At this segment, we asked the fighters, people involved which fight they fought or saw became their turning point for their career.

—Kazushi Sakuraba
Kazushi Sakuraba will be facing Shinya Aoki on December 29th, for a super fight. Sakuraba made his first appearance in PRIDE was in 1998, when he was still a full time pro wrestler. He listed his first year fights in PRIDE for the fights that were turning points during his career vs Vernon White (PRIDE 2 1998), vs Carlos Newton (PRIDE 3 1998), vs Allan Goes (PRIDE 4 1998), vs Vítor Belfort(PRIDE 5 1999), vs Ebenezer Fontes Braga(PRIDE 6 1999).

“I can’t really pick which fight was my turning point, but for me I felt like major changes happened during those 5 fights. Those were the times when I remembered why I started to fight, when Tiger Mask was my hero. The early fights in PRIDE gave me diversity as a fighter.”

—Rickson Gracie
The fight Rickson picked for his turning point, was his MMA debut fight against Rei Zulu when he was 19 years old. Rickson weighed 74 kg and had no experience, while his opponent weighed 98 kg and had 120 fights.

“When the first round was over, I told my dad that I’m too tired, I cannot continue. And my dad told me, its ok, your opponent is tired as well, you can do this. But I didn’t want to continue and kept telling him I wanted to quit. When the bell rand for round 2, he pushed me back in the ring and force me to continue. I was able to secure a choke in round 2 and won the fight. That is when I realized that my true enemy myself – my mind. I was submitted to my mind which ordered me to quit. I was controlled by the fear which I created. I am very grateful that my dad was there in my corner that day. I would have never learned if my dad had not pushed me back in the ring to continue. Since then, I was able to control my mind and I have never let fear take over.