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Takanori Gomi

Takanori Gomi didn't want to be a fighter.

Gomi's childhood dream was to play baseball. He started pitching as a child, he was quite good at it, and only boxed and wrestled because his second-greatest fandom was vale tudo. His fighting career started out of necessity rather than desire; after his baseball ambitions so harmed his studies that Gomi failed to graduate from high school and dropped out, his father disowned him, and as he no longer attended school, he could no longer play the sport he loved.

But he could work odd jobs. And he could fight. Boxing out of the K'z Factory and training his wrestling under the legendary Noriaki Kiguchi, Gomi was a four-time submission wrestling champion by the time he began fighting professionally just a couple of months after his 20th birthday. He almost immediately established himself as one of Shooto's brightest stars: He outgrappled Stephen Palling, Johnny Eduardo, Ryan Bow, ADCC medalist Leonardo Santos and grappling legend Rumina Sato himself, taking Shooto's lightweight title in the process. Five years into his career he was 14-0 and undisputedly one of the top lightweights in the world.

And then he met Joachim "Hellboy' Hansen, and tasted defeat for the first time in his career in an incredibly close, difficult decision loss. And then he met recent UFC defector BJ Penn, and for the first time knew what it was to be completely outfought--dominated the way he'd dominated so many others. He was no longer a champion, he no longer wanted to fight in Shooto, and he was no longer undefeated. And unbeknownst to him, his career was just about to start.

Gomi was a natural pickup for Pride's Bushido initiative. Something in his losses had changed his fighting style: Where his time in Shooto was marked by his submission grappling skills, the Gomi that entered Pride--The Fireball Kid--was sharper, angrier, and wanted almost solely to engage on his feet. He became a wild, uncontrollable brawler, known for huge, looping punches that would crush opponents in seconds and a tendency to fight with a palpable sense of anger that saw referees having to physically intervene to stop him from punching unconscious opponents. It led to one of the greatest runs in lightweight history: Between 2004 and 2005, Gomi defeated undefeated phenomenon Ralph Gracie (in six seconds), power-puncher Charles Bennett, UFC champion Jens Pulver, Chute Boxe ace Luiz Azeredo, Shooto champion Tatsuya Kawajiri and former #1 welterweight Mach Sakurai, the latter three all as part of Pride's 2005 Lightweight Grand Prix. Just two years after the end of his first title reign, Gomi was once again a champion, and this time in the biggest MMA organization in history. He was on top of the world.

And he immediately got choked out again, this time by Marcus Aurelio. But he kept the championship, because Pride knew better than to book its champions into title defenses. He'd avenge the loss later that year and fight until Pride closed in 2007. His strength of schedule was almost unparalleled even within the organization; he fought 15 times in just three years with Pride, and amassed a total record of 13-1 (1). With Pride gone, Gomi floated through Sengoku, Shooto and Vale Tudo Japan, but the real money, and the real chance to cement an even greater legacy, lay in America with the UFC, now the undisputed leader in mixed martial arts.

It may have been a mistake.

When Gomi entered the UFC he was 31-5 (1), ranked top ten at lightweight, and one of the scariest fighters in the sport. His only losses had come against elite competition. But he was entering his thirties, and the UFC's lightweight division, once considered drastically inferior to its Pride counterpart, was suddenly being taken very, very seriously. Gomi was looked at as a superstar with immeasurable credibility, and the internet was desperate to see him get a long-awaited rematch with then-champion BJ Penn.

He never even got close. Gomi fought 13 times in the UFC and win only four. Eight of his nine losses came by stoppage, and seven of those eight stoppages came in the first round. Gomi, whose heart and chin were once the stuff of legend, was knocked out four times. He couldn't compete at the top level of the sport anymore, and in 2017, after spending twice as long in the UFC as he had in Pride and suffering five consecutive losses, Gomi was released from his contract. He returned to Japan just three months later to begin fighting for the Pride-revival organization Rizin--and lost, by submission, in the first round.

I don't know if he'll keep fighting. I hope he doesn't; he's turning 40 this year and at 35-15 (1) his career is at risk of becoming more defined by the losses of his late-period slide than the highs of his incredible prime. At the same time, nothing can truly take away from his legacy as one of the greatest lightweights in martial arts history. His face-melting power is still an incredible thing to behold, and even now, as an aging, sliding veteran, his opponents are visibly terrified of it. There has never been a lightweight quite like him, and it's hard to imagine another coming anytime soon.

But I wonder if he'd still rather have played baseball.

Moveset, stats, logic and four attires (Pride: Shockwave 2004 vs Pulver / Shooto: Devilock Fighters vs Takada / UFC: Silva vs Stann vs Sanchez / Rizin WGP 2017 vs Yachi).