character named King RIKI (Riki Takeuchi) interrupted and challenged him, which led to a supernatural duel in which RIKI reflected Takada's attacks and mortally wounded the Generalissimo. The dying Takada disappeared, declaring that Hustle would live forever. After that, the Monster Army was disbanded. Mixed martial arts career Takada entered MMA when he joined Pride Fighting Championships, an event created to host a fight between him and Brazilian jiu-jitsu master Rickson Gracie. The bout was highly anticipated since Gracie had defeated the UWFI wrestler Yoji Anjo in 1994, as Takada was still expected to face Rickson in order to restore his late promotion's reputation. However, although he had been believed to be a strong legitimate contender for most of his career, Takada was not a qualified fighter. He had trained in submission wrestling and other disciplines in his various promotions, but after a 17-year professional wrestling career, he was already too far from his physical prime to transition into MMA. According to his former training partners, future King of Pancrase champions Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki, Takada had actually been an outstanding wrestler in their youth, being able to repeatedly dominate them in sparring, but after missing time to spar during his stardom, and with the arrival of injuries and ring wear, his skills waned over time. By the time of his Pride fights, as attested by Bas Rutten, Takada was overcome by Brazilian jiu-jitsu white belt practitioners while training in the Beverly Hills Jiu-Jitsu Club. His placement in the main event scene also forced him to only fight high-level opponents, which included several of the greatest fighters of the period, like Igor Vovchanchyn, Mark Kerr, and Mirko Cro Cop. Despite these considerations, Takada was able to hold a limited amount of in-ring competence. As described by Jack Slack from Fightland: "It would be easy to remember Nobuhiko Takada as some kind of bum. [...] But this might be doing a disservice to what Takada was able to accomplish in the ring despite inexperience, age and a lack of athletic prowess. For one thing, in legitimate fights Takada was able to scramble up from beneath Mark Kerr, take down Igor Vovchanchyn, and indeed take the latter's notoriously powerful punches." Pundits acknowledged his effort to continue an unsuccessful fighting career in order to support the MMA promotion he had helped to found, lending Pride his own popularity as a professional wrestler