Joe Rogan and Firas Zahabi on Kazushi “The Gracie Hunter” Sakuraba

Do you remember when Sakuraba used to fight? Yeah, with his knee. His knees were like mummified. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were covered all halfway up his thigh, all the way down his calf. He used to have the most crazy knee wraps ever. I mean, and Sakuraba was a leg lock specialist too. He probably mangled his knees in training. You know, and all the fights and all the training. I heard of smokes and drinks before practice. Smokes and drinks. Before practice. Yes. He didn't give a fuck. Cigarettes. Do you remember when he fought Conan Silvera and they made him fight again? He fought twice in the same day they fought. They fought. John McCarthy stopped the fight. Conan hit him with an uppercut and Sakuraba jumped down, grabbed a hold of an ankle, was fighting for a takedown. And John had already stopped the fight because he thought that he thought Sakuraba went out. So they're in Japan. Everybody goes crazy. Right. They, this was the same year. This is the same fight where Frank Shamrock submitted Kevin Jackson. Remember? Oh, yeah. The arm bar. Beautiful arm bar with shoes on. The fastest arm bar in history of arm bars. Was it? I don't know. It looks fun. One of them. As soon as you took him down. Arm bar. Boom. Arm bar. Yeah. So he fights again and then submits Conan. They come out of the lock room. Yeah. Then they fought again, like one fight later. And so when they fight again, Sakuraba gets him in an arm bar and makes him tap and we're like, what? I'm saying, did you two black belt tapped? Like no one thought that Conan would tap. Like this is crazy. Sakuraba was so special. Oh my God. This generation that didn't get to watch him fight, have to go back and look at those fights. Oh, they have to go back. There was something so special about him. Yeah. I don't know what it was. And look, I love the Gracie's and he was beating the Gracie's and I wish you could help but like him. You call him the Gracie Hunter. Remember? Yeah. Remember when he broke Hensou's arm? Yes. Yeah. So the Kimura. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. And Hensou was winning that fight. Yeah. Just came down to the last little exchange. Well, and that scramble Hensou's arm just was, look at that. Oh my God. Oh my God. That is fucking nasty. Hensou beat him after in the Metal Morris and grappling match. Oh, that's right. And Halek beat him in the MMA. Halek Gracie went back to him. Oh, that's right. That was very gutsy of Halek. That's right. So, you know what? I'm going to go fight this Gracie Hunter. You know who dismantled him? Who? Mayhem Miller. Really? Mayhem Miller when he was in his prime, when Mayhem Miller went over and fought in, he fought in pride when he was in his prime. And when he was really a contender and he systematically broke Sakuraba down, beat the shit out of him and submitted him. He's a very tough guy. He was fucking good man for a while. Look at him there throwing a peace sign up. He was always a crazy guy. Well, he's always crazy guy and then you know, like legit problems after that. I imagine. And then after the Bisping fight, you know, then he had even more legit problems. But in that fight, man, he was on point. He beat the fuck out of Sakuraba. The scariest loss though that Sakuraba ever had. Well, there's three scary losses. The two to Van D'Alay. They're both terrifying. He got really fucked up by Van D'Alay. But then Melvin Manhof. Melvin Manhof beat the fuck out of him with soccer kicks on the ground and all that crazy shit back when Melvin was Melvin. Just Melvin. Remember what that guy was built like? Oh my goodness. Like fucking like a superhero. It didn't look like a real person. I've seen him fight like that. Like when the guys are savage. Whoo, he's fast. Remember he knocked out Mark Hunt with one punch. Did you knock out? Oh, yes. He was 185 pounds and he knocked out Mark Hunt with one fucking punch. This was a kickboxing fight though, right? Was it? No, it was MMA. No, look at Melvin. Jesus Christ. He was kind of with those gladiator shorts on those, those the gladiator frill shorts. He fucked him up. That's not Sakuraba though. No, that's someone else he's fighting. The greatest fight, one of the greatest, the greatest comeback fight I've ever seen in my life was K1 hero Sakuraba. He's getting beat up by this Lithuanian guy. I don't even know the guy's name. And we're in Japan. We're watching some main event. Here, put this ahead to the actual fight here, but back it up a little back it up, back it up, back it up. It's a real quick fight man. It happens in like, no, no, no, go like where the K is. See the, no, see where it says, uh, two point 3.7 X 3.7 K with a thumb up the first thumb up. Go to that part right there. Bam. Good there. Click there. Click there. Yeah, but well, it's right before it gets fighting. They're right about to talk. He bring them out on a leash as coach. Yeah. He had a dog collar on. He was at Mike's gym. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Scoot up. Right there. Good. Right there. It's good. When you see them, so they're, they're fighting off. And so Mark Hunt charges at him and when Mark Hunt charges at him, Melvin just catches him while he's coming in. So they exchange a little bit here on the feet, just a little bit of moving around. Mark Hunt's so much bigger than him, man. Mark Hunt might be a hundred pounds bigger than him. No bullshit. He easily could be 290 easily. And a tank. Look at this. Boom. One shot. I mean, come on son. Who the fuck knocks out Mark Hunt with one punch? It's crazy. That's crazy. He was so fucking fast, man. So fucking fast. There's a there's a K1 Heroes fight. Sakuraba fights like a Lithuanian guy. An unknown guy and this guy is beating the hell out of Sakuraba. Oh, I saw that fight. He is beating. I'm like stop. Terrifying. Stop this fight. He's between the Rose and the Lithuanian guys. I work. And the Japanese people just believe in him so much. They know he's going to make it out of there. And he comes up comes back to life starts winning. We're like what the and then he armrests the Lithuanian guy and then they throw up the the the confetti and everybody's like the Japanese people just believe this. Yeah, look at that. I'm like stop this fight. I'm live here. I'm in the stands. I'm going to fight. I'm like punching the back of everything. Oh my God. Stop the fight. No, right. No, no, not going to stop the fight. Not to stop the fight. Crazy. Wait a second. Oh, no, they want to bring him back in the ring. Yep. He's out of bounds. Okay. And this guy's big. Yeah, he's punching while the ref got a hold of him. Good go hammer fisted him. This is one of the greatest comebacks ever seen in my life. Yeah, I make you think there's no way Sakuraba is going to survive here. There's no way and he keeps moving and this guy keeps punching him. Yeah, this is crazy. And standing up to you was not going to run and he's hammering the back of his head. Sakuraba was just he had no quit in him, you know, like none and sometimes that was horrible to watch because he would wind up getting beat up. Look at his leg like look at that fucking right leg. How much is taped up? It's crazy. This guy's holding the fence to yep. Yeah, so I actually get down. Scoot up a little bit there. Jamie. Yeah, this is a beating. I'll tell you this is a beating. This is a beating and the winning guy beat him up standing too. Yeah, he blew his one. Yeah, he got exhausted. He got too tired here. And eventually Sakuraba catches it. Look at these uppercuts. The audience is going nuts. I think I was done. You can see how tired he was. Berserk. The crowd was losing it at this point. Yeah, they believe in him so much. When he lost the first time he was like, look, I'm happy now that the weight is off my shoulders. You know, the Japanese people now they know I can lose and like right. You have too much pressure on him. They always expect him to win. Scoot ahead. Oh, there it is. Same out some credit. That's how he finished Conan to same up. Same move. Yeah, incredible.