Dynamite!! 2009! Press Conference Has Arrived Part 3

Shinya Aoki was a little cocky at today’s press conference. When asked about who he wants to fight he said: “Who’s the current champion of SENGOKU? I don’t know.”

He also said that if the promoters tell him to fight, he’ll think about it.

When asked to comment on the message Aoki just sent him, Hirota said: “My frank thoughts are that it made me feel sick (it can also mean feel irritated/offended).”

Hirota once again said that he wants to KO Alvarez on NYE, he thinks that fight would be more exciting. He ended his comment with: “My impression of Aoki? He’s a fighter with long arms and legs.”

FEG’s Tanigawa said that he himself proposed this union event. They started discussing since the end of October. He also said that he doesn’t know what will happen with the FieLDS sponsorship next year.

The WVR GM said that the current plan for the next SRC event is March. The fighters participating will be the fighters who have fought there until now.

Sasahara said that there will be 18-19 fights on NYE, and there will also be fights between DREAM fighters so it’s not only SENGOKU vs. DREAM on the MMA side. Kawajiri and KID couldn’t attend the press conference because they were out on other business.

About SENGOKU only fights (besides Ishii vs. Yoshida) the WVR GM said that it’s yet to be decided if there will be any.

Misaki’s participation is also yet to be decided. There will be a meeting about if his suspension will be lifted or not. Misaki himself said: “I want to obey the instruction of the SENGOKU side.”

There will be foreign fighters competing as well, but the Japanese fighters will be the focus.

Tanigawa wants to match the champions with each other. The rules might depend on the fight.

About a future merger, Tanigawa said that Dynamite!! is mainly TBS’s event so there’s nothing like that.

The plan is for a double main event but Masato’s fight will probably be last since they’ll have a retirement ceremony after the fight. The event will start at 3 PM.

About K-1 fights besides Masato’s retirement fight and the Koshien finals Tanigawa said that there might be. It depends on what happens on December 5th.

Dynamite!! 2009! Press Conference Has Arrived Part 2

NYE 2009: DREAM Vs. SRC - Kamipro.com

Time to get information from the big sites (GBRing.com, Sportsnavi.com, and Kamipro.com) reporting this and who get to ask questions. Most information usually come from these post-press conference Q&A’s.

Satoshi Ishii wasn’t present since he is currently training in Las Vegas. The plan is 7 DREAM Vs. SRC fights. The fights will be announced one of these days. Yoshida said that he hasn’t heard who he’s fighting in this event yet, implying that his fight with Ishii isn’t officially announced yet. Tanigawa said consider what direction we’ll take at the press conference.

However, after the press conference Tanigawa said that they’ll do Yoshida vs. Ishii. That fight and Masato’s retirement fight will be a double main event.

“Mach” didn’t know about any of this since he hasn’t been on the Internet lately. In his comment he said that he’s hungry since he woke up at 12 PM and hasn’t had breakfast yet. The press confernce was moved back 20 minutes because he was late.

Shibata is excited about fighting a SENGOKU fighter, mentioning that there are a lot of Judo medalists there. He wants to fight someone outside of his weight class and he’ll beat him up.

Dynamite!! 2009! Press Conference Has Arrived

The press conference has started. The trailer is currently being played.

Sasahara and Tanigawa present.

Tanigawa announced that they will hold the event together with SENGOKU on NYE.

Announcement of Ishii vs. Yoshida and DREAM vs. SENGOKU fights as well. The full card is currently being worked on.

Japan Martial Arts Federation president Fukuda has entered.

The World Victory Road general manager as well.

The DREAM army is entering the stage.

Kazushi Sakuraba, Hayato “Mach” Sakurai, Katsuyori Shibata, Hideo Tokoro, Hiroyuki Takaya, and Shinya Aoki from DREAM and Kazushisa Watanabe from K-1.

The SENGOKU army entering the stage.

Hidehiko Yoshida, Kazuo Misaki, Hiroshi Izumi, Sanae Kikuta, Akihiro Gono, Kazunori Yokota, Mizuto Hirota, Masanori Kanehara, Eiji Mitsuoka, and Yoshihiro “KISS” Nakao.

Both Watanabe and Tokoro said that they want to fight KID.

Sakuraba with a mask on: “Hi, I’m Hikari Shinji (a character from Evangelion). Please put me against KID who’s in the same weight class as me.”

Nakao asks Tanigawa for Mirko. Gono hinted at Sakurai.

Hirota wants to fight Alvarez. “Don’t you want to see Alvarez get KO’d?”

Yoshida apologized to everyone who was preparing for the Ariake event and asked all fighters present to fight their hearts out on NYE.

Video message from Ishii: “Please be gentle on NYE, Yoshida.”

Sasahara said that rules, the fights, the weight of the fights, etc. are currently being discussed. The only thing certain is that KID won’t fight Sakuraba.

WVR GM said that SENGOKU is planned continue from next year as well. Though I wouldn’t believe what most people say about this right now.

FieLDS Dynamite!! ～The Power Of Courage 2009～
Date: December 31st, 2009
Place: Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan

K-1 MAX Fight (5×3 minutes, 1×3 ext.):
Masato vs. Andy Souwer

Super Hulk Tournament Final:
Minowaman vs. Sokoudjou

The Time Has Finally Come! November 25th, 13:30

FEG will hold a press conference tomorrow at 13:30 with a few of the sources being user Rictor, photographer Dan Herbertson, and SRC fighter Eiji Mitsuoka writing on his blog that there will be a press conference tomorrow.

The Truth?! Don Quijote Buying FEG’s MMA Branch?

There’s a new article on cyzo.com touching on what might be the truth of this whole FEG/WVR thing that’s been going on.

According to the article (which doesn’t say that this is 100% true but it’s from people involved) as SENGOKU didn’t get a TV deal (plus their bad attendance), things were getting tough, so Don Quijote’s Yasuda arranged some very secret meetings with FEG President Tanigawa to discuss a union angle which would excite MMA fans.

FEG were however originally not going to agree to this and just leave SENGOKU be until a possible death and then maybe try to sign Ishii.

However, talks came up that FEG’s sponsor, pachinko manufacturer FieLDS, will not renew their contract next year (I think the pachinko industry is doing really bad right now so FieLDS itself might be in a lot of trouble).

The article states that currently there is not just discussion about Don Quijote becoming a sponsor of FEG’s MMA branch, but buying it. The article also goes on about how things are currently difficult for K-1 as well.

Source: NHBNews PRO

Dynamite!! Special Program! Big Surprise

There’s currently a Dynamite!! special program airing on TBS and while I missed a little of the beginning, there was just footage of Ishii and Yoshida. I’ll update if there’s anything more on the program.

Also, a report on Daily Sports about SRC and DREAM/K-1 (not official, just the talk from official people) holding an event together on NYE is currently on the front/top page of Yahoo! Japan.

Update: Now they’re showing footage of Ishii’s Olympic win and his conversion to MMA.

Update #2: Also of Yoshida’s MMA turn, showing footage of his first match against Royce.

When they introduced SENGOKU they said an organization which Hidehiko Yoshida, former UFC champion Josh Barnett, and Satoshi Ishii are attached to.

Update #3: They also introduced the Tokyo Sports article (the newspaper on the first post I wrote about the SRC/Dynamite!! thing) with the text: “Will Ishii vs. Yoshida happen at Dynamite!!?” (as if they would show footage if it wasn’t sure).

Update #4: That was all, half of the program was Naito/Kameda hype. I thought there would be something more but I guess they won’t reveal much until a press conference.

New Years Eve 2009! Thoughts

It’s quite clear now that something will happen on NYE. I think the likely scenario that has happened is that WVR with Ishii couldn’t get a deal for his NYE fight, so Don Quijote, main sponsor of SENGOKU, jumped ship to FEG. That’s how simple it might be. However, there are some questions on my mind.

Will SENGOKU minus Don Quijote continue after this but be a smaller event? What will J-Rock (management company of Yoshida, Nakamura, etc., a lot of the J-Rock people are WVR staff) do?

Did WVR really have no idea that Don Quijote would jump ship when they entered the new Martial Arts Federation and did other such things? Or are WVR staff also following to FEG?

If only Don Quijote jumped ship, can Yoshida vs. Ishii happen at Dynamite!! just like that without any talk/agreement with WVR?

Will Don Quijote continue supporting the small organizations in Japan? Pancrase would probably be dead now without Don Quijote’s help.

Real Sports wrote an article yesterday that Masato’s retirement might be a lie and that there will be a “retirement withdrawal angle” at some point. Masato not having fought Petrosyan before retiring is a good excuse for him coming back. Also, Masato announced his retirement on April 1st this year.

It makes you wonder about Japanese MMA and how much is true. Is Petrosyan really injured? They said that Mousasi got injured before the Super Hulk semifinals, but some people said that he didn’t participate because of money issues.

SRC Damashii! Episode 5

Kazunori Yokota! Receiving Motivation From Ishii And Petrosyan

Yokota getting ready - GBRing.com

Kazunori Yokota, who is training hard for what is one of the most important fights of his career on November 7th, held an open training session yesterday at the GRABAKA gym.

There he talked about Petrosyan’s victory in the previous day’s K-1 MAX Finals and how it has motivated him. He said:

“There have been various martial arts events on TV recently but the one who has left the biggest impression was Petrosyan.”

“If there was a fighter like Petrosyan in MMA I would retire. No matter what you do you can’t defeat him (laugh). He towers above the rest.”

His ideal/dream style is similar to that of Petrosyan and number 1 P4P boxer Floyd Mayweather, to hit and not get hit.

Yokota is currently training his striking at the Power Of Dream gym. Olympic Gold Medalist Satoshi Ishii also trains there and it seems like they have become good friends in the past month because of their judo backgrounds. He says that even when they walk outside people greet and call out to Ishii. It’s like being with a celebrity.

They train together 4-5 times a week. “Just being together with a fighter like him is motivating.”

About his own preparations, in which he has received help from a student of muscle in Ishii, he says that he is holding back on sweets and carbonated drinks, and closely watching what he eats so his physical condition is good and because of that he is already at 71.3 kg, over a week away from the fight. Because of that he can also concentrate on training and not waste time on weight-cutting.

Yokota is training to defend the guillotine choke and rear naked choke of Mitsuoka, which he thinks are two of his strong points. He himself says that he definitely won’t lose when it comes to stamina and punching speed. He says that since this week is the final spurt before the fight training is severe, sounding like he trains so hard that he collapses everyday.

SRC Damashii! Episode 4