How an Olympic Judo Champion went to MMA - Hidehiko Yoshida

in 2000 another popular judicah hero hirohiko yoshida appeared in japan although he did not become as significant a fighter for japan as kazushi sakaraba he contributed to the development of mma and judo in this episode we will remember the confrontations between yoshida and hois gracie as well as some of the other significant victories in the career of this japanese judica yoshida was a true master and legend of judo who became an olympic champion in 1992 well he did it in a dominant style winning all six of his fights in just 16 minutes he also became the champion of asia and brought his country four medals from the world championships one gold two silver and one bronze later at the 2000 olympics hidehiko took ninth place after which his judo career went into decline at the age of 32 yoshida decided to try himself in the mma and joined the japanese mma promotion company pride his main goal was to show the world that judo can be effectively used in mixed martial arts and he usually arrived for each of his fights wearing a ghee emphasizing his origins 2002 was a special year for the gracie family as this marked the 50th anniversary of the great fight between japanese judoka masahiko kimira and elio gracie a jujitsu fighter who was the father of hoist gracie the japanese fighter won that match and broke elio's arm with a technique called a kimura but the strength of mind that gracie showed caused jiu-jitsu to receive great interest now 50 years later when elio turned 90 hoist decided to pay tribute to his father and his historical confrontation by holding a modern match between judo and jujitsu for this he needed a first class judoka fighter as an opponent this person was hirohiko yoshida who was rumored to have received 250 000 for the confrontation it was decided to hold this fight according to the same rules as his father's original fight that is a fight without strikes according to grappling rules and also no judges this meeting caused tremendous excitement among the japanese and gathered more than 91 000 spectators who came to see how their champion would fight with gracie at the start of the fight hoyce immediately decided to drag his opponent into a guard since it was in this position that he was the most dangerous but yoshida had a big advantage in power so gracie's transferred to the ground became a problem for him yoshida put hoyce into a chokehold using the lapel of his jacket and the referee decided that gracie passed out and stopped the fight hoyce jumped to his feet and began jumping with his fists at the referee enrage proving that he had not actually passed out and the fight should have not been stopped the most powerful argument of the furious gracie was that the referee according to the initial agreement before the fight had no right to intervene at all gracie insisted that the fight should be discounted due to the unlawful stopping by the referee but the commission having considered the fight from all possible angles concluded that hoyce did in fact pass out and yoshida won [Music] after this big scandal in 2002 34 year old yoshida had his first fight in the mma against the legendary don the predator fry at the pride 23 tournament [Music] uh age don fry yesterday turned 37 years old yeah it was guys like don fry that invented with mark coleman at the beginning of the meeting the japanese puts fry on the ground and then the predator tries to get to his feet yoshida takes his back placing fry in a choke hole [Music] fry manages to get into an attacking position but yoshida grabs the predator and prevents him from attacking [Music] [Applause] at six minutes yoshida holds fry in an arm bar and finishes off the predator breaking his arm in the process yoshida went on to remove masaki sataki and kiyoshi tamira from his path all these victories gave rise to the rumors that yoshida was being led by the organizers and that all the fights were predetermined since the country needed a new national hero to replace sacaraba but on november 9 2003 yoshida faced a test that was supposed to show what he was capable of the fight was against the most dominant pride champion wonderlay silva and the fight itself took place at the semi-final stage of the grand prix middleweight division the fight as expected began with a transfer to the ground from yoshida since no one gave the japanese a chance in the standing position with such a tough knockout fighter as silva however a few expected that silva would be good on the ground as well and instead of getting on his feet he performed a triangle choke and was very close to finishing off yoshida for them [Applause] [Music] this fight was full of surprises as yoshida began to break his patterns and dared to trade blows with wonderland although he missed a lot of punches the meeting was decided by the judges as silva could not finish off the japanese judica the brazilian won by unanimous decision and put to rest the rumors that the pride was fixing the fights since yoshida although he lost proved that he was a real fighter on december 31st 2003 a rematch took place between yoshida and hoist gracie and once again gracie insisted on special rules this time there would be two rounds 10 minutes each strikes would be allowed there were no judges and if the fight went the distance it would be considered a draw and only the corners could stop the fight by throwing in the towel hoyce was so bothered by the first fight that he decided for the first time in his career to go to the fight without his uniform jacket the fight begins with hoyce striking yoshida's groin and the fight stops for yoshida to recover wow as soon as the fight resumes yoshida puts gracie on the ground and takes an attacking position this fight went the distance but for the most part was unremarkable as it had a lot of wrestling on the ground with very few strong punches gracie looked better in this fight and did more to win but because of the conditions put forward by him the fight was declared a draw hoyce was never able to take revenge for the first scandalous defeat six months later yoshida went to his next fight this time his rival was the super samoan mark hunt for whom this fight was his first after switching from kickboxing attack on the ground since yoshida has accepted already in the first minutes hunt felt the difference between kickboxing and mma when the japanese like a bulldog grabbed his hand and tried to finish the newbie with an armbar native of new zealand and there a couple of minutes later finished what he had started he used an armbar and to the delight of local spectators finished the legendary challenger in the first round after this beautiful victory over hunt yoshida agreed to fight against another olympic champion wrestler rulon gardner the same one who beat alexander carolyn in the 2000 olympics interrupting carolyn's 13-fight unbeaten streak of international competitions gardner received two hundred thousand dollars and the chance to test himself in this super fight against yoshida gardner of course gardner trained with team quest the beginning turned out to be very calm and both fighters were in no hurry to force events until roulon shook yoshida being against the ropes the japanese competently knitted the opponent and did not let him hit hard the fans anticipated a spectacular fight of styles and expected great feats from yoshida but the fighters did not show anything super interesting and roulan instead of wrestling preferred to work with a jab and not allow yoshida to close the distance thus this fight ended with gardner's victory by unanimous decision of the judges and after the fight the american decided that mixed martial arts were not for him and finished his mma career with a record of 1-0 2005 started off very badly for yoshida he got back together with wunderley silva and lost again by decision but things got better and he managed to finish the 90s star tank abbott with a chokehold 46 feet tall and that knows he cannot stay there you see oh and he's doing what zakaraba not good tried to do it with arona now it's yoshida has his backs if he gets the hooks in this would be very dangerous for tank abbott [Applause] kim he pulled it up he's using his own key you see now this is where the key comes in handy and there we go there's the choke whoa yoshida 7 minutes 12 seconds on december 31st 2005 another very long-awaited fight for the whole of japan took place another judica four-time world champion and silver medalist of the olympics naoya ogawa became yoshida's rival the fighters had some distant history with one another since they both attended the same university and had met in fights there yoshida also defeated ogawa at the asian championships in 1994 so 11 years later they went out to fight again each received two million and the ratings for the fight were very high yoshida departed from his usual entrance and took off his ghee before the fight considering with such a master as ogawa it could interfere with him yoshida started off very aggressively and threw his right overhand again and again trying to shake ogawa left jab there delivered by ogawa look how low his again are there frank leaving his oh close okawa will remain in the clinch here looking for the inside heel trip is got it yoshida and ogawa trying to hold on to the ropes which is of course illegal here in pride work he's got if he can belly down it's a little bit more he might be able to get it but the guy was so strong in this position right pull his heel out kind of see underneath they're starting to freak out a little bit trying to race the stigma of having lost fields yeah exactly you almost have to because the length difference you have to use those knees to try to get them very far away the fight turned out to be quite interesting and exciting but yoshida again turned out to be the best he took advantage at the right moment and used an arm bar after which his long time rival had nothing to do but tap out in a sign of surrender [Music] so in the fight of these two magnificent judah hidehiko yoshida won and sent ogawa back to pro wrestling since after this defeat in the mma he no longer performed there this triumph was the high point in yoshida's career as moving forward he began to lose more often if you enjoyed this video please press the thumbs up leave us a comment and subscribe to the channel see you next time [Music] you

Channel: The World of Boxing!

Views: 1,077,419

Rating: 4.813694 out of 5

Keywords: Boxing, Hidehiko Yoshida, judo, Royce Gracie, Gracie, ju-jitsu fighter

Id: qrsk9P9ZBKk

Length: 15min 6sec (906 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 26 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/ModernCatastrophist]

Royce was 100% asleep.

He’s such an unsportsmanlike competitor. Can’t stand the man.

[u/misterandosan]

It's a shame Yoshida didn't develop his MMA career more organically instead of being thrown to the wolves. Fighting Wanderlei Silva as your third fight, and Don Frye as your first is fucking insane.

That's just the Japanese entertainment business I guess.

[u/Zorst]

The gi is not for decoration. He wore his gi to use it. He finished several fights with chokes using his sleeves for example. What makes you (or rather the guys who made the video) say he wore it to represent Judo? Yoshida represented Judo with and without it.

I have trained both combat sambo and MMA and I would say that even today wearing a gi could be beneficial to (some) fighters coming from gi based martial arts backgrounds.

[u/dzendian]

That kick to the balls was 100% unsportsmanlike. Fuck Royce.

[u/oshi_shinobu]

Does anyone know how the Japanese Judo community views/viewed his foray into MMA? It seems like Ishii isn't viewed in a very favorable light, and generally I get the sense that the AJJF holds similar view to the IJF higher ups when it comes to MMA.

[u/hennyboii]

awesome, enjoyed this video a lot

[u/einarfridgeirs]

His performance against Wanderlei made a huge impression on me. I fully expected him to get steamrolled and he put up a very spirited performance despite obvious unfamiliarity with many aspects of MMA, against probably the most feared competitor in the world at the time.

[u/Anthony126517]

Yoshida fought in Pride. Pride is no joke and he had some tough fights and beat some big names. His record isn't impressive 9-8-1 until you look at fights he fought. 9 wins (8 Submissions, 1 decision) 8 subs is very impressive. His losses are 2 KO/TKO, 1 submission loss via a heel hook and 5 decision loss with one draw. If you count the first Royce Gracie mma'ish grappling match then it should be 10-8-1 but its not a offical mma fight. He had a great career.

[u/JudoDan2020]

This was 1 of the best compilations I’ve ever seen. He was quite at the top of his game after Submission Chokes & Arm-locks. Excellent