SENGOKU NO RAN 2009! Public Workouts

There have been a lot of FEG news these last days, but SENGOKU hasn’t been forgotten as there have been many public training sessions in the last week.

First, it has been announced that on January 18th, SENGOKUG! will get an extra 30 minutes of airtime on TV Tokyo in a special SENGOKU NO RAN 2009 episode.

Kitaoka: This fight is not striker vs. grappler. - GBRing.com

Yoshihiro Nakao is very serious about his upcoming fight against Antonio Silva. Nakao was in a traffic accident on October 26th and had to stay in the hospital for 2 days. He is good now but he says that some damage still remains. He also says that while Fedor is called the worlds strongest, he thinks that Silva is stronger.

Nakao in good shape for Silva fight. - GBRing.com

Sanae Kikuta and Kazuo Misaki had a public workout yesterday. Kikuta is preparing for the gi even though Yoshida has hinted that he will not wear one.

Kikuta preparing for the gi. - Kamipro.com

Misaki promised that he and Takanori Gomi will get the belts on January 4th. Gomi was invited to train in GRABAKA not long ago.

Misaki training for the big title fight. - GBRing.com

Eiji Mitsuoka and Yukiya Naito held their public workouts on the 24th. Mitsuoka confessed that he is having trouble with the weight because of the cold weather now in Japan. He is currently (on the 24th) weighing 79 kg.

Mitsuoka sparring with Caol Uno. - Kamipro.com

Even though Naito has been in big shows before, this is the first where he has not been in one of the opening fights, so he wants to make good use of this chance. He is also well aware of Mo’s strengths and is looking for the triangle choke. If that doesn’t work, he will try to keep it standing and not die from Mo’s GnP.

Naito preparing for a big opportunity. - Kamipro.com

Gomi also had a public workout on the 24th. He talked about being invited to train in GRABAKA. He trained together with SENGOKU Lightweight GP finalist Kazunori Yokota while there. Yokota told Gomi: “Definitely win”.

Gomi striking the mitts in his gym. - GBRing.com

One thing that I find incredible about Gomi (and that many people might not now) is that he mostly trains in his own gym where, until recently, there have been no professional fighters (I think one of his students turned pro in Shooto recently). And yet, he is still a top Lightweight. Compare that to for example GRABAKA (Misaki, Gono, Kikuta, Sasaki, Yokota, Fukuda etc.), American Top Team or Xtreme Couture.