Very experienced Rampage Jackson, with a long-standing Japanese fan base takes on a hungry and highly motivated Ryan Bader on Sunday, February 26th at the Saitama Super Arena in UFC 144.
And Yushin Okami will be surely eager to show the fans his strength following his title shot defeat in Brazil.
Looking forward to all the fights on this card.
As 2011 wraps up we are getting ready for the New Year’s Eve Genki Desuka? from Field’s.
Some great fights here.
Check out the rumble between Rumina Sato verus Nico Veressen, second video down.
The UFC has just released some exciting news for MMA fans and fighter in Japan.
February 26, 2012, at the mighty Saitama Super Arena. Be there.
The Takaya vs Miyata fight will be a war. They are both in incredibly good shape right now. Takaya has strong determination and it’s clear that Miyata has evolved as an MMA fighter.
Keeping tradition with the Judo-ka turned MMA fighters (excluding Ishii), Izumi has been given a very tough opponent who on paper is not likely to beat.
The English subtitles don’t show it but at 1:35 Aoki uses the word “gaijin” for foreigners. This literally translates as ‘outsiders’ and in Japanese this is the rudest choice of vocabulary, showing no respect. At 3:11 Kikuno uses the word “gaikokujin” in reference to non-Japanese which literally translates as ‘foreign country people’ which is more polite and shows respect. Although it doesn’t come across in the English language, where the word foreigner is mostly avoided, it shows a basic difference in the mental character of these two fighters and how they use their mother tongue.
Aoki, the younger of the two, and the one with the lesser respect in terms of MMA on the international circuit, especially following his embarrassing losses to Gilbert Melendes and Yuichiro Nagashima, clearly shows his contempt and immaturity with this choice of language.
Aoki obviously doesn’t care but the world is watching. He is loved for his incredible grappling skills in Japan but some now question just how long the ‘Baka Survivor’ (baka = stupid) will last in the MMA world.
We visited Yushin Okami at RJW (Real Japan Wrestling, part of the Wajutsu Keishukai network) where he trains several days a week to interview him and watch him take the MMA class with some of the resident professional and amateur fighters.
RJW is located in a very unlikely spot. A residential area of Tokyo, on a converted floor of a condominium, rather hard to find for anyone unfamiliar with Tokyo or the Japanese language.
February 27, 2011, Riki Fukuda – team Grabaka’s DEEP Middleweight Champion – fought in the UFC for the first time.
The match which went to a judge decision in the favour of his opponent, Nick Ring (Canada), was widely accepted as Fukuda’s win and it has been reported that Dana White has offered to compensate Fukuda with the same purse as the winner.
MMA-in-Japan will interview Fukuda shortly and get his thoughts on
