Quote of the Day: Murilo "Ninja" Rua
by Chris Nelson on Apr 9, 2009 3:23 PM EDT
in MMA News
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"I had signed to fight with the Korean, but I got there on Thursday and they told [me] he had been hurt. That is no excuse, [Riki Fukuda] was stronger than me, congratulations to him, I’ll have to get over it, but I think they didn’t treat me right. They’ve announced my fight with him, but the man had been injured two weeks ago."
-- Murilo "Ninja" Rua criticizes DREAM for allegedly not disclosing his original DREAM.9 opponent Dong Sik Yoon's injury until 48 hours before the event.
If Rua's information is correct and Yoon was in fact injured two weeks out from the show, it was a dirty move on DREAM's part to wait until Rua was already Japan, away from his camp, to switch opponents on him - especially swapping the relatively one-dimensional Yoon out for the younger, stronger, more experienced Fukuda. When they announced the change last Friday, in my mind, Rua went from favorite to underdog.
On the other side of the coin, we don't know the story behind Yoon's injury - mainly because DREAM wouldn't disclose it - and it could easily have been a wait-and-see scenario where something was reaggravated in training close to fight night. From the way the news broke (on the blogs of Sanae Kikuta and GRABAKA) it didn't appear that Fukuda was waiting in the wings.
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That's the way those Japanese promotions have always acted.
Rampage used to say he wouldn’t know who he was fighting until like three weeks out.
Although detractors decry (MMA) as a brutal, bloody form of human cockfighting, aficionados know it is a brutal, bloody, totally fucking awesome form of human cockfighting. -The Onion
by The Kittitas Kid on Apr 9, 2009 2:45 PM EDT reply actions
Yep, it’s unfortunately nothing new, but fighters who will disclose this kind of stuff while still actively competing in Japan seem to be few and far between. Coming out with this info makes me think Ninja isn’t even considering fighting for DREAM again.
I dunno what is next for this guy.
Maybe Murilo will get into the UFC and fight some mid tier opponents, he does have exciting fights usually.
Doubt it. I don’t think the UFC wants to touch the LESS succesful Rua brother until they know whether or not they have anything of value in the one that they already have.
"I'm AJB and I endorse this nut-puncher."
by AJB on Apr 9, 2009 3:15 PM EDT up reply actions
More Brazilian unhappiness...
There’s another article on the Brazilian side of Tatame with Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro complaining that DREAM wouldn’t let him fight Shinya Aoki. Here’s a rough excerpt:
"We went to see if we could get this fight for me, to see if Aoki is interested and if it would be interesting for the promotion… This is a fight that I would certainly accept, is a good adversary and a good test for me… I asked for it, but I heard from someone or another that it wouldn’t be an interesting fight, that it’s two grapplers and the fight would stall out on the ground…"Shaolin also says he was invited to fight Gilbert Melendez in Strikeforce this weekend.
It’s interesting. I am almost certain Fukuda had no idea. He looked rather worried when the bell sounded to start the fight, as if he were very uncertain how this would go without having had a peaking training camp.
Editor-in-chief of MMA-Analyst.com
The issue I see is that Dream apparently knew two weeks in advance that there was even a chance they would have to replace Dong Sik Yoon but didn’t let Ninja know there was even an issue until he was in Japan right before the fight. It’s not fair to either guy anyway but if they hid information until the last minute then there is a real problem with that.
Yeah, I’m not arguing that, simply inputting my observation of Fukuda at the event.
Editor-in-chief of MMA-Analyst.com
by Leland Roling on Apr 9, 2009 3:25 PM EDT up reply actions
It was a wait and see.
There was no way DREAM would have any stake in Fukuda. Dong is much more valuable to DREAM, and I am sure they were giving him as much time as needed to get helthy to fight. He is one of their most popular Korean fighters.
On the other hand, couldn’t you easily say that this was unfair to Riki as well. The guy only had a few days notice while Ninja had been training for a while already.
Needless to say that Ninja is much more valuable to DREAM than Riki.
If anything, one could argue that they were giving Riki the short stick here.
Well, Riki was the only one in this situation who had the option to turn the fight down. I suppose Ninja could have, but he was already in Japan and probably would have lost his purse if he’d refused to fight a replacement.
by Chris Nelson on Apr 9, 2009 3:09 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Yep It sounded like the issue here wasn’t the replacement fighter it was the way they handled the situation and forced it on him at the last minute.
Well, he mentions that he was training for the “Korean guy”, not Riki.
Yeah, the situation sucks, but, it happens in MMA. I don’t think it was meant to give Ninja a disadvantage in any way.
I don't think they wanted to give hima disadvantage...
If it occured, its because they wanted to ensure the he would stay on the card (reason they told him when he was already in japan).
There is no reason to not tell him they may have to change opponents when they first found out though. Keeping it secret from him until he arrived in Japan is a bad thing to do if they knew about it weeks in advance, heck Ninja only signed for the fight two weeks before it happened, it was a short notice fight already. That would mean they quite possibly knew there was a problem with Yoon when they signed the fight to start with and that is what makes this so fishy.
I think thats the point...
IF THEY KNEW, they knew it might be a chance Ninja would’ve delayed the fight, or disputed the opponent… WHen you train for a guy you know in your mind is one dimensional, and not as skilled as you, its possible that you might not be ready to fight a different, better opponent.
The fight was announced on March 22nd, he took the fight on two weeks notice to start with, he wasn’t going to get a full training camp either way. I think what he is trying to say is that Dream signed him to fight a guy they already knew was injured and then pulled the switch on him once they had him in Japan where he couldn’t back out.
by who me on Apr 9, 2009 3:49 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Fights aren’t necessarily ‘officially announced’ the same day that they are signed. While there have definitely been some cases of fights being signed on very shortly before an event, we really don’t know when Ninja signed for this fight.
Just look at the UFC, we know fights that have been officially signed and confirmed by the fighters themselves long before they are officially announced. I mean, we’ve known that Alan Belcher was going to fight Akiyama since the middle of March, but it was only announced by the UFC today.
Ninja wasn’t signed with Dream though, that is different than the UFC booking guys already under contract. They didn’t just book the fight that is when they announced they signed Ninja Rua to fight for Dream. It is also a big difference in the UFC announcing fights now for a July show and Dream announcing them two weeks before a show.
If they knew the guy was injured two weeks before the show as Ninja claims yet they announced the fight and didn’t tell him of a switch in opponents until right before the fight there is a problem.
Again, we don’t know when Ninja was signed with Dream. All we had was a tidbit from Tatame (or maybe it was Gracie mag) saying that Ninja was fighting a Korean at Dream 8. You are assuming that when Dream officially announced the fight it also coincided with them signing Ninja. We don’t know that.
Fukuda apparently wasn't a lock until just before the fight...
…owing to the fact that he was supposed to be fighting on the M-1 card in Tokyo this month (on the 29th). From what I’ve heard from contemporaries in Japanese fight media, Dream had been in negotiations with his camp and Saeki in order to get him for a while, and so weren’t sure that he could fill in for Yoon until quite late.
I know it doesn’t excuse Dream for not telling Ninja in advance, but still, just thought I’d mention it, FWIW.
Ninja has not impressed me too much as a fighter other than
being tough as hell, but I give him props for saying he was beat because Fukuda was stronger & better & not making excuses as to why he lost.
Arguing on the internet is like being in the special olympics, even when you win you are still retarded.
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