Sakuraba's twilight

This "post" is actually something I wrote in the "notes" section of the Facebook site on New Year's day, following my viewing of the battle between Yoshihiro Akiyama and Kazushi Sakuraba.


The Japanese-born but ethnically Korean judoka, Yoshihiro Akiyama, last night defeated former collegiate and professional wrestling star and MMA legend Kazushi Sakuraba.

The fight was colored by controversy; Sakuraba came into the fight having recently been diagnosed with a spinal condition that prevented sufficient blood-flow to hsi brain and the fight-ending stoppage came not from the referee, but from officials at ringside who determined to call for the bell against the referee's wishes. Furthermore, there was suspicion that Akiyama had oiled his body up in order to neutralize Sakuraba's wrestling prowess.

Akiyama is an excellent young fighter...although though thus far, his spoon-fed career has been the antithesis of Sakuraba's career, where he was put in against heavier fighters of world-class calibre from his debut and onward. I can't really comment on the oiled-up thing, I don't think any of us can...because we don't know. I don't think it is our place to impugn Akiyama from the place of ignorance that we as mere spectators cannot help to be in.

That said, praise to Sakuraba. With his amateur wrestling background to set the foundation, he became the greatest catch-wrestler of our time. His freestyle wrestling ability gave life to techniques that were sometimes impotent--or less potente--in the hands of his fellow pro-wrestlers without the boon of such a background and showed us all what catch-wrestling was meant to be and could be. Quit ironic, considering catch-wrestling is a system of grappling generally thought to have arisen from traditions far west of Japan and often embraced by Westerners over other systems due to its "homegrown" origins.

He also showed time and again in his 14 year career that size, strength and youth did not always trump courage and skill; the majority of his career wins came against fighters outweighing him by around 25 pounds, and sometimes as much as 60 pounds.

Beyond all that though and more importantly, the self-professed unbeliever's humility, grace and kindness to his opposition (at the end of a round, a bloodied Sakuraba who was possibly behind in the fight once helped an opponent to his feet) reminded the West--so tragically removed from its culture of chivalry--of the union that could exist between great fighting ability and great character. Hopefully his example will not be lost on future generations of grapplers and fighters.

Thanks Sakuraba.

Oh yeah, and Happy New Year's to everyone.