YMMV / Kazushi Sakuraba

• Badass Decay: Even although Saku's failed feud against Wanderlei Silva is possibly his lowest point, his loss to Ricardo Arona and his departure from PRIDE are arguably the time in which he started going downhill due to the injuries caused by his wild career matchmaking. When he fought the infamous rematch with Royce Gracie, even if the bout's result was a robbery, the difference on Saku's physical condition between that match and the first time they fought was just heartbreaking.
• Harsher in Hindsight: His match with French jiu-jitsu player Giles Arsene was infamous at the time, with fans and pundits saying that a fighter really sucked if not even a showman like Kazushi Sakuraba could pull out a good match with him, but Arsene's posterior fate was actually much worse. According to insiders, Arsene was harassed by the French martial arts community, was rejected out of disgust by every gym or team he tried to join, and was supposedly told to kill himself by his former coach. He only could continue his career because Jérôme Le Banner was his training partner and could get him a break.

• Older Than They Think:
  • As this gif◊ by master Tsunetane Oda shows, Saku's cartwheel guard pass already existed in the times of kosen judo. While Saku did train with some judo black belts, this seems to be a case of convergent evolution.
  • Several years before Saku unveiled his Yurikamome, Andrei Kopylov pulled off the same move in the RINGS 1997 Mega Battle Tournament against Volk Han. And even before that Kopylov himself was caught in the move in 1993 by a fellow RINGS Russia fighter Pavel Orlov.
• Once Original, Now Common: Back at the time in which mixed martial artists used to be quite one-dimensional, Saku was a significantly well rounded fighter, being able to strike, wrestle and submit, aside from being incredibly proficient in the last two, and very creative overall. Nowadays, when everybody cross-trains and dips into everything, uninformed fans often call him a mediocre fighter.

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