Great Night for Gracies at Dream 14

Anyone who stubbornly believes that the Gracie name no longer has relevance in MMA simply because of the absence of aging family members like Royce (or to a lesser extent, Renzo) is sorely mistaken.

Following up a win at the last Strikeforce show by Roger Gracie (one of the sport’s top prospects), Ralek Gracie bested family rival Kazushi Sakuraba, while Cesar Gracie protege Nick Diaz was successful in the main event against Hayato “Mach” Sakurai.  In other fights on the card, Joachim Hansen was knocked out for the first time in his career against WEC veteran Hiroyuki Takaya, while Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto got back on track with a quick win over Federico Lopez of Team Quest.

The Diaz-Sakurai bout got off to a bit of a frantic start, as Sakurai pushed the pace with punches early, all but forcing Diaz to shoot in for a takedown.  The fight didn’t stay on the mat for long, as Sakurai got to his feet, only to shoot for a takedown of his own moments later.  This turned out to be a poor decision on Sakurai’s part, as Diaz scored the armbar quickly after, which Sakurai attempted to fight out of to no avail.

Diaz showed once again that he is an elite fighter right now, and his decision to fight while waiting for word on any disciplinary action stemming from the memorable Strikeforce: Nashville brawl was a good one.  I don’t agree with his actions that night, but what else is he going to do?  Sit on his hands and wait it out?   One of Diaz’s often-overlooked advantages in MMA is that he stays busy.  I don’t think it is in a fighter’s best interests to compete just twice per year, like so many of the UFC’s fighters are doing these days.  Diaz stays sharp at all times, and it showed against Sakurai, who is a legend in Japanese MMA.

Another Japanese MMA legend may have finally come to an end, though the relevance of Kazushi Sakuraba’s exploits in the sport sadly expired some time ago.  I’m not going to pretend that Sakuraba will retire now, as he seems destined to hang around too long, which is a shame.  However, I’m also not going to pretend that this win by Ralek Gracie over Saku has any real importance in terms of Saku’s rivalry with the Gracie family.  Saku won four in a row against the Gracies when he and those that he faced were at the top of their respective games.  Saku has that battle won, whether he loses another ten fights to the Gracie family’s younger fighters or not.

I’m disappointed that Hansen went out the way that he did.  Hansen has been a feared striker in his division for years, and is always fun to watch.  It seems that we are seeing a changing of the guard of sorts in the Japanese MMA scene lately, though it’s doubtful that Takaya will figure prominently as a upper-class fighter in Dream.  It’s more likely that the loss just signifies that Hansen’s best days are sadly behind him.  He’s only 31, so he has time to figure things out, but he is in drastic need of a return to form and probably some changes in his methods of training, as well.

Kid Yamamoto’s quick win won’t tell us everything we need to know about him, as his opponent is now just 4-3 in MMA overall.  Still, the ferocity that Kid showed during the fight does remind me of how he looked before going on his hiatus to train for an Olympic wrestling bid.  He snapped a two-fight losing streak that had followed a ridiculous 14-fight win streak with his effort this weekend.  It will be interesting to see if Kid can keep up this level of performance against stiffer competition.

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Tags: Dream 14, Hayato "Mach" Sakurai, Joachim Hansen, Kazushi Sakuraba, Kid Yamamoto, Nick Diaz, Ralek Gracie