TOKYO, Feb. 4 — A busy weekend of mixed martial arts here in the land of the rising sun kicked off with the inaugural showing of GCM’s latest brainchild: MARS.
I’ve seen the Ariake Colosseum packed for K-1 HERO’s and PRIDE Bushido before, but today there were many empty seats. A smaller venue would have been much better for this new upstart.
The main event pitted Rodrigo Gracie (Pictures) against GCM’s golden boy, Hidetaka Monma (Pictures). For coming from the most famous grappling family in the world, it was actually Rodrigo’s boxing prowess that stood out in this one. He was up on his toes for the duration of the fight, moved around the ring well and tagged Monma with some heavy bombs.
Monma’s boxing looked a bit sloppy by comparison, as he often threw big loopy haymakers. Despite this, he really turned on the strikes in the last round.
Not much transpired on the mat, as most of the action remained standing. After trading punches the two fighters often ended up in a standing clinch in the corner, but neither seemed able to capitalize on this and the referee would eventually call for the break.
This was a fairly entertaining fight and after three rounds of back-and-forth action the bout was ruled a draw.
Nova Uniao’s grappling ace, Vitor Ribeiro (Pictures), faced off against D.O.G. and Bushido veteran Eiji Mitsuoka (Pictures). The Brazilian grappler was all about the takedown in this one, which he scored seemingly at will. On the mat, “Shaolin” moved past his Mitsuoka’s legs, taking side and mount on several occasions.
The Nova Uniao star really dominated this one, in essence putting on a grappling and takedown clinic. While Mitsuoka was able to survive the onslaught, it seemed like all he could do was react to the Brazilian’s aggression and not really mount any kind of offense of his own. This fight went the distance with Ribeiro taking the unanimous decision.
Team Quest fighter Ryan Schultz (Pictures) did a good job of landing punches on Kuniyoshi Hironaka (Pictures) while the Japanese fighter came in to attack. At one point he landed a hard shot that briefly put the SHOOTO veteran down to one knee. But he failed to follow-up on it.
On the ground in the first round, Schultz pulled off a huge bridge to escape a dangerous Hironaka triangle/armbar attempt from the top.
The second round saw Hironaka score a takedown and get to side. After a bit of a melee on the mat, the Japanese fighter hooked on an armbar from a tough angle. Schultz was able to fend off the technique, but eventually Hironaka rolled it over, fully extending the arm and forcing a tapout at the 1:47 mark.
Coming off his punch-less victory against Taiyo Nakahara (Pictures) at D.O.G. 4, Abu Dhabi grappling competitor Rani Yahira (Pictures) actually got a chance to throw down some leather during his fight against Pancrase and ZST veteran Takumi Yano (Pictures).
On the Sherdog.com Fight Finder, Mr. Yahira doesn’t have a nickname. I’m going to go out on a limb here and label this guy “Mr. North-South.”
Right off the opening bell, Yahira got the takedown and went right for, you guessed it, north-south position. It was with a choke from north-south that Yahira finished his punch-less affair against Nakahara at D.O.G. 4, and in the early stages of this fight it looked like he would pull the same trick again. However, Yano escaped the dangerous predicament and even went for a brief armbar attempt of his own.
Yahira was seemingly able to take Yano down at will and went to the north-south position several times. For his part, Yano worked out an excellent escape for this by basically doing a backwards summersault, trying to roll to his opponent’s back.
The Brazilian really dominated positions in this bout and even got to rain down punches from the mount. It was to the point that I was often wondering how the Japanese fighter continued to survive the barrage of arm-triangles and chokes that Yahira threw at him.
In the third round Yahira transitioned from an arm-triangle into a textbook leg-triangle. The referee couldn’t see if Yano wanted to stop but eventually realized that the ZST veteran was unconscious from the technique. The fight was stopped at the 2:14 mark of the third round. It took some time for Yano to regain consciousness in the ring.
Pancrase veteran Osami Shibuya (Pictures) made his long awaited return to the MMA scene in his bout against Nova Uniao fighter Thales Leites. Shibuya’s last fight was at Pancrase Brave 11 in November 2004.
Like his Nova Uniao teammate Vitor Ribeiro (Pictures), Leites was all about the takedown. He was constantly going for the shot and scored it several times. The Brazilian also got around to Shibuya’s back several times while the two were on their feet. From here Shibuya defended well and looked to apply a standing Kimura.
This was a good bout with a lot of action. Leites scored the mount and took Shibuya’s back when the Japanese fighter twisted to escape. The third saw the Brazilian working for an arm-triangle and once again took his opponent’s back.
The fight went the distance and Leites took the unanimous decision.
Russian giant Alan Karaev (Pictures) scored the mount and rained down hammerfists against pro wrestler Koji Kanechika. The Russian monster was much bigger than his opponent and finished him off with an armlock at the 3:09 mark of the first round.
Pancrase fighter Kenji Arai (Pictures) caught Takumi Nakayama (Pictures) with a big punch in the second round just as the Paraestra Osaka fighter was coming in to attack. Nakayama was pretty much out, but Arai followed up with some more to finish the job. The referee stepped in after a few strikes and stopped the fight.
In another well-contested battle, Pancrase veteran Yuji Hoshino (Pictures) fought to a draw against Yasunori Kanehara.
Team Quest fighter Ian Loveland escaped an omoplata from Akitoshi Tamura (Pictures), only to fall into a triangle, forcing the American to tapout.
SHOOTO fighter Yusuke Endo (Pictures) earned a unanimous decision in his fight against Korean fighter Jyu Do Fan.
Wajyutsu Keisyukai RJW fighter Hayate Usui (Pictures) took the unanimous decision against Killer Bee’s Michihisa Asano.