Sneak Peak - Shooting Disco 9
Taiki Tsuchiya KO's Sengoku veteran Shintaro Ishiwatari.
There were a few people on forums looking for a larger picture of this from last nights Shooting Disco. Here you go!
Here is Tony Loiseleur’s article on the event too.
Satoshi Ishii Signing
If you have somehow missed all the hype surrounding Satoshi Ishii you must have been living under a rock (or not in Japan I guess). Ever since he won the gold medal at the Olympics in Beijing he has become something of a celebrity. I wrote an article for Sherdog to cover this signing and to give a little background. Instead of writing it all again - here’s a link!
Ishii wore a sumo wig to the presser but no one laughed at all.
Then got embarrassed that no one was laughing and teared the wig off. It got caught and then people laughed. Embarrassment is great!
I've been over it a few times at 100%. Can't find any figures on there.
The other highlight for me was Satoru Kitaoka laughing hysterically at Kazunori Yokota challenging the winner of Kitaoka vs. Hirota.
Sengoku's Tokyo based fighters. Perhaps the start of really big things for the young organisation.
More pictures at Sherdog.
Dream 9
Super Hulks, one of the fights of the year, upsets and disappointment. It was quite the roller coaster at Dream 9. This was the first time I have shot ringside at Yokohama Arena and it was really a lot of fun. The fans really got into it and I couldn’t see an empty seat in the place. Definitely a good sign for dream, the needed a boost. Hopefully the boost came from great matches rather than freak shows though. If FEG get the idea that Dream 9’s success came from the Super Hulk rubbish then I fear for their future. On the other hand, if they feel like it came from fights like Tokoro vs. Cullum, ‘Jiri vs. JZ and Kid vs. Warren then perhaps we have something to look forward to.
The main event was obviously disappointing. It was a great match on paper and it would have been good to see a belt finally relevant again in Dream. As it stands, none of their belts are really actively held which is sad. Jason “Mayhem” Miller got a little over zealous and unfortunately threw an illegal kick to the downed Jacare and cut his head wide open. Ryan Parsons was telling me that he constantly does that same move in training. Catch a kick and then as the opponent is falling he throws a kick to the body or head. He was just a little late with it this time and Jacare was already grounded.
Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza about to eat shin. I got a photo of the kick landing too but it's obscured by Jacare's foot.
Jacare knew that he was bleeding everywhere and you could tell that he was trying to face away from referee Yuji Shimada so he wouldn't notice.
Obviously a nasty cut. Mayhem's leg wasn't so hot either.
After seeing Kid training prior to this fight, I had no doubt that he was an incredible athlete but I wasn’t the only one to show concern that Kid was over training. He actually said himself after the training session that he thought it may be a little much. I’m going from memory here but in the morning he was doing four 10 minute rounds of sparring and then four 10 minute rounds of pads and grappling. After that 30 minutes of body conditioning. In the afternoon - rinse and repeat. That’s from memory though so I might be a little off with that but I’m pretty sure that’s right. Either way, it’s totally insane and no huge surprise that he came in and didn’t fire. Warren is no joke obviously so ring rust combined with this was enough to give him everything he needed for the upset.
I'm giving up on being cool, Kid has it down. I'm just going to go to Akiba and buy manga instead.
Warren's game plan was perfect. Greco and punching. He had trouble getting Kid with his double leg but he won the fight with the clinch.
Kid showing BJ Penn like takedown defence. The ropes ended up getting him down here.
Warren yelled "I fucking trust you Matt!" at judge, Matt Hume throughout the fight. Matt was really getting annoyed because he didn't want to look biased (I don't believe he is). Warren was just really concerned that he was going to get robbed.
The only exciting part of the Imanari/Fernandes fight. A bad match up unfortunately.
Hiroyuki Takaya celebrating a big comeback TKO. I was a little disappointed for Maeda, I've been shooting him for a long time.
Hideo Tokoro is just an excitement machine. Every fight - start to finish is a highlight reel.
Abel Cullum was a mess by the end of the fight, could't keep up with the pace.
Tokoro with the standing rear naked choke. Awesome.
The match I was most looking forward too didn't really live up to my expectations. It was awesome, don't get me wrong but JZ didn't really fire. Hopefully it was just ring rust and he will be back soon.
Sokoudjou really lost it against Jan Nortje and just kept going and g oing after the stoppage. Ray Sefo and his crew got in the ring and were very close to losing it too. That would have been nasty. This photo got a bit of attention from the guys over at the excellent Fightlinker. Thanks!
The biggest story for most news outlets unfortunately was Jose Canseco.
- The kick that “blew” out Canseco’s knee. You see this happen a lot in amateur MMA. Fighter’s often fake injury’s when they simply don’t want to be in there anymore. Yes, I’m calling the injury faked.
Jose looking a little shocked but relived after leaving with his head intact.
Lot’s more of this stuff at Sherdog. Got a couple of quieter weeks coming up. I’ll see if I can get my Flickr and catalogue update I think.
Dream 9 Weigh-Ins and Pre-Fight Presser
FEG held open “weigh-ins” (the fights had already officially weighed in) and a press conference at Shinjuku Station Square prior to Dream 9. Shinjuku Station is always a great place to hold a press conference as it is one of the busiest train stations in the world and so they can report massive attendance numbers. In reality, most of these people are just passers by and I have never actually seen any body count people at all here. Still, FEG told us there was about 5000 people here I think.
Lots of new faces in the media pit for this, all showing up for baseball taddle-tail Jose Canseco.
Canseco was facing Korean Techno Goliath Hong Man Choi. Canseco didn’t get any real training for this fight and I’m pretty sure he had never seen Choi until the weigh-ins. Divorces suck when you are/were rich apparently and Canseco must have needed some cash.
Canseco before seeing Choi.
Canseco seeing Choi.
Canseco noticebly more sweaty.
The height difference wasn't as outrageous as everyone had predicted. Canseco could actually reach his head if he tried I think.
Do we have to keep calling Bob Sapp a fighter? He is so good at this media stuff that I want to call him an entertainer.
Sapp took on Mr. Heaven - Minowaman.
Everybody on forums and blogs were going crazy about how awesome the promo video for the Super Hulk tournament is. Here is something to think about though. I was informes by some members of the Japanese press that the guy who makes the promo packages for Dream and did for Pride, Daisuke Sato told FEG that he isn’t trying. He said what he is doing now is at 50% and if they want him to be back at the Pride level, they have to put on matches of Pride calliber. If this is indeed true, that takes some balls.
Asside from the Super Hulk rubbish, there were some awesome and legit fights on the card. A middleweight title fight, the featherweight grand prix second round, the return of Kid and JZ vs. Kawajiri. Definitely drool worthy stuff.
Kid weighs in for the first time in 17 months.
Kid's opponent, Greco Roman world champ - Joe Warren.
Warren might come off arrogant but I really like him. He loves playing up for the camera and he really feels like he is giving you his full attention when you are talking to him. Very cool guy.
Mayhem back for another shot at Jacare at the middleweight title.
The guys over at all elbows did a fantastic video and photo series on Jason’s fight prep. Check it out for sure. They are really supremely talented.
The fight I was most looking forward too was JZ Calvancante vs. Kawajiri.
After JZ’s fight against Joachim Hansen fell through at Dynamite!! on New Years Eve JZ was hanging around with not a lot to do. After the post fight press conference he invited me out for dinner with him and he is one of the most inspirational people I have ever met.
You get used to a certain kind of guy in the fight world and JZ is really one of a kind. All this talk about wanting to show the fans how much he loves them is completely genuine, he talks about love of friends and family more than anyone I have ever met.
He told me about growing up in Brazil and how his father and mother urged him to move to the States to futher his career and a lot of other personal stories from his childhood. He is really a great guy and I’ll probably remember that dinner for a long time. I had spagetthi and he had a huge pizza.
Photography notes
This was really a pretty difficult shoot. The natural light faded quickly through the presser and the artificial lighting was very uneven so I really needed to keep an eye on my exposure constantly.
The white balance was the most difficult thing though. There were four different temperature lightsources in play so the only option was to shoot auto white balance in RAW and correct it as best I could in post production.
This proved difficult too as it was rare that a fighter would just have one light source on them. Correcting for one part of a fighters face might leave the other parts blue or orange.
Unfortunately with pressers I have very little time to edit so I couldn’t afford to mess around too much, I just had to get the pictures up as soon as possible so I did the best I could in the time I had I think. RAW was a must in this situation though.
See the rest of the gallery at Sherdog.
Valkyrie 2
Not sure why but Sherdog took ages to run this gallery. Valkyrie is GCM’s (Wajyutsu Keisyukai and Cage Force) womens organisation. This event was held on the same day as Cage Force but for some ridiculous reason they held the events at the same venue but about 3 hours apart. Also if you wanted to go to both events, you needed to buy tickets to both. I really dont understand why they would do this. It was pouring rain and no one had anywhere to go in the break as Differ Ariake is in the middle of nowhere.
To me it would make sense to have a slightly more expensive ticket for both events, have a 30 minute or one hour break in between the event, sell a ton of food and get much better attendance for both events.
The headliner was one of the top pound for pound female fighters in the world, Yuka Tsuji vs. American import Kate Martinez for the Valkyrie Featherweight title. Kate is a world title holding kickboxer and although she has a blue belt in jiu-jitsu, Tsuji is just way too good.
Yuka Tusji making her way to the ring carrying an oni mask.
Martinez standing across the cage from on of the best female fighters in the world.
Martinez actually scored a bit of a knockdown with this punch but Tsuji quickly recovered.
Unfortunately Martinez's ground defense just wasn't up to scratch. Tsuji was able to move at will on top.
Martinez quickly sucummed to an armbar from mount.
Valkyrie and the now defunct Smackgirl bling.
They are doing a tournament now for a shot at Tsuji. Coming into the tournament, Windy Tomomi had to be the favorite but one of my old stablemates at Alive (Hatsu Hioki’s gym) Kyoko Takabayashi came in and made short work of her.
Takayabayashi would be an interesting opponent if she makes it through for Tsuji but her striking is somewhat lacking.
Takayo Hashi scoring a nice left on Chisa Yonezawa.
Takayo Hashi celebrating a victory.
Megumi "V Hajime" Yamaguchi landing a nice upkick on Emi Fujino in the other side of the tournament bracket.
Photography Notes
Differ is a wonderful place to shoot at. Reasonable lighting that is fairly even and good access to the runway for entrance shots. The cage often makes it tough with lighting though and it is not evenly spread around the edges of cages here. It’s about a one stop difference from the centre to the edges and about 2 stops if they are actually pressed against the cage on my side.
To get around this I either have to shoot the middle ground between the centre and edge of the cage which slightly overexposes and underexposes my photos respectively or I adjust my shutter speed on the fly.
Doing that can be very hard if you are not used to your camera. If a fight is moving really fast I just shoot the average but usually I adjust my shutterspeed depending on where the fighters are. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you are really confident though. If you forget to change your shutterspeed back or you somehow screw it up you can lose photos from an entire fight.
See the rest of the gallery at Sherdog.
Kawajiri and Takaya prepare for Dream 9
Tatsuya Kawajiri and Hiroyuki Takaya put on an open training session for the press prior to their matches at Dream 9. “Session” is probably an over statement actually. For some reason, their trainer Takeshi Yamada chose to keep the media locked out of the gym and only let us in for one three minute round at the end. Also there was about 5 people in one small ring so getting shots of Kawajiri and Takaya was extremely difficult. Contrast this with Kid’s training session and you’ll see that these guys have something to learn about getting themselves press…
The one round we were allowed to see had one minute of mits,
one minute of low kicks,
and one minute of grappling
After their highly intense single round they just kind of sat around and talked. We couldn't hear what they were saying though.
I am obviously posting this post event. Yamada proved to be right too - both Kawajiri and Takaya came out on top.
So I’m sure you can tell that I didn’t really enjoy this training session. I was really excited going into it but it simply didn’t provide many photo opportunites at all. Ahh, well. That’s the way they go sometimes I guess.
You can see the rest of the Kawajiri and Takaya galleries at Sherdog.