Busy Weekend Ahead

Friday 26 September 2008

It is the one of those weekends... A very packed on of MMA in Japan. So what have we got to look forward to?

Here is a quick breakdown:

Saturday: Cage Force 08 - This year Cage Force are holding featherweight and bantamweight tournaments. This event will have 3 of the 4 semi-finals, in addition to other good fights. This will be a very good event, held in Differ Ariake.

Sunday: 2 events, Shooto in Korakuen Hall and Sengoku in Yoyogi Gymnasium

Shooto - This is the 3rd Traditions event. Will be an awesome event, very good card and I am sure they are not worried that it is on the same day as the Sengoku event. This should fill Korakuen Hall regardless.

Sengoku - The middleweight GP will kick off in this one, can it live up to the DREAM tournament? I am sure opinion will be split on that... In addition to that there will be some interesting fight outside the GP.

Some of my thoughts for these events:

Cage Force: This card has some stars that most fans of Japanese MMA would be familiar with like "Wicky" Akiyo, Takeya Mizugaki and Takeshi Yamazaki. You can see the complete card here. But in addition to the familiar names there are some future fighters to watch out for too. I would mention:

-Yuta Nezu - he lost his last fight, but it was a strange one. I think he will come back in this one.
-Daisuke Hoshino - he is 3-0, but is fighting a more experienced fighter than in his previous fights, will be interesting to see if he can keep his perfect record.
-Masaaki Hasegawa - Krazy Bee fighter in his second professional fight, he won his first in July and it will be interesting to see if he can build on that.

Shooto: This is a great card again from Shooto. You can see the complete card here. Again Shooto is putting on something special for fans of Japanese MMA. The main event here is a featherweight title fight between the Japanese champion Ueda (who is undefeated) and Brazilian "Louro". It will be a very tough fight, and it should go the distance. If I were a betting man (I am not and it costs me nothing to say this), I think Ueda will get the decision.

The fight I am really looking forward to here is the "M-16" vs. "Shinpei" fight. These fighters are VERY entertaining, and I am pretty sure this will not go the distance.

Sengoku: The thing to look forward to on this card (there are of course more) are the middleweight GP fights. Sengoku is kicking off their GP just as DREAM has finished their. DREAM got very mixed reviews, but can Sengoku do better? The lighweight division has Gomi there, it is a bit different. Who will be the Sengoku middleweight champ? There are some good fighters in there, but does anyone stick out as a champion? I guess thats something we will get an answer to.

Otherwise, I look forward to the opening fight between Jorge Masvidal and Ryan Schultz. Fighters I need to mention is Xande Ribeiro making his MMA debut and Travis Wiuff (though he didnt get his fight against Roger Gracie).

Some videos of the fighters participating in these events:
Cage Force 06 April 5 2008: Masahiro Oishi vs. Paul McVeigh



Cage Force Eastern Bound February 11 2008: "Wicky" Akiyo vs. Kim Jong Man



Sengoku 3 - June 8 2008 Travis Wiuff vs. Kazuyuki Fujita



Sengoku III - Kazuyuki Fujita vs. Travis Wiuff
Uploaded by villleee

Sengoku 2 - May 18 2008: Jorge Santiago vs. Yuki Sasaki



Shooto Back to Our Roots 6 - November 8 2007: Rambaa Somdet vs. Masaaki Sugawara



0 comments:

Post a Comment

Followers

Read about this blog here.

If you have any suggestions for improvements, event we should cover etc.

Please contact me on japanmma@gmail.com
*I am not able to arrange or set up fights, for this please contact the organizations directly.

For Gyms in Japan see here

For purchasing tickets in Japan see here


  © Blogger template On The Road by Ourblogtemplates.com 2009

Back to TOP