Only in Japan would you get caught with marijuana and spend 26 days in prison. In October 2008, Enson was arrested by the Tokyo Metropolitan Police for marijuana possession and thrown in a cell with a guy accused of sexual harassment against a 22-year old and a Yakuza gangster caught selling fake currency to the police. In an interview with Sherdog, it looks like Enson still keeps in contact with the Yakuza and even assists in organizing ‘Yakuza MMA’.
“Well, right now the most popular of events here is now the gangster events that they have here, they have over a dozen gangster events that’s happening all over Japan and this is an event, I say gangster event because they let the yakuza, they let the gangsters, they let anyone fight. They actually have guys on that day calling out people out into the ring who wants to try, like a Toughman competition but it’s an organized Toughman competition and a lot of fighters who get into that they really train but there’s a lot of gangsters that just think they’re tough on the street, they get in the ring and they get worked really bad but I think in the next two years the stars that’s going to help Mixed Martial Arts in Japan is going to be from there because these guys”
“Yeah, you know it’s a good thing both ways because not only you are helping the MMA world but you are helping these gangsters realize that you can be proper, you can have values and you know you don’t need to react on your feeling all the time. When we first started these gangster fights there were riots like three or four riots at one event, it was like ridiculous because these guys were still gangsters on the street and that’s all they had is that mentality so when their guy lost they’re running in the ring trying to beat up the other guy, they had no idea what a sport was about, but you know I go to the gangster events, I have to go to one next week, I have to go one the following week, I go to one every two weeks to be a guest and I haven’t seen a riot in the past year about and you know these guys are learning how to control their behavior, they’re learning to understand how the world isn’t about the gangster life.”
In the interview, Enson says that he assisted in started these ‘gangster fights’ and then later says that he attends every week to ‘be a guest’ so it’s difficult to discern his role in these events. I’m assuming that he started organizing them and once the Yakuza took over, Enson backed off just to be somewhat of an overseer in these events. Perhaps it could just be that my mind is still scrambled after watching the 4-hour series finale of Lost (because I didn’t understand a single thing that happened last night). [Source]
