When Nick Diaz was giving the fist to his elementary school photographer, Enson Inoue was preparing to compete at the highest level of MMA before anyone even knew what MMA was. Enson Inoue ran Shooto and Vale Tudo back in the day and although his Pride FC record may not reflect it, dude kept up with some of the toughest competition at the time. In October 2008, Enson was arrested by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police for marijuana possession and sent to prison for twenty-six days. When he emerged from the bighouse, Enson said he was a changed man.
“I’m this tough dude that doesn’t tap, but I’m also human, too. I had insecurities in prison. I had hard times. I had to overcome it a lot.”
“The hardest thing about it is that it was out of the blue. I was just sitting in a parking lot, and they just came. They wanted to do a routine search of the car, and all this [expletive] came out. I was like, ‘Whoah.’
“I lost 25 pounds in there doing push-ups, sit-ups, whatever. I’d fold up my sweats and put them full of magazines and do curls. I was just working out in there. There’s no junk food. So it was good.”
“I had one Yakuza guy in my room. I had a guy that sold fake notes, bank notes. And then I had a guy who had sexual harassment on a 22-year-old kid. So I had a whole range of people.
“At 8:00 p.m. we could lay our futons out. We woke up at 6:30 a.m. At 7:00 a.m. we had to put all of that stuff away. So we’re sitting in the room with nothing. So I would put all of my roommates in the middle, and I would run circles around them. I would run 400 laps in the morning, 400 laps in the evening. Every 25 laps I would do 50 push-ups, then run the opposite way and do 50 push-us. I would do almost 800 push-ups a day.”
Now it’s being reported that Enson Inoue will make his return to the world of MMA on April 25th at ASTRA on the same card that will feature Yoshida’s retirement bout. Props to Ensos Inoue coming back after a six-year hiatus. [Source]
