TOKYO, Sept. 23 — A bizarre rollercoaster ride of fate and circumstance came to a conclusion for Shooting Gym Yokohama fighter Mamoru, SHOOTO’s flamboyant bantamweight (54-kg) champion, tonight at Korakuen Hall.
The SHOOTO Commission then decided that Richard Nancoo (Pictures) would step up to the plate and challenge for the title. The programs were printed and everything seemed set, but at the last minute, Nancoo had to cancel for circumstances beyond control.
Enter Pat Seidel, a young 20-year-old freelance fighter recommended by American Top Team with a MMA record of 3-0 behind him, to take the vacant challenger position.
This fight started out quick. Mamoru floored Seidel with a beautifully place high kick only a few seconds into the bout and the American received a standing-eight count from the referee.
This knockdown must have put some fire into Seidel’s belly, because the he came flying back and was all over the champion, scoring a takedown, taking Mamoru’s back and controlling his legs. I was quite impressed by Seidel’s wrestling throughout this match-up; he was really going after Mamoru with shots.
The champion rallied back towards the end of the first. Mamoru was able to take side position and had an excellent Kimura/armbar attempt. The crowd, as well as myself, were amazed that the American was able to escape such a well-applied technique.
But Seidel was not out of the woods yet. With only a few seconds left in the round, Mamoru applied a textbook spinning armbar. The champion really had this one on, and Seidel’s right arm was totally extended. Somehow, the American was able to dig deep and hang on until the bell.
The second round saw Mamoru come in with a jumping knee and take his opponent’s back. After searching for a choke, he moved to the mount and started to rain down punches. Seidel struggled to escape and eventually twisted to his stomach, only to give his back again to Mamoru. From here the champion made no mistake and was able to sink in a rear-naked choke for the victory.
Nova Uniao fighter Marcos “Louro” Galvao took on Dokonjonosuke Mishima (Pictures)’s Cobra-kai teammate Akitoshi Hokazono. The Brazilian followed his own pace on his feet, slowly stalking his opponent and unloading with some heavy shots.
Louro has a lot power in his hands for his size and he really followed through on his punches. If he had landed his right hand cleanly, I’m sure he would have scored a KO. He complimented his impressive strikes with an excellent heelhook attempt in the first.
Hokazono knocked his Brazilian opponent down for a standing-eight count in the second, and in the third was able to trip Louro and fall into the mount. From here he started to throw down shoulder strikes and punches.
The Brazilian bridged and shrimped several times but just couldn’t seem to escape from under the mount. Hokazono continued to rain down strikes till the end of the round. The Japanese fighter took the unanimous decision.
SHOOTO’s 2004 rookie of the year Shinichi “BJ” Kojima faced off against Yasuhiro Urushidani in what looked more like a boxing match than a MMA bout. In fact, this fight never went to the ground except for one brief takedown by BJ in the third.
Both fighters showed impressive boxing skills throughout, moving around and dodging punches. BJ tucked his head down and followed through with each punch he threw. Urushidani, on the other hand, had the dangerous habit of keeping his head up whenever he came in with punches. Sometimes he paid for this by taking stinging punches right on the chin.
Urushidani really turned up his boxing as the fight wore on, moving well laterally and tagging his opponent with counter punches. BJ had several single-leg takedown attempts throughout the fight, but as he took more punches, his shots became slower and more telegraphed, allowing his opponent to dodge out of the way.
This fight was a real slobber knocker right up till the final bell. In the end, the contest was ruled a draw.
In the early stages of their fight, SHOOTO veteran Akitoshi Tamura (Pictures) was able to take the back of RJW Central fighter Hayate Usui. From here, Tamura figure-foured his legs tightly around Usui, leaving him to fight off a choke while struggling to escape.
Amongst the strikes thrown in the second, Usui was able to score a takedown, ending up in Tamura’s guard. After a short time on his back, Tamura executed a brilliant reversal to get to the top, then took advantage of a reversal attempt from Usui to take his opponent’s back, and finished off with a rear-naked choke for the victory.
Tomonari Konomata of Paraestra Hachioji came out charging with big punches and dominated in the striking department in his battle against RJW Central fighter Wataru Miki.
Konomata scored a huge judo throw in the second, and continued to rain down punches from in the guard. While Miki survived the onslaught of strikes and had a few good takedowns, he just couldn’t seem to capitalize. Konomata was awarded the unanimous decision.
In a classic example of wrestling versus striking, Paraestra Matsudo’s Yoshihiro Koyama faced off against Gutsman dojo’s Mizuto Hirota.
Koyama was constantly shooting in for the single-leg takedown in this one, which he was able to score several times. Once down, he did a great job of controlling his opponent’s legs. Hirota, on the other hand, totally dominated the striking of this match-up, often tagging his opponent with snappy punches, hard low kicks and powerful knees to the mid-section.
Just as was the case with Shinichi Kojima (Pictures), as Koyama took more punches his shots got slower and more telegraphed. Hirota sprawled and avoided the takedowns with more ease as the fight wore on. In the end, Hirota was awarded was awarded the unanimous decision.
Shooting Gym Yokohama’s Tenkei Fujimiya (Pictures) engaged in a stand-up war with Daisuke Matsumoto. This bout never went to the ground. At 3:03 of the first round, Fujimiya landed a huge punch on his opponent for the KO victory.
In what turned out to be an extremely fast paced and exciting fight, Yuki Shoujou battled against X-1 Gym Shonan member Yutaka Tezuka. Shoujou did an excellent job of mixing up his punches and his shots. He also scored several hard knees from the clinch.
Tezuka scored some great judo takedowns and rocked some very hard punches from in close, as well as defending against and escaping the precarious positions that he sometimes found himself in.
In the end, this contest was ruled a draw.
K’z Factory fighter Yusei Shimokawa defeated Cobra-kai member Toshimich Akagi by 2-0 decision.
Takeya Mizugaki defeated Shin “Jet” Kato by 2-0 decision.