2/20 DEEP Impact 40 - Fight Order

DEEP have announced the fight order for DEEP 40. For the 2nd year running, I will celebrate my birthday (even though it is not on the day) at DEEP. It looks like a very good card, not as many fights as normal but the quality is very high. I will be doing live updates, while taking pictures and drinking beers (will be a busy one).

This card is full of good fights, but the main event will be the DREAM welterweight GP qualifier between DEEP welterweight champion Seichi Ikemoto and Hidetaka Monma.

Before that, Riki Fukuda and Ryuta Sakurai (the two guys that were the favorites to win the tournament last year), will fight to deceide who gets to challenge the champion Yuichi Nakanishi next. It is almost a year, to the day since they met in the DEEP middleweight tournament. On that occation, Riki Fukuda came out on top.

In addition to that, there is a lightweight tournament on the card (final will be in April), and the former welterweight champion Hidehiko Hasegawa will also fight.

Main Event - DREAM Welterweight GP Qualifier:
12. Seichi Ikemoto 17-14-5 vs. 15-8-3 Hidetaka Monma

Next DEEP Middleweight Challenger:
11. Riki Fukuda 12-4-0 vs. 18-14-4 Ryuta Sakurai

Lightweight Tournament:
10. Katsunori Kikuno 9-1-1 vs. 0-3-0 Bu Kyung Jung
9. Jutaro Nakao 22-13-4 vs. 6-1-0 Koichiro Matsumoto

8. 77.1kg: Hidehiko Hasegawa 15-11-5 vs. 11-9-1 Makoto Ishikawa
7. Open: Kazuhisa Tazawa 3-0-1 vs. 9-2-0 Tim "Big Perm" Persey
6. 93kg: Shunsuke Inoue 4-3-1 vs. 2-6-0 Minoru Kato
5. 77.1kg: Hiroki Nagaoka 12-13-8 vs. 6-8-2 Yoshitomo Watanabe
4. 70.3kg: Yuki Ito 7-2-3 vs. 4-1-2 Kota Okazawa
3. 65.8kg: Hiroto 6-1-0 vs. 4-2-0 Naohiro Mizuno

Future Fights:
2. Hideto Sato vs. 2-3-0 Hiroshi Kobayashi
1. Muneyuki Sato 2-2-0 vs. 0-2-0 Yasuhiro Motomura