HERO’s II: Tokoro Upsets “Pequeno”; “Kid” Win by TKO
More Tourney and K-1 Stars
Stephen Martinez Jul 6, 2005
Another ZST star Remigijus Morkevicius
showed a brutal display of power over former Osaka pro-wrestler now
back in K-1 Max circles Takehiro Murahama. The
current ZST Grand Prix champion came out ultra-aggressive, chasing
Murahama around the ring.
After landing some inside knees from the clinch, Morkevicius threw a devastating left hook that sent Murahama’s head bouncing backward from the impact. Morkevicius followed with another ground punch but the referee quickly jumped in to stop further punishment for Murahama.
A weird referee stoppage came during the fight between SHOOTO
veteran Hiroyuki Takaya
and Swedish fighter Jani
Lax. The video footage was chopped and pasted together with
both fighters exchanging blows in the middle of the ring. Takaya
caught Lax with a huge right hook that sent him down. Takaya
followed with ground punches and the referee jumped out of nowhere
to stop with a clearly un-happy Lax asking what was wrong since he
still was defending.
Japanese Olympic wrestler prodigy Kazuyuki Miyata, who was scheduled to face Arslan Magomedov but got a last-minute opponent change as Magomedov failed the medical check, got a quick workout over ground-game clueless Shamil Gaidarbekov in another tournament fight. Miyata took control early in the round with a Greco-Roman clinch to takedown. After working his way to Gaidarbekov’s back, Miyata sunk the rear-naked choke for the tapout victory.
Bob Sapp and Alan Karaev displayed a rather “interesting” ground game with both fighters obtaining full mount on each other several times, just to lay there and lose position seconds later. With both fighters basically clueless about what to do in the full mount the referee quickly broke them apart and stood them for more brawling action. After some wild swings from both sides Sapp landed a nice knockout right straight to Karaev’s nose that sent the Russian fighter down holding his face.
Making his MMA debut, Ray Sefo made quick work of Korean Judoka Min Soo Kim with a brutal high kick knockout. Sefo showed up in very good condition and looked rather comfortable with the ground game, even tripping the judo champion to the ground and taking his back.
The second round saw Kim backed off and rocked after Sefo’s first punch. Here Kim got a standing 8-count, similar to SHOOTO or boxing rules. As part of the special-rules match, 8-counts were applied and one rope-escape allowed as well. While I was wondering around my room, Sefo surprised Kim with a high kick while Kim was walking away with both hands down after the referee clearly told him to fight.
Another K-1 legend, Peter Aerts, easily stopped former sumo wrestler Wakashoyo. The only highlight from this fight was Wakashoyo taking down the Dutch fighter and Aerts holding and defending from the guard. After a referee break Wakashoyo basically rushed to meet a combo from Aerts that sent the Japanese down hard. Aerts stood there looking at the referee. After realizing he’s fighting under MMA rules, he rushed over the to sumo wrestler and landed some shots before the referee jump.
In the first fight of the night, Judo prodigy Yoshihiro Akiyama dominated Carl Toomey with a quick takedown to full mount. From there Toomey tried to reverse but Akiyama transitioned to armbar for the win.
Overall this was a good show. It was kind of let down to me because TBS didn’t showed Rodrigo Gracie vs. Kiuma Kunioku or Katsuya Inoue vs. Akira Kikuchi, but still I need to consider the TV broadcast was tailor made for regular Japanese fans, was free and I had nothing better to do on Wednesday night.
The next HERO’s show will be at Ariake Coliseum in Tokyo on September 7 with the quarterfinals and semifinals of the “middleweight” tournament.
Also great news to all Royce Gracie fans. It was officially announced after the show that Royce Gracie will fight on the next Dynamite show in December. Royce stated he doesn’t care about the opponent and added it would be great to see Rickson Gracie fighting in the same show.
After landing some inside knees from the clinch, Morkevicius threw a devastating left hook that sent Murahama’s head bouncing backward from the impact. Morkevicius followed with another ground punch but the referee quickly jumped in to stop further punishment for Murahama.
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Japanese Olympic wrestler prodigy Kazuyuki Miyata, who was scheduled to face Arslan Magomedov but got a last-minute opponent change as Magomedov failed the medical check, got a quick workout over ground-game clueless Shamil Gaidarbekov in another tournament fight. Miyata took control early in the round with a Greco-Roman clinch to takedown. After working his way to Gaidarbekov’s back, Miyata sunk the rear-naked choke for the tapout victory.
The under card showed some familiar faces from K-1 circles making
their debut as MMA fighters against Akira Maeda’s fighters from the
RINGS network.
Bob Sapp and Alan Karaev displayed a rather “interesting” ground game with both fighters obtaining full mount on each other several times, just to lay there and lose position seconds later. With both fighters basically clueless about what to do in the full mount the referee quickly broke them apart and stood them for more brawling action. After some wild swings from both sides Sapp landed a nice knockout right straight to Karaev’s nose that sent the Russian fighter down holding his face.
Making his MMA debut, Ray Sefo made quick work of Korean Judoka Min Soo Kim with a brutal high kick knockout. Sefo showed up in very good condition and looked rather comfortable with the ground game, even tripping the judo champion to the ground and taking his back.
The second round saw Kim backed off and rocked after Sefo’s first punch. Here Kim got a standing 8-count, similar to SHOOTO or boxing rules. As part of the special-rules match, 8-counts were applied and one rope-escape allowed as well. While I was wondering around my room, Sefo surprised Kim with a high kick while Kim was walking away with both hands down after the referee clearly told him to fight.
Another K-1 legend, Peter Aerts, easily stopped former sumo wrestler Wakashoyo. The only highlight from this fight was Wakashoyo taking down the Dutch fighter and Aerts holding and defending from the guard. After a referee break Wakashoyo basically rushed to meet a combo from Aerts that sent the Japanese down hard. Aerts stood there looking at the referee. After realizing he’s fighting under MMA rules, he rushed over the to sumo wrestler and landed some shots before the referee jump.
In the first fight of the night, Judo prodigy Yoshihiro Akiyama dominated Carl Toomey with a quick takedown to full mount. From there Toomey tried to reverse but Akiyama transitioned to armbar for the win.
Overall this was a good show. It was kind of let down to me because TBS didn’t showed Rodrigo Gracie vs. Kiuma Kunioku or Katsuya Inoue vs. Akira Kikuchi, but still I need to consider the TV broadcast was tailor made for regular Japanese fans, was free and I had nothing better to do on Wednesday night.
The next HERO’s show will be at Ariake Coliseum in Tokyo on September 7 with the quarterfinals and semifinals of the “middleweight” tournament.
Also great news to all Royce Gracie fans. It was officially announced after the show that Royce Gracie will fight on the next Dynamite show in December. Royce stated he doesn’t care about the opponent and added it would be great to see Rickson Gracie fighting in the same show.
