Misaki Kazuo VS Akiyama Yoshihiro

Anyone who can explain the whole thing to me? I dont mean the fight itself, but the NOT handshaking, the booing and the weird ending. Obviously Akiyama was not popular, but due to what?

Kazuo is the Golden Boy to Pride like Randy Couture is to the UFC and Akiyama is of Korean Ethnicity and you know how that goes

akiyama also cheated during his fight with sakuraba and had to publicly apologize for his shameful act.

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Posted by loller90278

akiyama also cheated during his fight with sakuraba and had to publicly apologize for his shameful act.

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I think that more than anything else was the cause of the booing. Saku is a legend everywhere, but most of all in Japan. Akiyama greasing himself up for their fight was seen as dishonorable. The Japanese fans are usually very polite to any foreigner who is seen as honorable , and thats the only thing that makes sense to me.By the way, fight of the night IMO.

lets not forget the rumors(and some pics that back them up) of "slippery" akiyama using brass knucks during the saku fight. that was most definately fight of the night, and one hell of a way to end the year.

I'm a fan of both, though it would be much easier to like Akiyama is he sticks to the high road instead of continuing down the path he chose to take against Sakuraba and in more than a few Judo matches. But even without his questionable ethics in the ring, Akiyama would still be hated in Japan. He's Korean, and in Japan that's all it takes. Hell, even in Korea the majority of the general population despises him even more for accepting a Japanese name and citizenship, and representing Japan in Judo.

Basically, the guy will never be truly respected or loved in either of the nations he has called home. At least now it seems that the fight fans have forgiven him, and want to see him continue to fight cleanly. Maybe that's at least amstart of an end to all the thrash that's written or stated about him in the Japanese media. The man, is a cheater, that he doesn't even deny, but he's still a very gifted athlete. And irregardless of what he chose to do in the ring or on the tatame, all athletes deserve a chance at redemption and winning back the fans. And any man, woman, or child that has ever led an even remotely decent life deserves a place that they can call home.

Right now, Aki doesn't have that, in a sense at least, and it's sad.

The Korea/Japan thing is really weird. I knew two guys who hung out with the same group. And the Japanese guy was always giving the Korean guy shit. No real reason he just did. Kinda strange he didnt do it to impress anyone or anything no one else we hung out with was Asian. He might have just been a dick but who knows maybe some things run deeper.

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Posted by madmarck

The Korea/Japan thing is really weird.

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It goes back quite a ways. IIRC, after Korea surrendered to Kublai Khan in the 13th century, he tried to invade Japan from Korea, but his fleet was destroyed by a typhoon (which is where the term kamikaze - "the Divine Wind" - comes from). Japan invaded Korea in the 16th century, Korea got caught between Japan and Russia in 1905, and of course Japan occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945.

i actually thought it was the samurai slaughtering korean villages that really made the koreans hate the japanese.

Interesting fact: for all those video game lovers out there... in korea when the game soulCalibur was released they took the samurai characters out of the game. in order to not offend them :D. lol