Will Katsunori Kikuno Give JZ Cavalcante a Rude Send Off to Strikeforce at DREAM.15?
by Nate Wilcox on Jul 7, 2010 10:31 AM EDT
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MMA Weekly reports that Strikeforce has signed Gesias "JZ" Cavalcante:
According to Coker, he hopes to see Cavalcante debut in one of his promotion's next couple of shows.
"I think we'll probably have him fight (in) 60 days, 90 days," said Coker. "He's a tremendous talent."
The list of possible opponents could include several names, but with Josh Thomson dealing with injured ribs following his fight with Pat Healy, another name that could fall into the mix is Lyle Beerbohm, fresh off of his win over Vitor "Shaolin" Ribeiro.
I'm a huge fan of JZ, but he's had a dismal last three years. Multiple serious knee injuries have meant that he's only been able to fight three times in the past three years. Even worse, he's gone 0-2 with 1 NC in that time period, dropping decisions to the two men who will headline DREAM.15 this Saturday: Shinya Aoki and Tatsuya Kawajiri.
JZ is someone I'd dearly love to see get healthy and go head to head with Strikeforce champ Gilbert Melendez as their styles are near mirror-images of one another.
But first, JZ has to get past Katsunori Kikuno -- well not really since Strikeforce has signed him win or lose. But it will be easier said than done for Calvalcante to brush past the Kyokushin stylist. JZ trains with American Top Team and is well versed in jiu jitsu, but fundamentally he fights more like a boxer/wrestler like Gilbert Melendez, Kawajiri or Eddie Alvarez.
Alvarez was able to survive an early scare against Kikuno at DREAM.12 -- by way of a standing crucifix neck crank that merited a Judo Chop -- before taking over in the second round with crisp boxing that found the holes in Kikuno's eccentric Sanchin Dachi stance.
We'll find out this weekend if JZ is the same fighter he once was or if Kikuno will be adding another Judo Chop (here's his second Chop) to his resume.
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i saw him at the ufc fan expo 2009
& he said that he would love to fight in the ufc w/ his boy alves
Fighting Solves Everything! - Mikeybear
I am looking for Kikuno to give JZ that rude send off...
Nothing against JZ, but I am a big fan of what Katsunori Kikuno brings to the table.
imo he should have won that first fight w aoki…the nc was bs…the elbow was legal and aoki quit. second fight he had a bad knee and was able to vavoid being subbed by aoki and lost a dec…the kawajiri fight was way too high of a caliber opponent fight for his first fight back after a year lay off and major knee surgery. he looked sluggish and was definitely rusty.
hopefully he is back at full strength, crushes kikuno and brings his K1-Heroes form to the U.S. fans will not be disappointed if thats the case.
Saying he should have won the first fight with Aoki is pretty ridiculous.
JZ is and has always been one of the most overrated fighters since Edison. He’s a solid talent, but even while injury-free, his career boiled down to feasting on much smaller fighters. The Shaolin win was big at the time, but outside of that he’s done nothing but lose (thoroughly) to the elite while somehow being considered elite himself.
Then again, getting your ass kicked in K-1 seems to give you way more credit than you deserve, so perhaps the Masato beatdown had something to do with this perception.
by David Castillo on Jul 7, 2010 11:48 AM EDT up reply actions
Edison?
did he fight in Monte Cox’s Extreme Fighting back in the day? /jk
Seriously, JZ is a pretty promising talent. Not sure if he has the wrestling chops to hang in the UFC 155lb class, but I’d sure love to see it.
Follow me on Twitter @KidNate
How much longer do we give him before he makes good on that promise?
He’s a very good fighter and all, but I don’t see how he’s any different from say, a Tyson Griffin (I think JZ is better offensively when it comes to grappling, but not as good on the feet: JZ got pistol whipped by Kawajiri), but even less polished…(?) He’s a good wrestler, but not a great one. He’s got good submissions, but nothing truly special. His striking is good (above average raw power maybe), but not great. Plus JZ and injuries go together like Michael Bay and bad acting. I doubt these ever disappear for him.
I don’t see JZ getting past a lot of guys in the UFC. Hell I think it’s entirely possible Kikuno absolutely cruises to a decision. Katsunori actually has good takedown defense and is damn sure better than Gesias on the feet.
by David Castillo on Jul 7, 2010 12:42 PM EDT up reply actions
Saying he should have won the first fight with Aoki is pretty ridiculous.
How is it ridiculous?
He hit Aoki with a completely legal strike and Aoki could not continue. JZ should have won via TKO injury. Calling that an illegal strike was easily one of the worst jobs of officiating in the history of the sport.
What?
It was an elbow to the base of the spine, if I’m not mistaken. How is that a legal shot?
http://www.instrength.com
It was to the shoulder blade, clear as day.
Aoki pulled off one of the most disgraceful acting jobs in the history of MMA, and the ref was more than willing to be complicit in helping DREAM’s meal ticket avoid an ‘L’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gDrW09_l9U&feature=related
5:10 mark for the live action (shitty angle though)
5:15 mark for Aoki’s awful acting job where he is grabbing the back of his head
5:40 mark for a beautiful close-up replay of the elbow landing at the bottom of his should blade, nowhere near the spine or back of the head
5:50 for more of Aoki’s death scene
6:10 for a wide angle replay
6:30 for the ref cam replay
6:50 for Aoki being carted off and burned on a funeral pyre, just to make it look good.
Thanks for the video. For some reason I had completely erased it from my memory as such a blatant case of Aoki checking out. Seems like the refs were pretty quick to stop it. A far cry from the whole Mighty Mo, Josh Barnett fiasco (also retarded).
I will say, the elbow looks like it kind of rides up and into the neck for a split second. Could this have made the difference? Doubt it, especially with Aoki’s history, but JZ nonetheless had his chance for revenge and was soundly out fought.
by David Castillo on Jul 7, 2010 4:11 PM EDT up reply actions
Honestly man...
….the majority of the UFC LW division is overated. Im not saying he’ll beat every UFC LW, but seriously Miller? Fisher? Lauzon? Hell even Griffin. Great fighters yes, and they’ll put on a great show but when it was time for them to shine, they dimmed pretty bad.
Impressively wrong
Lauzon gave JZ hell in the one fight they had recorded. Guys like Uno and Aurelio who were able to enjoy success outside of the UFC struggled against the guys in the middle. Uno got straight outclassed against Tibau (some might say ‘outsized’).
I’d say the LW division in the UFC is anything but overrated (who even believes this besides lingering Japanophiles?). When you have guys like Joe Stevenson, Tyson Griffin, Kurt Pellegrino, and Gleison Tibau in the middle of the pack, and just outside of the upper tier, you know you have a deep, great division.
by David Castillo on Jul 7, 2010 4:22 PM EDT up reply actions
how is saying he should have won the fight with aoki the first time ridiculous? he landed what appeared to be a clean elbow strike that basically tko’ed aoki but somehow was ruled illegal and aoki decided not to continue.
other than that he was considered elite for beating other elite fighters at the time in impressive fashion…subbing rani yaha, flying knee ko of takaya, dominated andre dida, dominated shaolin, dominated uno…etc.. i’d say that is a high level of oppents who were in their prime when he beat them.
his only 2 losses are to top 10 lightweights who he fought w/ severe knee injuries. the guy is a high level talent and hopefully now healthy, will get to prove it to a larger audience.
other than that he was considered elite for beating other elite fighters at the time in impressive fashion…subbing rani yaha, flying knee ko of takaya, dominated andre dida, dominated shaolin, dominated uno…etc.. i’d say that is a high level of oppents who were in their prime when he beat them.
Takaya and Yahya are not elite lightweights.
Nor is Dida (although he enjoyed brief hype as one for his win over Uno). And he didn’t dominate Uno either. It was fairly even outside of some brief ground and pound, at least as I remember it (might be thinking of the Kawajiri fight, but neither guy had a walk in the park with Caol).
by David Castillo on Jul 7, 2010 4:02 PM EDT up reply actions
I’m a big JZ fan because I love Luta Livre, but this is going to be eerily similar to the Crusher fight. He was slow and plodding then after a year off, and he’s going to have the same problems here against a faster fighter. Ring rust is a bitch, especially after ANOTHER surgery. I got Kikuno by decision at +225.
http://www.instrength.com
This post reminded me of something sort of interesting: Brazil doesn’t have a lot of top-flight lightweights right now. They had Shaolin, who effectively passed the torch to JZ when they fought in 2007 before JZ went on a slide. They’ve got Gleison Tibau, who’s been hit-and-miss in the UFC despite being just about the biggest lightweight on the planet, and Chiquerim, who’s been a big fish in a small pond, and is about to fight Thiago Tavares, another hit-and-miss UFC guy. And that’s about it.
It’s strange, since you’ve got at least one Brazilian at or near the top in every other major weight class.
Rafael Dos Anjos.
"I see him beating Anderson Silva. I see him picking him apart. Him at a 131 years old...(trails off)." - Tito Ortiz on Vitor Belfort at Affliction:DOR
Oh, right! Forgot about him. I think he’s right in there with Tibau and Tavares—hasn’t broken out of the pack yet.
by JRN on Jul 7, 2010 3:19 PM EDT up reply actions
The only reason Brazil doesn’t have much talent at 155 is because they have an overabundance of talent one weight class down. Some of those guys will eventually move up, since fighting at 155 is a TON more lucrative than fighting at 145.
I don’t know about that. Brazil’s overabundance of talent at 185 hasn’t stopped them from having multiple elite light-heavyweights, nor has the overabundance of talent at 205 stopped them from having multiple elite heavyweights. I just see it as a fluke.
by JRN on Jul 7, 2010 3:33 PM EDT up reply actions
good point JRN…. it’s only a matter of time before some of the talent at 145 from brazil moves up though… they got a number of good feathers in the wec….aldo, nunes, assuncao, pitbull friere, marlon sandro… just off the top of my head.
hopefully jz gets his old form back and can be considered a top 10 guy again. some great potential fights for him in strikeforce and the ufc…i agree he might not be superior in one aspect but he is damn good in all….striking, bjj, takedown defense, gnp…and decent wrestling as well.
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