STREET FIGHTER INFLUENCE ON MMA CULTURE
D. Mandel/Sherdog.com
As some of you may know, I'm a big follower of contact sports such as MMA and Boxing. Today on Sherdog, I was reading about the preview of UFC 109 between middleweight fighters: Chael Sonnen vs Nate Marquardt. On the summary/breakdown of the matchup, it read:
Marquardt has too much skill for Sonnen to overcome the difference with pure top control. The road getting there may be rough, but Marquardt will eventually get Sonnen in a bad spot on the feet and bust out a “Street Fighter”-style super combo for the finish.
This is a really small find, but I find it fascinating that even in mainstream sports, Street Fighter still has it's influence upon the different cultures surrounding us. It's usually the little things like this which typically indicates the level of influence the fighting game community potentially has.
Source: Sherdog - UFC 109 Preview
thxyoutoo
While we are on this topic a friend of mine linked me a highlight video of Marius "The Raging Demon" Zaromskis a few days ago. An MMA fighter who's nicknamed after Akuma/Gouki. He also dressed up as Akuma during one of walk outs.
If you like MMA and this highlight video the guy has mad film making talent. Please check out vids at his youtube channel. He has a ton of highlights from many top mma competitors.
p.s. - Demon Flips at 1:30, Hurricane Kick at 2:15, and Tiger Knees at 3:25
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 at 3:35PM 
Reader Comments (14)
Nate Marquardt is a beast, i remember his tekken combo he did on wilson gouveia
ahhh, you beat me to it xgungrave. on a similar note, why hasnt their been a bjj rep in SF? perfect grappling art, and it gets not love?
Maybe if we make some noise, we might see something out of Capcom. ;]
Who do you guys think is gonna win? I say Nate's gonna KTFO Sonnen.
THere's a picture of Carlos Newton, a UFC fighter, doing a Hadoken after a fight in Japan. Apparently he was a bit of a nerd.
I'm with u crackfiend i think Nate's gonna win.
yeah i wonder why theres no bjj guy in sf? maybe someday ;-)
Nice, Crack! Like you, I'm a huge MMA nerd, and I've noticed SF mentions and tributes in MMA for a while now. For those who haven't seen it, here's Marquardt's finish of Wilson Gouveia http://www.mma-core.com/gifs/GifDetails.aspx?gid=10000647. Nate's team mate Georges St. Pierre described it as "Something out of Street Fighter".
Also, around the time SF4 came out, UFC lightweight champ BJ Penn put out an open challenge to anyone in Street Fighter 4 saying that when he was growing up, he was the king in that game. There's even videos of him playing it on his website, which you can sign up for free to see. He calls it the "greatest game ever".
Another cool MMA/SF link is with the fighter Marius "Raging Demon" Zaromskis. This guy actually fought my favorite fighter Nick Diaz (who says SF is his favorite thing to do in his free time) for the Strikeforce welterweight title this past Saturday. He's an INSANE striker that has fought overseas for a while, and as you can maybe tell by his old nickname, he's a big fan of Akuma. Big enough of a fan actually, that he has been known to enter the ring dressed as the character! Here's a highlight reel where you can see not only that, but some insane headkick finishes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4Exgbf-8W0&feature=related. He's since changed his nickname to "The Whitemare"....needless to say, I prefer the former one.
There's all sorts of other links, but for the sake of brevity, I'll end it here. Again, nice article Crackfiend! It's good to see other people besides me are huge fighting game fans AND MMA fans. In my experience, for some reason a lot of fighting game fans are more into Pro Wrestling.....which I'll never EVER understand...
actually the carlos newton thing is a DBZ reference. About Nate Marquardt though, i think he'll win this fight, but i dont see him going far at 185. I think guys like Akiyama and Vitor could give him problems. At the end of the day, Nate is a jack of all trades type. He doesnt really excell at any one aspect, but has a balance that allows him to decision alot of top level guys. His biggest stoppage win was over jeremy horn.
http://fast1.onesite.com/capcom-unity.com/user/jimmyrey/810504c6f4d40637348f19c88befa14f.gif
I have no idea who these people are but that is pretty awesome.
@U-Volt
Speaking of Marius Zaromskis, I have a direct connect to some major contacts over at Strikeforce. I'm attempting to make contact with the guy to hopefully get some kind of interview. Wish me luck though, it's gonna be difficult!
Also, I wish I had known you earlier, cuz I would've LOVED to have posted that info on iPW for more people to see the culture correlations. ESPECIALLY that of BJ Penn. That would've been freaking dope!
@Crackfiend
Dude, that's awesome! I'm not sure how much english he speaks though, so unless you get a Lithuanian interpreter, it might be a hard interview. You could always interview Nick Diaz though...he loves SF and is ALWAYS an entertaining interview, the best in the business IMO. If you ever wanna do a more fleshed out, larger article on the influences MMA and fighting games have on each other, let me know and we can maybe collaborate on that. My email is u_volt@yahoo.com. I'm also good friends with FuriousRGD who lives here in SC with me, so you can get my contact info from him too. Good luck on the interview!
Funny how they say Street Fighter when he more Tekken. No, I mean: Nate "the Great" Marquardt is Tekken http://i40.tinypic.com/2zgf8ra.gif
UFC commentator Seth Rogen referred to current Lightheavy Weight Champ Lyoto Michida as an embodiment of Ryu during his title defense against Shogun Rua, a Muay Thai fighter.
@Bleh
That's Joe Rogan, not Seth Rogen. Huge difference lol.
@U-Volt Haha you're right. I was tired when I wrote that. =P