Fabricio Monteiro! SENGOKU Return In September?

Tatame reports that Fabricio Monteiro still has a four fight deal with SENGOKU and that he is ready and thinks he will return to the SENGOKU ring in September. It seems that SENGOKU have had trouble finding him opponents until now. That will hopefully not be the case in the future with their their current focus on the welterweight division.

Monteiro lost in his sole SENGOKU appearance against Nick Thompson, a fight which some people thought should have been scored differently, back at the first event of the organization in March of 2008. After that he has only had one MMA fight, on July 12th of last year in Brazil where he defeated Japanese Yoshitomo Watanabe.

Monteiro is definitely a welcome addition to the SENGOKU Welterweight title rush which could end at SENGOKU NO RAN 2010 where two fighters who keep winning their welterweight fights in the organization were/are planned to face off.

Ishii To Las Vegas! Xtreme Couture Training

Ishii departs - Sportsnavi.com

Satoshi Ishii left Japan yesterday, heading to Las Vegas and Xtreme Couture for one month of training. Ishii confessed that since arriving home from the Machida training in Brazil he has, side by side with his MMA training, trained Shotokan Karate in the metropolitan area three times a week.

Ishii was originally going to head to Holland and train under Fedor Emelianenko, but because of circumstances with schedules and such, it has been postponed. SENGOKU then advised him to once again train in America.

His neck which he had surgery on recently is doing good. He said that he wants to fight a Japanese fighter in his debut, which will probably happen in November. He also said that he is planning to attend UFC 100 where his senior, Yoshihiro Akiyama, will make his UFC debut.

SENGOKU IX Update! Gono Vs. Hornbuckle

It was announced today that Akihiro Gono’s opponent for his Japan return will be Dan Hornbuckle. Hornbuckle participated in SENGOKU last year where he lost to Mike Pyle. However, since then he has two victories, capturing the Raw Combat Welterweight title in one of them.

Update: An announcement regarding Misaki’s participation on August 2nd will be made this week. Gono says that he hasn’t had much contact with Misaki recently, but he wants them to both fight on August 2nd.

Update #2: Gono has trained with Boxing champion Daisuke Naito’s trainer for two weeks. Gono is very confident in his jab after the special training. The trainer goes as far as to say that no Japanese boxer can hit such jab. He compared it to two former Japanese Boxing champions.

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

Heavyweight Fights:
Kazuyuki Fujita vs. Blagoy Alexandre Ivanov
Yoshihiro “KISS” Nakao vs. Choi Mu Bae

Lightweight Fight:
Eiji Mitsuoka vs. Clay French

Welterweight Fight:
Akihiro Gono vs. Dan Hornbuckle

News! DEEP 42 Fighters Make Weight

Fukuda X Nakanishi - GBRing.com

Misaki Criticized In Korea, Moosin 2 Takes Shape

In South Korea, Kazuo Misaki’s arrest is reported negatively. Of course, the reason is because of lecturing Akiyama at Yarennoka! in 2007 and then doing this. In Korean articles he’s called the “foul play man”. A Korean MMA fan said: “You betrayed a lot of people and children. Apologize in the ring!”.

Speaking of Akiyama, his autobiography, “Two Souls Heel Or Hero”, will also start to be sold in Korea on June 30th.

In other Korean martial arts news, organization Moosin are currently recruiting Taekwondo fighters. The chosen fighters are planned to be on a TV show, showing their process from Taekwondo fighters to professional fighters.

The second Moosin event will be held on July 26th. Planned participants as of now are Butterbean, A Sol Kwon, Min Seok Kwon (defeated A Sol Kwon by decision at Moosin 1), Oh Du Seok (defeated Himmich at Moosin 1), and New Japan Kickboxing Federation Lightweight Champion Hakuryuu (30-7-9 (15 KO’s), originally from Korea).

DEEP 42 Participants Make Weight

The participants of DEEP 42 IMPACT made weight on the 29th. Champion Yuichi Nakanishi and challenger Riki Fukuda both weighed in at 83.8 kg for their rematch and DEEP Middleweight title fight.

Kazuyuki Miyata, who will make his debut at Featherweight, made a successful weight cut coming in at 65.7 kg. According to himself, he has no exhaustion because of the weight cut. He might weight as much as 74 kg when the fight starts tomorrow.

HIROYA Added To July 13th K-1 MAX

HIROYA has been added to the July 13th K-1 MAX event. He will take on MMA fighter Kiko Lopez, in the third K-1 vs. MMA fight of the card. The fight will be fought at a 62 kg limit.

Latest On Gomi! Vale Tudo Japan 2009 In November

From Gomi’s latest interview in MMA magazine Kamipro it seems that he is currently in negotiations with Strikeforce, Affliction, and UFC. However, since he showed intentions to participate at Vale Tudo Japan 2009 in November, it looks like an exclusive contract with UFC won’t work.

Strikeforce have presented Gomi the right to challenge the winner of Thomson vs. Melendez, but negotiations are quite rough going.

The reason that the negotiations with Strikeforce and Affliction are quite rough going right now is because of the fight money. It seems like there is a gap between the money that Gomi’s side wants and what the organizations are offering.

Dana White and Gomi’s side were having developments the year before last also, but they couldn’t get to an agreement because of money either.

It seems that Strikeforce’s offer with a win bonus, a title challenge, Showtime (tv, sponsors, etc.) is the best. However, because of the base pay they haven’t come to an agreement yet. If Gomi signs with Strikeforce, he will probably have his first fight on their August 15th or September events.

Source: Tsudureya Blog

SENGOKU Gold Rush Project VI! The Lightweight Fights

The Lightweight fights of the SENGOKU Gold Cup aired yesterday. Koji Ando took on Kohei Maruyama in the first fight and Ikuo Usuda took on Kota Okazawa in the second.

SENGOKUG! Episode 37 Part 1, 2, 3

Click here for profiles.

Thanks to the original uploader.

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Cage Force! Hironaka Defeats Nagata

Hironaka stops Nagata in Round 1 - GBRing.com

In his first real fight at Lightweight, Kuniyoshi Hironaka dropped Katsuhiko Nagata in the first round with a left hook, and then quickly went down and pounded Nagata before the referee stepped in at 3:41. After the fight Hironaka showed his interest in a title fight with Mizuto Hirota, winning the belt, defending it for around 10 years, and then dying peacefully. He also mentioned America as a stage that he would like to challenge again.

In the semi main event, KTaro Nakamura returned and defeated former Pancrase title challenger Tomoyoshi Iwamiya, by majority decision (2-0). After the fight, KTaro said that he wants to fight with Japanese Welterweights Hiromitsu Miura, Akihiro Gono, and Ryo Chonan. He said that first he’d like to try to become the number 1 in Japan, and from there become the “K of the world”.

Daiju Takase, whose blog has become extremely popular in Japan for a while now, also had a successful return. He defeated Yoshihiro Akiyama’s teammate Shuji Morikawa by split decision.

SENGOKU And TBS?! Baroni Wants SENGOKU IX Fight

A new article in Japan says that the contract of SENGOKUG! on TV Tokyo will end in September. It also says that TBS aren’t happy with DREAM’s ratings and that they now have an interest in SENGOKU, after their signing of Satoshi Ishii. It seems that the higher-up division of TBS are already making preparations for it.

The article goes on to say that FEG have presented a written proposal to SENGOKU. The proposal is about cooperation for survival. However, it seems that the SENGOKU side isn’t thinking about a collaboration with DREAM. This because WVR’s Kokuho has several suspicions against FEG representatives.

There’s probably a reason why this article was written, but don’t be surprised if everything isn’t true. The whole channel of TBS is doing bad right now. If possible, getting on TV Asahi or NTV is better. I don’t know if Fuji TV want MMA right now since the whole PRIDE thing wasn’t that long ago.

Gryphon also reports:

it is from famous journalist and producer TAKASU Mptohito.

TAKASU said,

Some TV stations plan to broadcast SENGOKU on golden time.

SENGOKU has 30 minutes regulaer program “SENGOKU Gold” in TV tokyo.but this program is end in September.it means SENGOKU is freehand from Autumn.(TV TOKYO is not big station)

TBS is now on air DREAM .but this rating is about 10%,TBS executive are not satisfied with this result,So theyare interested in SENGOKu(TBS men do not know deference between DREAM and SENGOKU!)ISHII SATOSHI ,judo goldmedalist is superstar,so they hope big rating by ISHII

So,DREAM send proposal letter to SENGOKU,DREAM want do business together….

But,SENGOKU’s top manager KOKUHO TAKAHIRO do not believe DREAM,(he criticize that SUPER HULK TOURNAMENT is defferent from our road)

In other SENGOKU news, Phil Baroni wants a fight at SENGOKU IX on August 2nd. A fight against Akihiro Gono could certainly be fun.

Misaki Public Apology! August 2nd Fight TBD In Meeting

Misaki X WVR PR Kokuho - GBRing.com

Kazuo Misaki held a public apology today. He was very sorry for what had happened. He feels that he isn’t in the position to decide about future fights so SENGOKU should make a judgment. He will put all his heart into regaining peoples trust from now on.

Update: Kokuho said that they will come to a conclusion about the Misaki vs. Nakamura fight after a commissioner meeting. Kokuho himself feels that Misaki going through hard training and showing a Misaki-like fight in the ring on August 2nd is the best compensation.

Nakahara Vs. Benkei At DREAM.11?! DREAM Interviews

Andrews Nakahara told Tatame that he will probably return to the DREAM ring in September, where he could face Zelg “Benkei” Galesic, a fight which was supposed to have happened before if Benkei didn’t get injured (Oyama replaced him).

The September DREAM card, while not having an official date yet, might take place on the same day as SENGOKU. Since SENGOKU has Saitama on that date DREAM.11 will have to take place somewhere else, perhaps Yokohama.

Tatsuya Kawajiri was recently asked 18 questions by Sherdog. Some of those include K-1 related questions and his upcoming fight against Masato.

J.Z.Calvan is not sure what the near future holds as he thought he was going to fight Eddie Alvarez, which now isn’t happening. Read his thoughts here.

Also, for people outside of USA & Canada, you can watch the Bob Sapp vs. Bobby Lashley card live PPV on the internet on the 27th for $9.99. Check the menu on the right. It starts at 9 PM EDT.

DREAM.11 Featherweight GP 2009 Finals
Date: September, 2009
Place: Unknown

DREAM Featherweight GP Finals:
Hideo Tokoro, Bibiano Fernandes, Hiroyuki Takaya, Joe Warren

Super Hulk Tournament Semifinals:
Gegard Mousasi, Sokoudjou, Minowaman, Choi Hong Man

Possible Fights:
Andrews Nakahara vs. Zelg “Benkei” Galesic
DREAM MW Title Fight: Ronaldo Jacare vs. Jason “Mayhem” Miller