Here comes Takumi Nakayama, the King of the Cage lightweight champion, squaring off against Ganjo Tentsuku, who was just promoted to a Class A fighter.
Once the fight started, it went all about Boom and Bang. I knew Takumi would exchange some bombs, as he made the KOTC audience get hyped by banging it out with Charlie Kohler. But I didn’t expect Takumi to keep it on his feet this much in this match.
During the fight, Ganjo pushed the action more than Takumi. I’d say Ganjo moved forward, and Takumi tried to counter. Ganjo’s techniques are maybe still lower than that of Takumi, but Ganjo was extremely focused on his fight, and power-wise he went over that of Takumi.
Ganjo just kept throwing basic one-two combinations over and over. Even Takumi parried away those basic punches at first, but eventually they started connecting to Takumi’s face, and made Takumi get dizzy several times in rounds two and three.
The Class A rookie defeated the King of the Cage champion by decision after three rounds. Was this a big win for Ganjo or what?
Shinya Aoki is known as a good grappler in Japan, especially as a flying armbar specialist. Last year he caught opponents’ arms by flying armbar twice the same day in the same tournament. Also, in a pro jiu-jitsu show called GI (Ground Impact), he destroyed the arm of Kuniyoshi Hironaka, who is fifth in SHOOTO’s world middleweight rankings, and forced Hironaka out of the ring for one year.
Today, Shinya Aoki’s eyes were locked on Keith Wisniewski’s arms. Yes, he tried to flying armbar. But it wasn’t successful. It’s bit different with gi and no gi, and also different with a non-striking fight compared with a striking fight.
Then, he tried to take Wisniewski down to the ground by holding his arm, but when he went down, Aoki just power-broke Keith’s arm—using technique and power to pull the elbow joint off.
Man … I heard the crack even though I was sitting in bleacher seat. Dude! It’s not a happy sound to hear. Referee Toshiharu Suzuki stopped the fight immediately and the announcer called Aoki as a winner of the match.
Listen up everybody, I don’t know who’s fighting Aoki next, but whomever is fighting him, watch your arm or buy insurance before you step in the ring. He’s an arm-breaking machine.
I don’t know why Shinichi Kojima is called BJ, but, well, he moves good. Daiji Takahashi is ranked fourth in SHOOTO’s bantamweight division and has been fighting since 1999. On the other side, this is the second year for BJ fighting in SHOOTO as Professional.
In the fight, BJ threw lots of bombs, and I could hear Daiji fans in Korakuen Hall saying, “Daiji! You’ve got to control the fight! You should attack him first!” but it never happened. The fight went the distance and after two five-minute rounds, BJ defeated Daiji by unanimous decision.
This time I noticed one thing. BJ belongs to a fight team named AACC (Abe-Ani Combat Club). This fight team is organized by Hiroaki Abe (a.k.a. “Abe-ani”) and usually if any body fights out from AACC in SHOOTO or another show, Abe-ani shows up to support his student as corner man.
You can tell his fighters totally trust him. And everything that the fighter does in the ring is advised by Abe-ani. He says everything very calmly and his voice makes fighters calm down too.
I don’t have any doubt that he’s one of the best seconds in Japan, and one of the most-trusted instructors. But this time two out of the three corner men for BJ were shouting so loud, and it looked like the corner was heated up too much. And I just wondered if this corner situation changed BJ’s fight style or not. If I were fighter, I’d just like to follow the advice from one person, who knew what they were doing.
If you ever have a chance to go to a fight show, please listen to what the corner says. It’s another way to enjoy watching the show. You can see the color of the team.
Riki Fukuda, who went toe-to-toe against Joe Doerksen in his MMA debut at Super brawl 35, made his Korakuen Hall debut. He threw several strong left middle kicks (as he trains his striking game with K-1 fighters) and his typical Purebred fight style of ground-and-pound worked well on Masaya Inoue. If a jiu-jitsu guy like Inoue can’t open his guard, what he can do from the bottom? After two rounds, Riki earned the first W of his MMA career.
Sakae Kasuya almost got Kyotaro Nakao in his triangle in the second round. It was a beautiful submission combination from omoplata to triangle by Sakae, but Kyotaro escaped well from there. Then, the fight went was completely even. But this bout was part of a freshman tournament of 2005. When they went to the scorecard to decide a winner, Kyotaro smiled after he drew a ticket to the next stage. Congratulations.
Other News
Guillotine master Alexandre Franca Nogueira will be back in Korakuen hall on March 11 to fight Joao Roque. This Brazilian vs. Brazilian fight is one of the “must see” fights in first quarter of 2005.
Also, the first Pacific Rim lightweight title match will be held on same night between Purebred fighter Makoto Ishikawa against SHOOTO legend Rumina Sato. Sato is crawling up this hill from the bottom of division. Let’s see how this matured fighter comes back in the ring.
That’s all from SHOOTO, folks. Nothing more. My brain is empty.
What else I want to talk about?
On February 4 there’ll be a Pancrase show at Korakuen Hall. There’ll be DEEP show on Feb. 12. In this DEEP show, undefeated Yoshiro Maeda from Pancrase is facing Masakazu Imanari.
Imanari once beat Maeda under grappling rules, so nobody knows what’s gonna happen in this match. On the same day in DEEP, Ryo Chonan, who flash-submitted Anderson Silva in the PRIDE year-end show, will be fighting another Brazilian dude. Awesome Line up in DEEP. And a week after DEEP, there’ll be PRIDE 29. Four days after PRIDE there’ll be K-1 MAX. Man … can’t beat it. February’s gonna be the busiest month of this year. So fellas stay tuned to Sherdog.com.
P.S. The Ultimate Fighter show?
I love it. In the next Ultimate Fighter series, they should bring foreign fighters who can speak English. I want some Brazilians and Russian in there. Oh yes, and some Samoans, too. Mix some ethnic culture there. That’ll be Fun. Or film it in Brazil or Russia.