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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?
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.
This mix of K-1 and MMA fights, Sengoku and DREAM fighters, fighters in their teens and those in their forties, provided a great show to end the year 2009.
Masato fought his heart out
The K-1 World Grand Prix to be held in Yokohama on Saturday, December 5th, 2009 has a very exciting lineup.
The tournament itself and undercard fights promise to bring some high energy bouts. The MMA world should watch Alistair Overeem closely!
For in depth info please see here.
Fedor Emelianenko and Brett Rogers
The Strikeforce heavyweight fight between Emelianenko Fedor and Brett Rogers will stream live in Japan on Sunday morning at 11 a.m. here.
Fedor has become arguably the best heavyweight MMA fighter of our time, and although Rogers is a worthy opponent, Fedor has faced the toughest heavyweights in international MMA and always dominated.
Rogers seems to have the right attitude coming into this fight and one thing is sure, even though there is a lot on the line for their careers, neither of them will go easy. I’ll be watching closely!
