Yoshihiro Akiyama fought Chris Leben at UFC 116, which turned out to be one of the most exciting cards of recent times.
Leben took the fight at short notice, Akiyama’s original opponent, Wanderlei Silva, having pulled out unable to fight.
Akiyama displayed superior takedown and grappling skills early in the fight, but had serious trouble knocking out Leben who seems to have a jaw made of steel! Akiyama himself took some quite hard strikes and did not go down but it was clear that his stamina was not what it should’ve been as he entered the second round looking the worse for ware.
Although Akiyama was caught in a triangle choke in the second round and tapped out, the fight was a battle the fans thoroughly enjoyed. See it here.
So, the question is where does Akiyama go from here?
Yesterday I paid a visit to Hidetaka Monma’s MMA gym, Brightness in Adachi Ward, Tokyo.
I joined the grappling class from 8 to 9pm and then sparring from 9 to 10pm. His teaching style is very clear and he spent time going round the students individually helping them with the techniques. We worked on a sweep and then to submissions from mount and side positions.
His gym, opened in October 2009 is new, clean and bright: very conducive to learning!
Monma’s blog has already been updated with a post-training photo with myself and young American, Joe LaChance, who tells me he found out about Monma’s dojo through MMA-in-Japan.com!
Monma-san, thank you for the great training! I’ll be back!
And look out for a video and interview of Hidetaka Monma coming soon here.
Today I used a running track to work on explosive speed.
The warm up leg work looked like this:
- 5X50-metre thrust jumps, focus on pumping the knee up for height on each jump
- 5X50-metre bounds, focus on length/distance on each bound
- 4X50-metre scissor steps (2X facing into the field, 2X facing out of the track)
- 4X 50-metre side steps (2 one way, and 3 the other as above)
- 4X 50-metre backward sprints
The main speed work was 4 sets of alternating 5X50-metre sprints followed by 50-metre jogs, no rest. 1 minute break between each set.
This workout was finished off in the gym with 5 sets of 10 pullups on a barbell with legs together, out straight and on a Swiss ball. The focus on each pull up is exploding up, the chest towards the bar, and letting the body down very slowly.
On the Swiss ball this also works some core muscles, so I followed this up with some more core work to finish (video to come).
At some point later in the evening, instead of stretching, I worked on the foam roller, focussing on the main leg muscle groups.
Todays boxing menu shaped up like this.
- 2X3-minute rounds shadow boxing with some knees and elbows
- 2X5minute sounds of focus pads, concentrating on speed and footwork, light
- 2X5minute sparring (50~75%, without headgear)
- 2X5-minute focus pads, concentrating on out-fighting and in-fighting at grappling range + takedown defence
- 2X10 reps from the gaurd to stand position followed by a knee + jab cross
- 2X10 reps of jab cross then burpee jump
- 2.5 mins of gound+pound from standing in the guard and passed guard (knee on the belly + hammerfist)
Normally, to finish we do some core, pushups/hindu pushups, and plyometrics but there was no time today.
A very big thanks to Kanpei Endo of Watanabe Boxing Gym in Gotanda for his excellent advice, training and pad holding!
This weeks visit to Weerasakreck gym looked like this, with all rounds 3 minutes.
- 3 rounds of rope
- 2 rounds shadow kickboxing
- 1 round sandbag
- into the ring for 5 rounds of thaipads
- 8 rounds of heavybag
- strength and & conditioning; core work, pushups/hindu pushups in the same set as 35kg arm-curls (EZ bar)
- 1 round of shadow
Of course there was some stretching in there but I’d rather have used a foam roller.
Also, the lack of heavyweights, or even light heavyweights there (one arrived as I was leaving) makes sparring impossible.
Here is a link to a very good interview with Japanese MMA manager, Shu Hirata.
For some photos from the ASTRA event on Sunday, April 25th, where Hidehiko Yoshida fought his last MMA match, click here.
In an unusual match up between sempai and kohai, the fight went to a judge decision and Kazuhiro ‘Kazu’ Nakamura won due to his dominating and controlling performance.
A very surprising outcome that day saw Ryo Chonan lose by knockout to Korean, Jung Hwan Cha in the second round. MMA-in-Japan.com hopes to interview Chonan in an exclusive very soon.
Ensen Inoue gave his fans what they wanted, arm barring Antz Nansen, a kickboxer he once cornered.
MMA-in-Japan is watching Michihiro Omigawa’s career closely!
A quick breakdown below.
Astra – Yoshida’s Farewell Results
1992 Barcelona Olympic Games gold medalist, Hidehiko Yoshida, will fight his last MMA match on April 25th, 2010. In an event called ASTRA, he is set to fight Kazuhiro Nakamura, a long-time student of his dojo.
Both have fought and cornered each other in Pride FC so win or lose it will be an emotional event to mark Yoshida’s retire.
MMA-in-Japan was present at a recent training session at Alliance Square, where both Yoshida and Nakamura have trained with Tsuyoshi Kosaka (TK) over the years. Yoshida was open about, and clearly suffering from a cold virus, but he trained nonetheless with still time to recover before the event on Sunday the 25th.
Ensen Inoue will make a comeback appearance at the event, long awaited by many of his fans.
I went along to the Cage Force event on Sunday, April 11th at Differ Ariake.
The octagon is not quite as big as the UFC but it is certainly much
