JMMA took a last curtain call with a Tsunami that wiped out a lot of the hope of some revival.
Pride Fc was for many (and deff. us here at FSA) a pinnacle of MMA in its short and illustrious lifetime.
JMMA (Japanese Mixed Martial Arts) always offered big entrances, personalities, great hype posters and videos, great fights, freak fights, quirky characters and above all it provided what people wanted to see…. whatever the fans wanted they seemed to get!
While Pancrase is fairly well unseen to the western world… they have been around since 1993. Formed by professional wrestlers Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki, pancrase is an event that still provides much of the charisma and charm that we remember from Pride Fc. Rules are more like the unified rules and entrances are unique but far less extravagant. Pancrase has been the proving ground for the likes of Ken Shamrock, Frank Shamrock, Nate Marquardt, Ricardo Almeida, Maximo Blanco, Maximo Blanco, Chael Sonnen, Paul Daley, Genki Sudo and many many more.
Pancrase Progress Tour 4 went down on the 4.1.2012 and we found a great little fight from the event that really shows a lot of what JMMA is good for.
JMMA pioneered the Female MMA scene and still today JMMA offers a huge amount of female MMA fights and a great talent pool.
JMMA also offers some characters and quirky entrances – shown in this clip via the Red Corner’s entrance (Female Japanese Pro Wrestler Kyoko Kimura) as she comes out holding a bunch of bananas and wearing a white robe with marijuana leaf’s on the front as well as on her Top….. she then dances around and hands out some bananas while waving them around! (awesome i also like bananas when i smoke the special herb)
While One Fc is doing an amazing job at offering Asia some extremely good fighters and cards….. i still hold my breathe and wait for the JMMA revival to come.
