Hayato 'Mach Sakurai vs Frank Trigg

[Skookum Charlie]

[EVILYOSHIDA]

classic fight. Mach was getting his butt kicked the entire fight lol
But he capitalized when he could and the rest is history

[CTsar]

That left hook that drops Trigg outta nowhere is amazing. Sakurai was the most well rounded fighter in those years, no question.

[EVILYOSHIDA]

the problem with sakurai and it has lost him many fights is his instance on doing those judo hip tosses

they fail and he gets rear mounted

i agree at the time he was probably one of the top p4p fighters

ridiculous power. dude was like a compressed fireball

[CTsar]

yeah that's how he lost his invincibility to Anderson Silva. He won Rd1 but then missed a couple of throws which allowed Silva to take his back and control him from back mount and guard for most of the second round. 18:30 -

[EVILYOSHIDA]

LMFAO dude tried a hip toss and then got rear mounted.. exactly what i SAID HAHAHA

[Skookum Charlie]

And don't forget guys, that division was incredibly stacked at the top with superstars (Mach, Silva, Pele, Newton, Hughes, Menne, Miletich, Nakao) and mostly all fighting in different organizations so nobody really knew for sure who the top guy was then. I doubt we'll ever see that much elite talent concentrated in one division ever again.

And it was more fun that way; you could argue your favorite fighter, org, etc. We all thought back then it would be great to put them all in the same league but it didn't turn out to be so good after all did it...

[EVILYOSHIDA]

i don't think the MMA fighters have gotten worse. they were probably in some ways better

mach and silva looked just as fast if not faster than most fighters today
fluidity of movement was very high back then.

if the T numbers are true, then the top fighters should have been around in the late to early 2000s

a 67 year old man in 2000 had more T than a 22 year old today

[CTsar]

I think that both Mach and Silva are technically better than today’s welterweights , but they are very undersized next to Usman and Colby

[EVILYOSHIDA]

yeah the weight cutting has been "improved" if you can call it that

but I look at the fluidity of movement in the silva/mach fight.. and it seems more high level than most fights today