According sources at Sherdog, the very highly anticipated match between Gesias “JZ” Calvancanti against Shinya Aoki is off. Allegedly, “JZ”, a 2 time K-1 Hero’s GP Champion, has had surgery and hasn’t actually trained 1 day for this fight.
Quick Question: WHY DID THEY ANNOUNCE THE MATCH IF THEY KNEW THIS WASN’T GOING TO HAPPEN?
If you feel the same way I do, than you are incredibly infuriated by the notion that this fight won’t be happening and the fact that they allowed us to believe that it would be. This fight by many fans standard was the “real” main event. Definitely, not taking away from Misaki vs. Akiyama BUT the only real buzz-kill about that fight is the fact that Misaki looked far less than spectacular in his fight against Frank Trigg at PRIDE 33. When you compare that to the tear that both JZ and Aoki have been on, the announced main event sort of lacks in comparison.
There will definitely be more confirmation of this as days come but with Christmas only 4 days ago, I feel like someone has come into my house and stolen a present that I was soon to enjoy. JZ is not the only Hero’s Lightweight recovering from surgery. Vitor “Shaolin” Ribiero has too been recovering from a recent surgery and hopes to be ready to come back to his phenomenal days we were accustomed to.
Our 1 shred of hope is that this hasn’t necessarily been confirmed, but strangely no mention of this surgery was made in an interview that Sherdog themselves had with JZ recently. Calvancanti on the interview says that he had planned on training with BTT and completely convinced me that this fight was happening. Sadly, Hope is what we have, and I’ll take it. This definitely has potential to be one of the best Lightweight matches of the year and to have it taken away would be a definite shame.
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December 21st, 2007 at 8:26 pm
While I would have loved to see the fight, and it was a good match up, I’m not surprised at all. This is CLASSIC Japan when it comes to major MMA promotion by K-1 or the former Pride (so essentially the people running the show w/ no name. I’ve been following the N.Y.E. shows since the first one, and this is typical of the lying and haphazard behavior of the promotions. No one is ever held accountable in Japan, and they pretty much lie to their media, which thanks them for it. See every Antonio Inoki press conference EVER. So sadly, I don’t expect either show to even happen every year, and I’m shocked if they do anything good for their own businesses.
Thanks for the reports and editorializing though. Good stuff.
December 21st, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Yeah, Of Course. It’s nothing very foreign to Japanese MMA. We see this way too often sadly. I think the only ones hurt really are the fans.
December 21st, 2007 at 11:49 pm
This seems to be happening with other organizations outside of Japan as well. I believe the Rio Heroes event had some potential bouts where the favored fighter had no idea he was supposedly fighting.