Nozomi X Ishii X Someone Else - Sportsnavi.com
It seems that the TV appearances of Satoshi Ishii on Japanese TV have started. On the 16th he was on music show Reco Hits on Nippon TV. One of the two hosts of the show is Nozomi, who you might recognize from K-1 MAX and DREAM since she is also a host of TBS show Kakutou Ouja (she was one of the two girls in that Nagashima segment from before he faced Kraus) and has done a little commentary on the last K-1 MAX and DREAM events.
On the show Ishii said that he is planning to leave for Holland at the end of the month to train with Fedor. He also made an appeal for an August 2nd SENGOKU debut.
Tomorrow on Fuji TV’s Waratte Ii Tomo show he will get a call by a famous Baseball commentator. The show airs from Monday to Friday at 12:00 (PM).
A spokesperson of Moosin recently spoke now that their first event is in the books. They are very sorry for cancelling the main event and persons who still have part of their ticket left will get to attend the second event for free. According to the spokesperson, the TV rating for the first event was good.
About Moosin’s future schedule, MMA events will be held on August and November (might not be under the name Moosin, but same organziation), and Kickboxing events will be held on July 26th, September, October, and December. All of them will be aired on TV in Korea. So look forward to one event per month for the rest of 2009 from the company behind Moosin.
They are looking at events in Morocco, Japan, and the U.S. for the future. They’ll also obtain cooperation with an overseas Taekwondo group next year.
Nagata and Hironaka clash. - GBRing.com
Good fights outside of DREAM and SENGOKU in Japan keep getting announced. A Lightweight fight between DREAM participants Katsuhiko Nagata and Kuniyoshi Hironaka was announced today for Cage Force’s June 27th card.
Both participated in the 20th event of ZST on May 24th. Nagata’s tag team match ended in a draw while Hironaka made a successful debut at a lower weight as he submitted Naoyuki Kotani.
Also on the card, Daiju Takase will look to get back on track against Team Cloud’s (Akiyama’s Gym) Shuji Morikawa. Takase’s blog has received a lot of buzz in the Japanese MMA scene these days since he started writing a series about the light and shadow of MMA (or something like that). He says that he gets over 100,000 hits per day.
Katsuya Inoue X Maxi - GBRing.com
The next challenger for Katsuya Inoue’s Lightweight King Of Pancrase title has been announced. SENGOKU training player Maxi will try to take his first title in what will be his toughest fight to date at the August 8th Pancrase event. Maxi says that he will take it more easy than in his previous fights and not just rush on every second of the fight.
Inoue has done good since dropping down to Lightweight. A couple of his results are a victory over Koji Oishi and a draw with SENGOKU number 1 Lightweight contender Mizuto Hirota. He hopes to finally get a shot in SENGOKU, where he has some history with the fighters at the top of the Lightweight division, after this fight.
In another title fight at the event, SENGOKU participant Izuru Takeuchi will defend his Middleweight King Of Pancrase title against Kazushi Sakuraba student Takenori Sato. Takeuchi was in his last fight on his way to winning his SENGOKU debut until he got submitted by Joe Doerksen.
Sato, on the other hand, is currently riding a 4 fight win streak since a bad period where he went 1-4-4 in 9 fights.
Also on the card, the return of Yuki Kondo and the finals of the Pancrase Neo-Blood Tournaments.
Watch the full SENGOKUG! episode: Part 1, 2, 3
Bantamweight Pairings:
Daisuke Endo vs. Takeshi Numajiri
Ryosuke Komori vs. Shin Takenaka
Featherweight Pairings:
Shigeki Osawa vs. Takayuki Kishi
Masato Sannai vs. Toru Harai
Lightweight Pairings:
Koji Ando vs. Kohei Maruyama
Ikuo Usuda vs. Kota Okazawa
Update: Hiroyuki Hara has been replaced with Shin Takenaka (thanks to commenter CJN).
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Part 1, 2, 3, 4
The three fight deal that CroCop now seems to have with FEG was reported in Japan even before UFC 99 had taken place.
An article by NikkanSports on the 13th (UFC took place on the 14th in Japan) said that he got around 450 e-mails by Japanese fans when he announced on his blog that he would make a UFC comeback. And it said that after learning this, his mother Ana(?) told him that Japanese fans respect him.
The article says that he will fight in DREAM on July, September, and on NYE. He wanted a rematch with Nogueira in the UFC but he chose DREAM in the end. Defeating Al-Turk was a must for a DREAM fight in July.
Four new fights were announced for K-1 MAX FINAL8 at a press conference today. In a GP reserve fight, Yoshihiro Sato will be taking on Joeri Mes. In the other reserve fight, Yasuhiro Kido will look to get his second straight victory since his awful Japan GP as he takes on Leroy Kaestner, who lost to Andy Souwer in the FINAL16. HINATA finally returns to take on The Contender Asia and FINAL16 participant Dzhabar ”Chengiskhan” Askerov. In an opening fight, Go Yokoyama will battle Korean Jae Gil Noh.
Update: The winners of the reserve fights will fight in the reserve fight in the finals in October.
FieLDS K-1 WORLD MAX 2009 World Championship Tournament -FINAL8-
Date: July 13th, 2009
Place: Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, Japan
K-1 World MAX 2009 Tournament FINAL8 Fights(3×3, 1×3 Ext.):
DRAGO vs. Yuya Yamamoto
Giorgio Petrosyan vs. Albert Kraus
Artur Kyshenko vs. Andy Souwer
Buakaw Por.Pramuk vs. Nieky “The Natural” Holtzken
Superfights (3×3, 1×3 Ext.):
Masato vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri
HINATA vs. Dzhabar ”Chengiskhan” Askerov
K-1 World MAX 2009 Tournament FINAL8 Reserve Fights(3×3, 1×3 Ext.):
Yoshihiro Sato vs. Joeri Mes
Yasuhiro Kido vs. Leroy Kaestner
Opening Fight (3×3, 1×3 Ext.):
Go Yokoyama vs. Jae Gil Noh
Two SENGOKU training players who were picked at the February 1st tryouts will have amateur fights on June 21st.
Yoshida Dojo’s first pick, the 18 year old with good cardio, Shouhei Kubota, will participate in the 8th Kanto Amateur Shooto Lightweight Tournament. His first opponent is a fighter from Wajyutsu Keisyukai Suruga.
GRABAKA’s 2nd pick, Judoka Junpei Sasagawa, will fight in a single match at the 34th Pancrase Gate x2 event.
MMAWeekly reports that a fight between Takanori Gomi and Brett Cooper could happen at Affliction 3 on August 1st. If it happens it could be at 165 pounds. Cooper is 8-1 in his last 9 and has won by TKO/Submission in 7 of them.
Other SENGOKU/DREAM fighters participating on the event are Josh Barnett, SENGOKU Middleweight champion Jorge Santiago, and DREAM Middleweight GP winner Gegard Mousasi.
Speaking of Gomi, he recently met the man who changed his life, former WBA Super Flyweight Champion and former WBA Bantamweight Interim Champion, Hideki Todaka (21-4-1). Will Gomi possibly do some special training at Todaka’s gym?
Update: Doesn’t look like the fight will happen.
DEEP KICK Commences - GBRing.com
There is a press conference on a new event by DEEP today. The event will be called DEEP KICK and as the name implies, it will be a Kickboxing event. Popular K-1 MAX fighter YOUICHIRO☆JIENOTSU☆NAGASHIMA will be introduced.
Update: Apparently, Nagashima is the producer of this event. The first event is on July 5th. They have a lot of themes for the fights of the first event like 3 Kickboxing vs. Japanese Martial Arts fights where the JMA team will be led by Nagashima and the Kickboxing by a former J-NET Super Lightweight Champion, 4 Kansai vs. Kyushu fights, etc.
Update #2: DEEP boss Saeki said that the event is for bringing up fighters for K-1 MAX. Kansai will be the main base of DEEP KICK. Nagashima is planning for the ring girls to cosplay.
