News & Results! K-1 Koshien 2009

K-1 Koshien 2009

The plan for K-1 Koshien 2009 were announced by FEG’s Tanigawa a few days ago. Three of the final 4 from last year (HIROYA, Shota Shimada, and Tyuya Kusakabe. Koya Urabe is too old) plus fighters from preliminary events in 5 areas of Japan, taking place from the beginning of June to the beginning of July, will fight in the K-1 Koshien 2009 FINAL16 event on August 11th. The FINAL8 event is scheduled to take place at the beginning of October, and the final 4 will face off at the Dynamite!! event on NYE.

ZST.20

Okude takes down Miyata. - GBRing.com

The 20th event of ZST took place around a week ago. The tag team match between The Olympic Combination (Nagata/Miyata) and Team ZST (Okude/Yamada) ended in a 0-0 draw with no fighter being finished. It seems like Team ZST were starting out strong with Yamada throwing good left kicks at Miyata and Okude lifting Miyata up and scoring a takedown. The Olympic combo got stronger as the match went with Miyata scoring a german suplex and Nagata showing some good hands. Both teams had some good moments in the fight but after 15 minutes the gong sounded and the fight was an automatic draw.

Kuniyoshi Hironaka made his debut at a lower weight as he took on Naoyuki Kotani in a 72kg fight. Hironaka was in control of the fight and ended it with a kind of modified neck lock.

K-1 World GP 2009 In Lodz

Zabit Samedov took the K-1 WGP 2009 Europe Tournament victory in Lodz a little over a week ago and will get a spot in the K-1 FINAL16 event. He is currently on a 5-fight winning streak with a tournament win and a victory over Ray Sefo.

Akiyama Opens New Gym! Cloud Akiyama Dojo

Akiyama in his new gym. - GBRing.com

Yoshihiro Akiyama has opened a new gym in Hiroo in Shibuyaku in the middle of Tokyo. Akiyama said that he wants the fighters of the gym to participate in UFC, DREAM, and SENGOKU. In the dojo there is a ring, cage, and a Judo hall. Since he thinks a lot of foreign children live in Hiroo he would like to show them Judo.

He wants the gym to be a gym in which anyone can visit. He doesn’t want the gym to have a black and red scary image (to not scare away girls who would like to train there) so there are different colors in the gym, like orange.

Akiyama said that he will start his training for UFC 100 at the gym as soon as the opening ceremony is over.

Some of the visitors at the opening ceremony were fellow HERO’S veterans Caol Uno, Hiroyuki Takaya, and Hideo Tokoro, and the godfather of K-1, Kazuyoshi Ishii.

SENGOKU Gold Rush Project II! The Bantamweights

First introduction is Daisuke Endo, second is Takeshi Numajiri, third is Hiroyuki Hara, and fourth is Ryosuke Komori. Click here for profiles.

Thanks to the original uploader.

Part 1

Korean News! Fighting Mixed Combative

Fighting Mixed Combative

The new Korean MMA event which was revealed a few weeks ago have changed their name from Fighter Mania Championship to Fighting Mixed Combative. They have also revealed that their first event will be on August 15th. On July 4th there will also be an Amateur event called DREADS by the company behind FMC (Fighter Mania Company) and the fighters who do good there could get a spot on FMC 2 in September.

The subtitle for FMC 1 is “Imjin Waeran” which is the Korean name of the Japanese invasions of Korea during 1592-1598. The name probably indicates that there will be a decent amount of Japan vs. Korea fights on the card.

The participation of fighters such as Aleksander Emelianenko, Choi Mu Bae, and Blagoi Ivanov was once again reaffirmed.

Bang Seung Hwan Returns

The new stand-up organization in Korea called Moosin have added some new fights to their first event on June 7th. SENGOKU veteran Bang Seung Hwan will return to take on K-1 veteran Kim Se Ki, who has a victory over Virgil Kalakoda in his resumé.

Another SENGOKU fighter in A Sol Kwon will also make his return on the card, taking on youngster Min Seok Kwon. Also announced is a fight between Butterbean and Spirit MC veteran Jae Young Kim.

Moosin 1
Date: June 7th, 2009
Place: South Korea

9. SHW: Butterbean vs. Jae Young Kim
8. WW: A Sol Kwon vs. Min Seok Kwon
7. MW: Sheikh “More Names” Althani vs. Han Chung
6. WW: Najib Himmich vs. Oh Du Seok
5. WW: Jae Sun Lee vs. Koji Takagi
4. WW: Bang Seung Hwan vs. Kim Se Ki
3. SHW: Lee Chang Seob vs. Tamghroute Nourdine
2. LW: Masanori Mori vs. Kim Dong Hyun
1. WW: Kim Il Kwon vs. Choi Du Ho

Awakened! DREAM.9

Another DREAM event is in the books. They have had better events but there were some good fights in this one.

Ratings

Some good news after the event is that the event got a strong 16.2% rating on TBS, with KID vs. Warren and Tokoro vs. Cullum being the two highest watched fights at 19.1%. The ratings were probably helped somewhat by Naito’s boxing fight which got a 20.4% rating just before. It’ll be interesting to see how the ratings will look like at the DREAM Featherweight GP Finals as KID is out and it is the last prime time televised event of DREAM this year.

DREAM.10

Three fights for DREAM.10, which takes place on July 20th, were announced at the event. Shinya Aoki will take on Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro, Melvin Manhoef will face Paulo Filho who returns to Japan, and as rumored, Andre Dida will battle DEEP Lightweight champion Katsunori Kikuno.

Post-Event Notes

Sadaharu Tanigawa said that he thinks that he will make a formal offer to Tatsuya Kawajiri to face Masato in July.

Sokoudjou was very sorry at the post-even press conference for his actions after his fight with Nortje.

DREAM EP Sasahara said that DJ.taiki is the first candidate for a spot in the DREAM Featherweight GP reserve fight at the finals.

SENGOKU Gold Rush Participants Announced! Osawa Enters

Bantamweight

Daisuke Endo
School: WK Suruga
Pro MMA Record: 3-3
Birthdate: 1982/11/13
Height: 171cm
Background: MMA

Ryosuke Komori
School: Yoshida Dojo
Pro MMA Record: 0-1
Birthdate: 1986/1/1
Height: 168 cm
Background: Judo
Other:
2008 DEEP Future King Champion

SENGOKU FW GP Semifinals Official! Kitaoka Vs. Hirota Announced

As expected, the announced fights of today’s announcement were the GP pairings, a Lightweight title fight between Satoru Kitaoka and Mizuto Hirota, and a fight between Kazuo Misaki and Kazuhiro Nakamura to decide the first title challenger for Jorge Santiago.

Update: The four Bantamweight fighters of the SENGOKU Gold Rush Project will be introduced on Sunday on the SENGOKUG! program.

Update #2: SENGOKU X will take place on September 23rd in the Saitama Community Arena (~3000) and SENGOKU XI on November 7th in the Ryogoku Kokugikan.

Update #3: The FW GP Reserve fight will be between a fighter who fought in the GP and one who didn’t participate. Also planned to participate on the SENGOKU IX card are Sanae Kikuta, Eiji Mitsuoka, and Kazuyuki Fujita.

Update #4: Lightweight and Welterweight title fights are planned to take place at SENGOKU NO RAN 2010.

Update #5: Kitaoka was quite cocky at the SENGOKU IX press conference, saying that while Hirota is strong in Cage Force, he is strong in a dimension that is below his (Kitaoka’s) dimension. Kitaoka went on to say: “It will be an easy to understand fight”. He also said that he thinks that Yokota is stronger than Hirota.

Update #6: 11 fights are expected to take place at SENGOKU IX. More announcements will be made in early June.

SENGOKU IX
Date: August 2nd, 2009
Place: Saitama Super Arena in Tokyo, Japan

SENGOKU Lightweight Title Fight (5×5):
Satoru Kitaoka vs. Mizuto Hirota

SENGOKU Featherweight GP Final (Possibly 5×5):
Hioki/Kanehara vs. Omigawa/Sandro

SENGOKU Featherweight GP Semifinals:
Hatsu Hioki vs. Masanori Kanehara
Michihiro Omigawa vs. Marlon Sandro

SENGOKU Middleweight Title Challenger Fight:
Kazuhiro Nakamura vs. Kazuo Misaki

Possible Fights:
Kazuyuki Fujita vs. Blagoi Ivanov

Possible Participants:
Alexandre Pequeno, King Mo, Hidehiko Yoshida, James Thompson, Sanae Kikuta, Eiji Mitsuoka

CroCop! Return To The UFC

It looks like Mirko will not fight in Japan anytime soon.

Cro Cop will return to the cage to prove that he can still match it with the best, he said, adding that he simply wasn’t satisfied with his last three performances

‘I have decided return to the UFC, because there of the stronger heavyweight competition. My next opponent will be Mustapha Al-Turk, announced Mirko on his blog.

The fight will take place on the 13th of June in Cologne, Germany at UFC 99, appropriately title The comeback’ at Lanxess Arena.

The event will broadcast from Germany, only on Nova TV.

He has no concrete long term plans for now but his desire to fight at least three times this year, but only with high quality competition.

‘A this point, I can only concentrated on my next fight,’ said Mirko and thanked the UFC’s president Dana White thanked all those who support him during his recovery.

Only two years ago Cro Cop experienced two heavy defeats – in April 2007 to Gabriela Gonzaga (a hard high kick by Brazilian Gonzaga) and in September the same year Cheick Kongo outpointed the Croatian.

Asian News! Art Of War FC 12

Art Of War FC will hold their 12th event this Saturday in Beijing. This is the first big event of the promotion as they have invited a lot of big name guests to it. Names such as Bas Rutten, Josh Barnett, and Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro will be present at the event, as well as referees “Big” John McCarthy and Yuji Shimada. A couple of fighters on the card who people might recognize are Muay Thai fighter Ole Baguio Laursen, who once some thought beat Genki Sudo, and Rolles Gracie. Full card is available here.

In South Korea, the first fight for the first event of new stand-up organization Moosin has been announced. Korean MMA fighter Jae Sun Lee will take on Japanese Koji Takagi, who is an All-Japan Taekwondo champion and who placed third in the World Taekwondo Championships. The event will take place on June 7th and be aired on TV in Korea.

DREAM.10! Dida Vs. Kikuno?

Tatame reports that Andre Dida will return to MMA and DREAM in July to face DEEP Lightweight champion Katsunori Kikuno at DREAM.10. Dida also says that he will travel to San Diego on Monday to train at the academy of Saulo Ribeiro.

Kikuno entering DREAM is no surprise since he has expressed his wish to participate there before. He has a lot of hype behind him in Japan and an interesting stand-up style.

DREAM.10 Welterweight GP 2009 Finals
Date: July 20th, 2009
Place: Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan

DREAM Welterweight GP Finals:
Sakurai/Zaromskis vs. Galvao/High
Andre Galvao vs. Jason High
Hayato “Mach” Sakurai vs. Marius Zaromskis

Possible Fights:
LW Title Fight: Joachim Hansen vs. Shinya Aoki
Andre Dida vs. Katsunori Kikuno