This week in “Press Row,” Jordan Breen and FoxSports.com's Damon Martin discuss their favorite strange, spooky, ghoulish and gory MMA memories, from bloodbaths to leg injuries to the costumed entrances of the likes of Kazushi Sakuraba and Lee Murray.

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Dan Severn, on “Rewind,” discussing a young Kazushi Sakuraba, whom he encountered while doing pro wrestling in Japan:

“When I was first going to Japan, he was one of the young boys. He’d be there cleaning the mats and washing clothes and cooking meals. It seemed like each time I came back, he’d have a fresh cauliflower ear or he’d have a new black eye. They really just kind of beat the tar out of him. … Then to see him go from one of the young, early-card competitors to mid-card and above, and then to see how well he did after that, it actually made me feel happy for him because there was some of the upper … athletes, I don’t think they were really deserving of some of their positions.”

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One day, the most prized commodity in the study of cerebral trauma in a mixed martial artist may be the lumped-up brain of Kazushi Sakuraba, the 14-year veteran of Japan’s masochistic fight scene who seems to have little interest in aging gracefully and every motivation to do it painfully.

For K-1’s end-of-year spectacular, Sakuraba (Pictured) will reportedly face Marius Zaromskis, a violent striker good enough to put Nick Diaz on his heels and tear through Dream’s 2009 welterweight grand prix. Bizarrely, it’s Zaromskis who has suffered more TKO losses in the past few years -- four -- than Sakuraba, who has only been stopped by strikes once since 2005. But records don’t tell the whole story: Sakuraba is ailing, was in significant trouble in fights he survived, and generally resembles very little the man that was once considered the best in the sport. Putting his hobbled knees and geriatric reflexes against a little monster like Zaromskis is a strange choice. But strange has a different meaning in Japan.

Sakuraba’s compulsions for continuing to compete remain ambiguous: his salaries in Pride were allegedly underwhelming, and (again, allegedly) paid to Takada Dojo rather than to him personally. Money is an easy explanation, but he would be far from the first athlete to fear what his life would become without competition. He might also be the closest thing Japan has come to having its Ali in MMA -- enigmatic, talented, and a born salesman. If he’s not careful, he might wind up having more in common with that man than he’d like.

How desperate is Japan’s fight scene right now? In addition to repeated reports of foreign fighters getting slow or no-paid, events being postponed or cancelled, and big stars either fading or retired, there’s mounting evidence that promoters are increasingly becoming dependent on the success of one show; FEG, which houses K-1, is rumored to be chasing mostly-retired Sumo Chad “Akebono” Rowan for a New Year’s Eve fight with Kazushi Sakuraba. This is the kind of thing P.T. Barnum would have a moral objection to.

The micro issue in Japan is that Pride is no longer around to drive competitive matchmaking, salaries, or employment -- and without that pageantry, few fight fans in Japan are getting excited about the content of Dream, Deep, Sengoku or Shooto. MMA is a fringe sport in the country that once hosted fights compelling to a mainstream audience: that was thanks to pro wrestlers, Judo players, and actors. But in the wake of Pride’s Yakuza scandal, networks aren’t falling over themselves to strike up relationships with promotions. There’s not much of a pay-per-view market, and live shows aren’t so spectacular that they can fill up 40,000 seat arenas.

It’s no coincidence that Japan’s slip from the international scene coincides with the sport’s popularity growth in the States over the past three years. Many of Japan’s favored athletes --Wanderlei Silva, Mirko Filipovic, Fedor Emelianenko -- were able to get competitive salaries here; those that stayed (like Sakuraba) are operating in decline.

NAGOYA, Japan -- All fighters on Friday made weight for Dream 16, set to take place on Saturday at the Nihon Gaishi Hall. A middleweight attraction between two fan favorites in Strikeforce veteran Jason Miller and Kazushi Sakuraba will be prominently featured in the promotion’s first primetime effort on the Tokyo Broadcasting System.

In typical “Mayhem” fashion, Miller goofed around at the public press conference by belting out mangled Japanese words and phrases in response to fan questions. In not so many Japanese words, Miller asserted that he had magic in his hands and arms, indicating a confidence in his submission prowess and striking.

In somewhat of a break from the persona, however, Miller respectfully gave the legendary Japanese mixed martial artist his due, commenting to local media about how Sakuraba’s bouts against the Gracie family in the early 2000s were a personal revelation of the paradigmatic shifts in store for the sport’s future. Despite his respect for the Japanese veteran’s creativity and “magic,” Miller asserted he has no qualms with beating Sakuraba, jokingly likening the fight with the storied vet to beating up his own father.