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Originally Posted by masque
I was recently reading the sherdog forums, and cam across a recently well thought out post. It asked who has done the most for MMA in Japan.
Since I don't have a link, or remember the post, I am making the topic my own.
Without a doubt, the man who has done the most for MMA in North America is Dana White. He is hated among most American fans, but you have to give him credit for getting it sanctioned in most states, and implementing a lot of the current rules (not all, some were already in place before ZUffa).
But I'm not here to talk about that. This is a more interesting topic. Who has done the most for MMA in Japan.
Antonio Inoki, pioneer of Mixed Martial Arts in Japan, havng influence in PRIDE, Shooto, Rings and Pancrase. Albeit, his influence has declined over the years, but he is esponsible for the foundations of those MMA promotions. He also is the one who brought PRIDE nad K-1 together, to put on a joint event, the original PRIDE Shockwave/K-1 Dynamite.
Another man is Akira Maeda, student of Inoki, and founder of RINGS< first a Japanese Pro Wrestling promotion, then a Mixed Martial Arts Promotion. Akira Maeda was RINGS< and that organization has competitors such as PRIDE Champions Minotauro Noguiera and Fedor Emelianenko, as well as TK Khosaka, Randy Couture, Babalu Sobral and Ricardo Arona (those off the top of my head). Maeda really set the stage for Jpanese MMA today.
Then we have Pancrase, founded by Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki. They had some weird rules, but so did RINGS, and that org. has produced Bas Rutten, the Shamrock Bros, among many others.
Then we have Japanese Superstar Kazushi Sakuraba. Without him, PRIDE would not have been as successful in the early days, and we would not be enjoying PRIDE as we are right now.
So I ask, who do you think has done the most for modern MMA in Japan?
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