd that was pro-Hioki began to cheer for me and calling out my name. Now that was an amazing feeling. It’s not very often that happens in a foreign country with the away guy. I think at about the 3 and a half minute mark, I really wanted to land a big strike in the hopes of dropping him. I remember landing a nice straight right, but Hioki took it well. Then I came in hard and threw an overhand right. I think I tried to hard and I got stiff. My feet were completely planted as I fully committed to the punch. Hioki then ducked under my punch and got a nice take down . I remember that when he ducked under the punch, I feared he would take my back. So I tried to follow him around while keeping my whizzer hard. We spun and he pulled a nice throw out of it. From there, I knew if he managed to pass my guard, I might lose this fight. So I started punching him from the bottom. Hioki then tried the same pass as in the first. This time, I was ready and kept my butterfly guard active and my shins followed his hips and I even used me hands to push Hioki’s hips up and away. Then I found my opening to stand up. I did and clinched and pushed him into the corner. A couple of body shots and the the bell rings. The fight is over…