Has there been a dominant Asian MMA fighter ?

[1 on 1]

The only one I could think of is Kid Yamamoto.

What I mean by dominant is someone who ruled for awhile, may have lost but got right back on the saddle and whupped some more @ss.

[kaps]

Sakuraba...

[1 on 1]

Sakuraba...

I like Kazushi, although my knowledge of him and his fights have been mostly through Y*utube. My first taste of Pride was when I use to go back and forth to Japan back in the late 90's, I saw him whuppin' one of the Gracie's @ss(it may have been Royce) and I was like "who is this guy".

But, again, I didn't really get a chance to follow his career, how long was his dominant run and which weight division ? What areas was he solid at.

[kaps]

He never had a huge run because the dudes in Pride where basically trying to get him killed. But he did win a UFC tournament and take out almost the entire Gracie clan, plus he did really well against Igor Vovchanchyn after he'd just finished fighting Royce for 90 minutes...

[-Swizzy-]

He never had a huge run because the dudes in Pride where basically trying to get him killed. But he did win a UFC tournament and take out almost the entire Gracie clan, plus he did really well against Igor Vovchanchyn after he'd just finished fighting Royce for 90 minutes...

Sakuraba is a legend.

[the traveler]

I believe Hayato Sakurai at one point was considered to be one of hte best pound for pound fighters. He won 18 straight matches, and was 18-0 before he lost to Anderson Silva.

[F l i c k e r]

Sakurab was great. He is definately on my MMA "mount rushmore"

But......



The only Asian fighter to truelly have a reign of terror like A.Silva and Fedor is Takanori Gomi.

The first and ONLY Pride FC lightweight champion. That says enough right there.

[kaps]

Sakuraba is a legend.

No, Sakuraba is god......

[S.H.A.O]

yep sakaruba is surely a god, but gomi is also nice

[Snopkins]

Sakuraba was never dominant.He was dominant over the much smaller Royler Gracie,but that was about it.He was involved in a highly competitive,close right until the end bout with journeyman Vernon White,and looked vunerable against Allan Goes.He was rather fortunate that he wasn't declared the loser in his bout against a man that Pride seemed to get a kick out of screwing over in Guy Mezger.


Charismatic,exciting,skilled fighter at his peak,but lacked the aura of invincibility that Wanderlei Silva had during his peak to be considered "dominant".