There are a handful of fighters in mixed martial arts history that will never get their due, Hayato Sakurai and Frank Trigg are two of those.
Trigg’s only mention in the Zuffa-told version of this sport is for kneeing Matt Hughes in the babymaker and pushing the UFC welterweight champion into complete beast mode as he damn-near charge-slammed him through the canvas.
He never got the job done when all the chips were on the table but Trigg was a fine fighter for his time, he just never evolved with the rest of the sport so he remains a footnote.
“Mach” Sakurai was the undisputed king at 168-pounds in the late-nineties. Whether going unbeaten in 20 bouts went to his head, he lost concentration or the game just passed him by isn’t clear but Sakurai morphed from an exciting submission ace into a man fighting for pay cheques over the years.
But this at the tail end of the year 2000, both were unbeaten and Trigg was there to dethrone the Shooto welterweight king.
