Akiyama Comments! Misunderstands Referee

Quick translation of Yoshihiro Akiyama’s comments on Japanese site Sportsnavi post UFC 100:

Alan was a very tough fighter.
The damage of the low blow in the beginning of the fight was quite strong.
I thought that if he hit me there again I wouldn’t be able to continue the fight.
I wanted to take a large break but there was confusion during the fight. I misunderstood the referee saying 5 minutes in English as 5 seconds, I continued the fight urgently but this took a big toll on the exhaustion of my physical strength.
My eye got injured when I got downed on the first round by a left.
I felt an abnormality in my eye after the end of the 1st round.

One eye was closed so I didn’t know about my sense of distance. Because I couldn’t see any attacks from my opponents right side I received a lot of leg kicks from that side.
I didn’t continue with the game plan, the only reason I won was my feeling that I really didn’t want to lose this fight.
After the fight when I was in the hospital, Dana White came personally and told me first hand that me and Belcher’s fight was elected as the fight of the night. I was very happy.

Something about the booing. Akiyama says that they (the UFC/authorized people) told him that the booing was because Bisping had come by the entrance at the end of the fight, so there would be no misunderstandings.

Alan is the toughest fighter I have faced and I’m proud to have been able to fight him.
I will devote myself from now on so please support me.

Update: Some people say Akiyama should have known beforehand. I don’t know if he knew or not, but when he thinks the ref told him 5 seconds, he gets insecure. What if he would’ve thought: “I have 5 minutes, they told me beforehand, who cares what the referee is telling me right now” (maybe he misunderstood what they told him and his people beforehand?), he ignores the ref, and then the ref calls the fight and declares Belcher the winner.

Stuff like that has happened before, Pawel Nastula vs. Yang Dong Yi in SENGOKU also looked like some miss communication. When a ref feels he isn’t being listened to he can just decide to call the fight in a split second. Fighter gets low blow while on the ground as the ref stands them up, ref doesn’t see the low blow, the fighter is still lying down, ref think he’s being ignored and the fighter is milking, calls the fight.

The Aftermath! K-1 World MAX 2009 FINAL8

Ratings & Attendance:

The rating for the event was a strong 15.0% with Masato vs. Kawajiri getting around 19.8%. The attendance was reported as 16555.

Post-Fight:

Norifumi “KID” Yamamoto told the press that he can’t remember anything from the fight, or even that he fought. He said that he wants a rematch though.

Masato hopes for Andy Souwer to win the GP so that he can have a revenge match on NYE. He also said that he has no injuries from the Kawajiri fight.

Kawajiri spoke highly of Masato after the fight. When asked about fighting in K-1 again Kawajiri with a laugh said: “iya, I never want to do K-1 ever again”. He also said that he himself wishes for the DREAM belt. He wants to make the best use of what he obtained in the fight for MMA.

Buakaw said that the “scary Buakaw” who became champion in the past still hasn’t returned.

FEG president Tanigawa, while he thinks very highly of Petrosyan, said that he it would be good if he could appeal more to the casual fans. Petrosyan said that he wants to appeal people more with his style but he doesn’t specialize in K-1 yet. There are difficulties he say, but he wants to do his best so that he can change more to the K-1 style from now on.

The K-1 World MAX 2009 Finals will take place on October 26th in Yokohama Arena.

SENGOKU Gold Rush Project VIII! The Featherweight Fights

The Featherweight fights of the SENGOKU Gold Cup aired yesterday. Shigeki Osawa took on Takayuki Kishi in the first fight and Masato Sannai took on Toru Harai in the second.

SENGOKUG! Episode 39 Part 1, 2, 3

Click here for profiles.

Thanks to the original uploader.

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Igor Vovchanchyn Returns!! Fighting Mixed Combative!

Fighting Mixed Combative have announced that Igor Vovchanchyn will make his comeback at Fighting Mixed Combative’s second event in September. A representative from FMC said that many fans in Korea have said that they want to see Vovchanchyn so he decided to negotiate with him. It seems like they got him after a lengthy persuasion. Because of their heavy Russian Sambo connections, FMC are looking at signing big name Russian fighters one after one.

Also on the September card, Aleksander Emelianenko vs. Blagoy Alexandre Ivanov is rumored to take place.

DREAM Super Hulk GP participant Jan Nortje has also been announced as a participant of FMC. Ivan Emelianenko, “Russia Edition Gina Carano” Julia Berezikova, Mikhail Malyutin who turned around his career in 2008, and four Korean names should also appear on their events.

FMC’s first event will take place on August 15th. FMC said from the get go that they want to be as big as UFC and PRIDE. Signing former PRIDE fighters and Emelianenko brothers is a very good idea since both are very popular in Korea. UFC drawing monster ratings on Korean TV doesn’t hurt the interest of MMA there either.

Update: It seems like FMC’s second event will be a collaboration event with the annual world martial arts festival, which takes place from September 23rd to 27th.

Source: Kamipro Korea Column

Final Preparations! K-1 World MAX 2009 FINAL8

#8: Final Press Conference

The fighters gather - Kamipro.com

Check out videos from the press conference at the new K-1 YouTube channel.

5000 fans were on hand for the outdoor pre-event press conference in Shinjuku today. There were no provocative comments made by either Kawajiri or Masato compared to the last press conference. Kawajiri said that it’s too late for words at this stage. He is in his best shape and ended with “I will beat him”.

KID said that he’s honored to face a Korean Muay Thai champion in Cheon, but ended with: “It will not be a 2nd round KO” (see Cheon’s interview below).

The two of the final 8 who were most popular at the press conference were Buakaw Por.Pramuk and Albert Kraus. Kraus said in Japanese: “Hello everyone. My condition is good. I want to become number 1, I will do my best”.

Reserve fighter Kaestner spoke fluent Japanese for a minute when his turn came which got him a big applause from the audience.

HIROYA also spoke in another language than his mother tongue when he faced Kiko Lopez and said: “Hey, tomorrow we can make good fight.”

The bad boy former Japanese Boxing champion Watanabe, who wore like a crocodile skin suit with a hammer in his hand, then, when his turn to comment came, said: “tumorou (tomorrow)….somehow (in Japanese) gufai (good fight)”.

Tanigawa is hoping for an over 15% tv-rating for this event.

Finally Announced! K-1 World GP 2009 Schedule

The schedule for this years K-1 World GP has finally been announced.

The Asia GP will be held on August 2nd in Seoul in South Korea. Planned participants are promising Kyokushin Karate fighter Takumi Sato, KOICHI, TKD fighter Park Yong Soo, Ssireum fighter Kim Young Hyun, J-Network Heavyweight champion Singh Heart Jaideep, and Ko Taisei.

K-1 World GP 2009 In Seoul -Asia GP-
Date: August 2nd, 2009
Place: Jangchung Gymnasium in Seoul, South Korea

Planned Participants:
Takumi Sato, KOICHI, Park Yong Soo, Kim Young Hyun, Singh Heart Jaideep, Ko Taisei

On August 11th there will be a final chance for a spot in the FINAL16 event later in the year. In a superfight on the card, 2nd Generation K-1 Heavyweight champion Keijiro Maeda will face accomplished Kyokushin Karate fighter Jan Soukup.

K-1 World GP 2009 In Tokyo -FINAL16 Qualifying GP-
Date: August 11th, 2009
Place: National Yoyogi Stadium 2nd Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan

Superfight (3×3, 2×3 Ext.):
Keijiro Maeda vs. Jan Soukup

Planned Participants:
Peter Aerts, Rico Verhoeven, Alex Roberts, Daniel Ghita, Makoto Uehara, Sergei Lascenko, Ramazan Ramazanov, Brice Guidon, Sebastian Ciobanu, Yuto Watanabe, Kengo Shimizu, (probably) Kazuo Doi

The FINAL16 event will take place in Seoul in South Korea on September 26th and the 2009 World GP Finals on December 5th in the Yokohama Arena in Japan.

Update: The official K-1 YouTube channel is now up. Thanks Kakutougi for the names I was unsure about.

Another Olympic Medalist To SENGOKU! Featherweight GP Reserve Fight Announced

Izumi Enters SENGOKU! - GBRing.com

It has been rumored for quite a while now but today it was announced that Athens 2004 Judo Silver Medalist in the 90 kg division, Hiroshi Izumi, has signed with SENGOKU.

Izumi recently turned 27 and besides the second place in the 2004 Olympics, he won the World Championships in 2005 and the Asian Championships in 2008, so he can still compete at a high level.

Some thought he was going to be SENGOKU’s answer to DREAM signing Ishii last year. Since then he has been rumored to have signed with SENGOKU a few times.

Also announced today was that “The Korean Zombie” Chan Sung Jung will take on Matt Jaggers, who has one victory since his impressive GP fight against Marlon Sandro, in the Featherweight GP reserve fight.

Update: Izumi is currently training MMA under Yoji Anjoh and will most likely fight in the Light Heavyweight division (he is very short for a LHW).

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 Featherweight GP Reserve Fight:
Chan Sung Jung vs. Matt Jaggers

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

SENGOKU Gold Cup Finals:
LW: Ikuo Usuda vs. Koji Ando
FW: Osawa/Kishi vs. Sannai/Harai
BW: Takeshi Numajiri vs. Ryosuke Komori

Kakutou Ouji! Kawajiri-Masato War Of Words

People outside of Japan might not be aware, but there is a lot of tension between Masato and Kawajiri heading into their K-1 MAX fight next week.

Because of this the fight has been featured on all recent Kakutou Ouji episodes in Japan.

The press conference

At around 3:03:

Masato: Will you really rally with me?
Kawajiri: Of course, let’s plant our feet and exchange blows with no guard.
Masato: Is that so? Is that so? (or I see, I see)
Masato: If that’s the case, you had better not miss it everyone.

Masato goes on to say that he’s extremely strong right now and that it will end in the blink of an eye.

FEG President Tanigawa then speaks, talking about Kawajiri defeating Takeda on NYE, but when he is about to talk about Kawajiri defeating Calvan this year, Masato interrupts (3:47).

Masato: Me and Takeda are completely different. Seriously different.

Kawajiri then owns and says something like: What’s with that self-important (conceited) talk. (I’ve wanted someone to tell Masato (not that I don’t like Masato) something like that)

Don’t interrupt Kawajiri’s training

Kawajiri’s trainer tells the girls: Leave x 2 (not polite grammar used to strangers but still not very strong, something between leave and please leave). You’re annoying x 3. Leave! (imperative, you won’t hear this often at all between strangers in Japan, especially for serious on TV).

Then at 0:50 when they ask Kawajiri if an interview is ok, Kawajiri says: “I’m in the middle of training now” and waves them off (lol at the girl trying to conceal her laugh by coughing).

Kakutou Ouji, June 17th 2009: Part 1, 2
Kakutou Ouji, June 24th 2009: Part 1, 2, 3
Kakutou Ouji, July 1st 2009: Part 1, 2, 3 (check the amount of views on the Watanabe segment)

Thanks to the original uploader.

Gomi Ends Up In Affliction?! Vs. Rafaello Oliveira

It looks like Gomi’s next destination is Affliction. A new fight has been added on the Affliction Trilogy website. Takanori Gomi will take on Rafaello Oliveira, whose only loss is a doctor stoppage in a fight in which he had the upper hand.

On Japanese MMA site Kamipro recently it said that Strikeforce is not interested in Affliction’s money game (regarding Gomi), so they have abandoned hope of him participating in Strikeforce this summer. It seems that a knowledgeable MMA (and not a Japanese manager from Gomi’s side, who probably doesn’t know Gomi’s worth in North America) representative re-negotiated with Affliction.

Controversy In Kawajiri Vs. Calvan Fight?! Kawajiri Influencing The Referee?

I don’t like to post about stuff like this since you never know but since it is discussed in Japan the rest of the MMA world should also be aware of it.

Japanese fans have found Tatsuya Kawajiri talking with the referee in his fight against J.Z. Calvan.

At around 1:23 of the video, while they are entangled in the ropes and the referee puts his hand on them (probably for a restart, since that is a normal position to do it) Kawajiri says: “Todomenai de” in Japanese like three times which means “Don’t stop”.

The referee then doesn’t stop and move them to the middle until Kawajiri has mount position.

This might have become a better call since it seems like Kawajiri was on his way to a mount position and it would’ve been difficult to restart them at exactly such a position but people think Kawajiri’s words influenced the referees refereeing.

Also, Kawajiri vs. Masato had at the time of the fight most likely already been decided in case of victory for Kawajiri, and the DREAM people/management like Kawajiri.

Source: Road to DREAM