Tamura Takes Shooto Lightweight Title
Jason Nowe May 18, 2007
TOKYO, May 18 -- To say that Shooto's Back To Our Roots 3 was an
important show would be a major understatement. Several key
match-up on the card had major significance in relation to both the
Shooto rankings and determining the bouts that will be coming
within the next couple of months.
Atop the Shooto lightweight division, Akitoshi Tamura (Pictures), Antonio Carvalho (Pictures), Rumina Sato (Pictures) and Champion Takeshi "Lion" Inoue have been gravitating towards each other for some time. Originally it was to be No. 1 ranked Sato to fight for the title, but a nagging shoulder injury knocked him out of contention. Inoue had beaten Carvalho to take the vacant title just a year ago, so the Shooto Commission selected third ranked Tamura, fresh off of winning the vacant Shooto Pacific Rim 143-pound title in a revenge match against Tenkei Fujimiya (Pictures), to step up and challenge for the Shooto lightweight crown.
On paper, Tamura was the underdog, but apparently somebody forgot
to tell the tough Tsudanuma Dojo fighter of this, because he
completely dominated Inoue.
The first round went very badly for Inoue. Shortly after the opening bell, Tamura fell into the mount after tripping him up in the clinch. Eventually the champion managed to get out from under Tamura and put him into his guard, but Tamura kept the pressure on, working for the pass and peppering him with solid punches from the top.
Inoue came to life a bit more in the final round, largely controlling the real estate in the ring until Tamura once again wrestled him to the mat. The champion had a good triangle attempt from the bottom, forcing Tamura to think fast in order to escape, and in the last 20 seconds applied a Kimura, but it was too little, too late.
Apart from the triangle attempt in the third round, Inoue never had his challenger in any real danger. Tamura put on a very strong performance, preventing the champion from really getting any kind of offense going. The fight went to the judges and Tamura was awarded the unanimous victory, thus walking away as the Shooto lightweight champion.
The battle between Hatsu Hioki (Pictures) and Antonio Carvalho (Pictures) carried a lot of importance, as the winner was highly expected to be the next to challenge for the lightweight crown.
Carvalho stumbled out of the blocks in the first, as he was taken down quickly and mounted three times. But the tough Shah Franco fighter, who has recently relocated from Toronto to Tokyo to train with AACC, came back in the second, pushing Hioki around the ring with some vicious low kicks and linking together some decent punching combos.
The final frame saw both fighters trade on their feet, but it was definitely Carvalho who had the edge, keeping the TKO 145-pound champion guessing with his high and low kicks, as well as connecting with decent punches. Hioki managed to score a takedown in the last minute of the round, but couldn't do anything with it before Carvalho worked his was back to his feet.
This was a pretty close fight. Hioki clearly won the first round, but Carvalho edged ahead of him thanks to his striking in the final two frames. The judges saw it Carvalho via split decision.
As with the Hioki-Carvalho bout, the winner of the match between Kenji Osawa (Pictures) and Marcos "Louro" Galvao was widely expected to challenge for the Akitoshi Hokazono (Pictures)'s 132-pound title. Hokazono holds victories over both of these guys, so a chance to avenge their respective losses was no doubt playing on both these fighters' minds.
The talented Osawa wanted to keep this affair standing, scoring his lightning fast jab and inflicting damage from the outside. While Galvao humored his opponent and traded some leather, it was obvious that he wanted the fight to play out on the ground.
Several times throughout this fight, Galvao tied Osawa up in the clinch and managed to scurry around to his opponent's back. From here he peppered Osawa's legs with knees and kept trying to drag him to the ground. Osawa seemed calmed and relaxed throughout, even when Galvao was behind him, twisting to return to the clinch and getting back to his feet quickly whenever the Brazilian brought him down.
The third round saw this scenario of Osawa scoring punches and Galvao taking the standing back play out again. The Japanese fighter really turned up the pressure in the last 20 seconds, pushing Galvao around the ring.
This was another close bout. Osawa controlled the real estate in the ring, but Galvao seemingly took back position at will. The fight went to the judges and "Louro" took the majority decision (30-27, 30-28, 29-29).
For both Koetsu Okazaki and Pancrase veteran Atsushi Yamamoto (Pictures), their featherweight bout served as a chance to work their way up the Shooto rankings.
This was a close, back-and-forth fight. Just when it looked like one guy had the upper hand, the other would come back and turn the tables. Yamamoto got the takedown early on in the fight and worked his way to the mount twice, but each time Okazaki had an equally impressive escape.
On the feet, Okazaki tagged Yamamoto with some stiff jabs and strong low kicks. Yamamoto's shots got a bit slower towards the end of the bout, allowing Okazaki to sprawl and inflict damage from the top.
Not much really transpired in terms of submission wizardry, with most of this fight being played out with striking, takedowns and reversals. This close, high paced fight went the distance, with the judges awarding Okazaki the majority decision.
Masatoshi Abe (Pictures) utilized some well-placed low kicks and fast hands in the opening round of his bout against Brazilian Daniel Otero. Unfortunately, Otero's low kicks weren't quite as well placed, accidentally hitting Abe in the groin three times in the first, each time forcing the Japanese fighter to pause and regain his composure.
After a bit of jousting on their feet in the second, the fighters hit the mat, where Otero scored a nice reversal on his opponent and passed the guard all the way to mount, only to see his Japanese opponent pull off an equally impressive reversal to get back into the guard.
From here, perhaps due to the heat of the battle, Otero seemed to have forgotten the rules of Shooto and began to thrust out upkicks at Abe, who was still on the mat in his guard, connecting two of them right to Abe's left eye. The AACC fighter immediately fell back in pain and the referee stopped the bout, quickly calling a disqualification.
Once back on his feet, Abe's left eye was badly swollen. The Japanese fighter is no stranger to eye injury, having broken his orbital bone once before in a Shootboxing match-up.
The bout between Hayate Usui (Pictures) and Eiji Murayama (Pictures) was a fairly lackluster affair compared to the action of the other bouts. Practically the entire first round played out in the clinch with the referee repeatedly having to break up the two fighters.
In the second, both guys started to throw more leather, with Usui knocking his opponent down for a standing eight count with a left hand. The Wajyutsu Keishukai RJW fighter scored a takedown after the restart, passing to the side only to see Murayama work his way back up to his feet and again into a clinch.
The fight went the full two rounds and Usui took the unanimous decision.
Masashi Yozen (Pictures) faced off against Akihiko Adachi (Pictures) in the evening's only light heavyweight bout. Yozen pounded his opponent's legs with stinging low kicks, eventually getting a takedown early in the second round. From here he released a vicious pounding from the top, knocking Adachi nearly unconscious until the referee came in and stopped the fight at the 1:26 mark.
Kenichi Sawada (Pictures) put on a sprawling clinic in his flyweight bout against Shinya Marofushi, expertly getting out of the way of opponent's many shot attempts. Marofushi had a big reach advantage, but didn't really use it, instead opting to go for the takedown.
The second saw Marofushi going for a rubber-guard submission attempt and Sawada trying to go for the rear-naked choke, but neither could complete a submission. The fight went the distance and was ruled a draw.
In the welterweight rookie tournament quarterfinals, Michiyuki "Aroi" Ishibashi defeated Kunio Nakajima by unanimous decision, while Hidekazu "Aniki" Azakura scored a TKO victory over Koichi Taguchi.
In the lightweight rookie tournament quarterfinals, Naohiro Mizuno defeated Yoshiki Noguchi (Pictures) by TKO at the 2:54 mark of the second round.
Atop the Shooto lightweight division, Akitoshi Tamura (Pictures), Antonio Carvalho (Pictures), Rumina Sato (Pictures) and Champion Takeshi "Lion" Inoue have been gravitating towards each other for some time. Originally it was to be No. 1 ranked Sato to fight for the title, but a nagging shoulder injury knocked him out of contention. Inoue had beaten Carvalho to take the vacant title just a year ago, so the Shooto Commission selected third ranked Tamura, fresh off of winning the vacant Shooto Pacific Rim 143-pound title in a revenge match against Tenkei Fujimiya (Pictures), to step up and challenge for the Shooto lightweight crown.
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The first round went very badly for Inoue. Shortly after the opening bell, Tamura fell into the mount after tripping him up in the clinch. Eventually the champion managed to get out from under Tamura and put him into his guard, but Tamura kept the pressure on, working for the pass and peppering him with solid punches from the top.
Tamura kept the momentum going his way in the second, scoring a
very nice takedown and eventually passing to the side. From here he
maintained ground control, keeping his seeming hapless opponent
pinned to the mat for some time while connecting with punches.
Inoue came to life a bit more in the final round, largely controlling the real estate in the ring until Tamura once again wrestled him to the mat. The champion had a good triangle attempt from the bottom, forcing Tamura to think fast in order to escape, and in the last 20 seconds applied a Kimura, but it was too little, too late.
Apart from the triangle attempt in the third round, Inoue never had his challenger in any real danger. Tamura put on a very strong performance, preventing the champion from really getting any kind of offense going. The fight went to the judges and Tamura was awarded the unanimous victory, thus walking away as the Shooto lightweight champion.
The battle between Hatsu Hioki (Pictures) and Antonio Carvalho (Pictures) carried a lot of importance, as the winner was highly expected to be the next to challenge for the lightweight crown.
Carvalho stumbled out of the blocks in the first, as he was taken down quickly and mounted three times. But the tough Shah Franco fighter, who has recently relocated from Toronto to Tokyo to train with AACC, came back in the second, pushing Hioki around the ring with some vicious low kicks and linking together some decent punching combos.
The final frame saw both fighters trade on their feet, but it was definitely Carvalho who had the edge, keeping the TKO 145-pound champion guessing with his high and low kicks, as well as connecting with decent punches. Hioki managed to score a takedown in the last minute of the round, but couldn't do anything with it before Carvalho worked his was back to his feet.
This was a pretty close fight. Hioki clearly won the first round, but Carvalho edged ahead of him thanks to his striking in the final two frames. The judges saw it Carvalho via split decision.
As with the Hioki-Carvalho bout, the winner of the match between Kenji Osawa (Pictures) and Marcos "Louro" Galvao was widely expected to challenge for the Akitoshi Hokazono (Pictures)'s 132-pound title. Hokazono holds victories over both of these guys, so a chance to avenge their respective losses was no doubt playing on both these fighters' minds.
The talented Osawa wanted to keep this affair standing, scoring his lightning fast jab and inflicting damage from the outside. While Galvao humored his opponent and traded some leather, it was obvious that he wanted the fight to play out on the ground.
Several times throughout this fight, Galvao tied Osawa up in the clinch and managed to scurry around to his opponent's back. From here he peppered Osawa's legs with knees and kept trying to drag him to the ground. Osawa seemed calmed and relaxed throughout, even when Galvao was behind him, twisting to return to the clinch and getting back to his feet quickly whenever the Brazilian brought him down.
The third round saw this scenario of Osawa scoring punches and Galvao taking the standing back play out again. The Japanese fighter really turned up the pressure in the last 20 seconds, pushing Galvao around the ring.
This was another close bout. Osawa controlled the real estate in the ring, but Galvao seemingly took back position at will. The fight went to the judges and "Louro" took the majority decision (30-27, 30-28, 29-29).
For both Koetsu Okazaki and Pancrase veteran Atsushi Yamamoto (Pictures), their featherweight bout served as a chance to work their way up the Shooto rankings.
This was a close, back-and-forth fight. Just when it looked like one guy had the upper hand, the other would come back and turn the tables. Yamamoto got the takedown early on in the fight and worked his way to the mount twice, but each time Okazaki had an equally impressive escape.
On the feet, Okazaki tagged Yamamoto with some stiff jabs and strong low kicks. Yamamoto's shots got a bit slower towards the end of the bout, allowing Okazaki to sprawl and inflict damage from the top.
Not much really transpired in terms of submission wizardry, with most of this fight being played out with striking, takedowns and reversals. This close, high paced fight went the distance, with the judges awarding Okazaki the majority decision.
Masatoshi Abe (Pictures) utilized some well-placed low kicks and fast hands in the opening round of his bout against Brazilian Daniel Otero. Unfortunately, Otero's low kicks weren't quite as well placed, accidentally hitting Abe in the groin three times in the first, each time forcing the Japanese fighter to pause and regain his composure.
After a bit of jousting on their feet in the second, the fighters hit the mat, where Otero scored a nice reversal on his opponent and passed the guard all the way to mount, only to see his Japanese opponent pull off an equally impressive reversal to get back into the guard.
From here, perhaps due to the heat of the battle, Otero seemed to have forgotten the rules of Shooto and began to thrust out upkicks at Abe, who was still on the mat in his guard, connecting two of them right to Abe's left eye. The AACC fighter immediately fell back in pain and the referee stopped the bout, quickly calling a disqualification.
Once back on his feet, Abe's left eye was badly swollen. The Japanese fighter is no stranger to eye injury, having broken his orbital bone once before in a Shootboxing match-up.
The bout between Hayate Usui (Pictures) and Eiji Murayama (Pictures) was a fairly lackluster affair compared to the action of the other bouts. Practically the entire first round played out in the clinch with the referee repeatedly having to break up the two fighters.
In the second, both guys started to throw more leather, with Usui knocking his opponent down for a standing eight count with a left hand. The Wajyutsu Keishukai RJW fighter scored a takedown after the restart, passing to the side only to see Murayama work his way back up to his feet and again into a clinch.
The fight went the full two rounds and Usui took the unanimous decision.
Masashi Yozen (Pictures) faced off against Akihiko Adachi (Pictures) in the evening's only light heavyweight bout. Yozen pounded his opponent's legs with stinging low kicks, eventually getting a takedown early in the second round. From here he released a vicious pounding from the top, knocking Adachi nearly unconscious until the referee came in and stopped the fight at the 1:26 mark.
Kenichi Sawada (Pictures) put on a sprawling clinic in his flyweight bout against Shinya Marofushi, expertly getting out of the way of opponent's many shot attempts. Marofushi had a big reach advantage, but didn't really use it, instead opting to go for the takedown.
The second saw Marofushi going for a rubber-guard submission attempt and Sawada trying to go for the rear-naked choke, but neither could complete a submission. The fight went the distance and was ruled a draw.
In the welterweight rookie tournament quarterfinals, Michiyuki "Aroi" Ishibashi defeated Kunio Nakajima by unanimous decision, while Hidekazu "Aniki" Azakura scored a TKO victory over Koichi Taguchi.
In the lightweight rookie tournament quarterfinals, Naohiro Mizuno defeated Yoshiki Noguchi (Pictures) by TKO at the 2:54 mark of the second round.
