MINOWA: Ikuhisa Minowa is a 2nd Dan in judo and the 1999 Neo Blood Tournament Champion. He also won the 1997 CMA/KPW Tournament Champion and the 1997 Complete Fighting Championship. A veteran of the UFC, DEEP and the Lumax Cup, Minowa left the PANCRASEism Gym (Yuki Kondo, Yoshiki Takahashi, etc.) and now trains with Mario Sperry, Murilo Bustamante and the rest of the Brazilian Top Team. Recently he’s been training in Korea and Thailand for kickboxing.

Minowa has been a veteran of the Pancrase circuit for nearly his entire professional MMA fighting career spanning eight years. He’s been in the ring with some of his Japan’s best including Kondo, Tamura, Sasaki and Kikuta as well as top talent from around the world like Semmy Schilt, Evan Tanner, Quinton Jackson and Wanderlei Silva.

After not securing a back-to-back win since December 2001 (he went 2-6-1), “The Punk” has won three in a row. It should have been four as he clearly beat Ryan Gracie at Pride Bushido 3, but lost a split decision. Gracie started strong but faded and Minowa saw his opportunity and ran with it.

His recent victories have come at the Korean-promoted Gladiator Fighting Championships and two straight victories in Pride Bushido. He beat UFC veteran Kenichi Yamamoto with strikes at Bushido 4 and won a split decision over U-File Camp fighter Ryuki Ueyama at Bushido 5. In recent competition, PFC middleweight champion Wanderlei Silva discarded “The Punk” after just one minute of effort.

LEKO: German-born kickboxer Stefan Leko won the K-1 Europe GP ’98, the K-1 Dream ’99 Tournament and the K-1 World GP 2001 in Las Vegas. Leko began training karate from the age of 9 and continued with Tae Kwon Do in Croatia until he was 14 years old. At that time his family moved back to Germany and he took up Muay Thai kickboxing. Leko’s other titles include being the I.K.B.F. Full Contact World Champion '96, the I.K.B.F. Kickboxing Champion '97 and the W.M.T.A. World Muay Thai Champion '97. The Team Golden Glory fighter is 50-12-1-1 (29 KO) as a kickboxer and has wins over Remy Bonjasky, Alexey Ignashov, Cyril Abidi and Peter Aerts.

He trains with Cor Hemmers, Semmy Schilt, Chalid Arrab and the rest of Team Golden Glory as well as professional boxers from Germany. Recently he had been training with Daijiro Matsui, Kazushi Sakuraba and Nobuhiko Takada at Takada Dojo. He began training with Team Golden Glory three years ago and has two MMA bouts to his credit. He made his debut against Extreme Fighting veteran Murakami Kazunari at the Inoki Bom Ba Ye 2003 show where he won by knockout in just over a minute. Then he lost in a questionable bout against Japanese wrestler Naoya Ogawa in the Pride Total Elimination 2004 opening round.

MY PICK: This is another tough call. “The Punk” hasn’t faced many really good strikers other than Silva. “Blitz” has only fought MMA on two occasions and neither bout showed much. Minowa, being the veteran, should be able to bring this to the mat and end it. Leko’s camp, Golden Glory, is not known for their superior ground skills but the longer the fight, the more openings there will be for Leko’s leg to kiss Minowa’s head. I feel it will be Minowa by TKO in the second round.