#5 Henry ‘Sentoryu’ Miller vs. Wagner ‘Zuluzinho’ de Conceicao Martins – PRIDE 30 – 10/23/05
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PRIDE 30 was a weird card in general – it also saw the strange Sakuraba/Ken Shamrock fight, the debut of obese Romanian judoka Alexandru Lungu, and a surprisingly terrible fight between Sergei Kharitonov and Fabricio Werdum. For sheer hilarity though you can’t top Sentoryu vs. Zuluzinho.
First, some background. Sentoryu – real name Henry Miller – was a Japanese-American former sumo wrestler who’d come into PRIDE in 2004 for reasons beyond my comprehension, if I’m frank.
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After looking like you’d expect a sumo wrestler to look at the time of his debut, which was a loss to former WWE wrestler Giant Silva, he’d trimmed down a lot and looked like he was beginning to improve by late 2005 despite still not winning his fights. He’d last fought in July, losing to James Thompson by KO.
Zuluzinho meanwhile was brought into PRIDE following six wins on the Brazilian regional scene, but he was largely there due to his heritage – his father, Rei Zulu, had made a name for himself in a famous Gracie Challenge match with Rickson on the beach, similarly to Hugo Duarte. He was also HUGE.
I mean, Sentoryu was a big guy at 5’9” and around 300lbs. Zuluzinho stood at 6’9” and tipped the scales at well over 400lbs. These were two of the biggest men to ever fight in MMA, point blank. The fight though was weirdness on an equally big scale.
Zuluzinho opened the fight with a clinch and went to work with some knees to the body of the slightly smaller Sentoryu. If you’ve been following the trend, you’d have guessed that one of those knees would strike Sentoryu’s groin. The referee called time....but rather than really check Miller over, he seemed more worried about Zuluzinho’s shorts.
Maybe he was given a pair of XXXXL rather than XXXXXXXL? Anyhow, following a restart, Sentoryu shot in for a takedown and all hell broke loose. Zuluzinho attempted to defend the takedown, and in the process, his shorts began to slip down.
The thought of this possible wardrobe malfunction was apparently too much for the PRIDE officials to comprehend and while the referee inside the ring went crazy, a couple of the officials working on the outside of the ring leapt up onto the apron and began to lunge for the Brazilian’s shorts, I guess attempting to pull them back up.
Zuluzinho continued to defend the takedown, throwing a couple of knees, and as Sentoryu ducked a little lower to try to complete the takedown, the referee called for the bell.
The official result was a TKO for Zuluzinho, infuriating Sentoryu who seemed unhurt – the replays seemed to show the knee strikes missing and Zulu’s thigh kind of catching Sentoryu on the top of the head at most. No, it seemed that the officials had panicked and stopped the fight in order to prevent Zuluzinho from losing his shorts!
When you consider the fighters involved, the reasons for the signing of Zuluzinho and the downright insane finish, I think this might be the weirdest fight in MMA history. If you’ve got some spare time then check it out on Fight Pass. You won’t be disappointed!
Zulu would incredibly go on to fight Fedor Emelianenko in his next fight, and really that fight’s worth checking out too, for different reasons of course.
These are just five of the weird and wonderful fights we’ve seen over the years in MMA. If you can think of any more – from the UFC, Bellator, PRIDE or anywhere really – feel free to chime in with comments!
Until next time....
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