Ernest Helwig looks at this weekend's Sengoku show at Sumo Hall
World Victory Road: Sengoku Raiden Championship 12 preview and predictions
After a 2 month hiatus, World Victory Road comes up to bat to produce the 1st "major" Japanese show following a successful and highly entertaining Dynamite!! 2009: The Power of Courage. I must admit that I even contemplated the use of the word major when describing World Victory Road as it hasn’t proved it deserves that moniker since they refuse to publicly announce attendance records and their shows have been lackluster and very far from attention grabbing.
In those 2 months major news reverberated that the newly dubbed Sengoku Raiden Championship or SRC, would receive a major blow as Takahiro Kokuho, former World Victory Road Public Relations Director, announced that ASTRA, a special one time event, would be home to Hidehiko Yoshida’s retirement match and not WVR. Yoshida, a Judo Gold Medalist and PRIDE Megastar, has called WVR home for his last 4 fights but since the firing of Kokuho from SRC relations have been a bit complex.
For those who familiar with the name Kokuho but just can’t quite put your finger on it, it should be noted that Takahiro Kokuho is also president of a company called J-Rock. The J-Rock management company includes actors and athletes such as Hidehiko Yoshida, Kazuhiro Nakamura, Michihiro Omigawa, and Makoto Takimoto. While this appears to be a coup to steal WVR’s only real draws, nothing has really been said in regards to that and some WVR and DREAM fighters could find themselves on the ASTRA show.
This card has fairly low drawing power with regards to big names since J-Rock fighters will be unavailable for the time being. My feeling is that like in the past, this card is just a glorified Pancrase or DEEP show. That’s why I think you have to do a double take when considering if WVR should really be considered at the level of DREAM.
WVR does have the backing of Don Quijote or Donki, which is a big chain of Japanese Discount store played a huge hand in the creation of WVR. Don Quijote was prominent in PRIDE also. PRIDE hardcores will remember those strange dancing penguins during Kazuhiro Nakamura’s entrances. Well that’s Donpen, Don Quijote’s mascot. Don Quijote was also linked last year with being interested in buying a stake in FEG’s DREAM. Does a Japanese MMA monopoly lie in the future? Who knows?
As far as SRC 12, the card isn’t necessarily stacked but does have a couple fighters to look out for and 1 much awaited rematch between Jorge Santiago and Mamed Khalidov for the Middleweight Championship. To be honest, I am excited for the show but mostly for the reason of knowing that the Japanese MMA “season” is in full swing and that only great shows are a short time away.
The full card is as follows:
World Victory Road presents: Sengoku Raiden Championship 12
March 7, 2010
Standard Bouts 3×5 minutes:
FW: Shigeki Osawa vs. Kyung Ho Kang
LW: Kiuma Kunioku vs. Leonardo Santos
FW: Yuji Hoshino vs. Nick Denis
HW: Yoshihiro “KISS” Nakao vs. Sentoryu
FW: Marlon Sandro vs. Tomonari Kanomata
LW: Maximo Blanco vs. Chang Hyun Kim
WW: Akihiro Gono vs. Diego Gonzalez
Middleweight Title Bout 5×5 minutes:
Jorge Santiago vs. Mamed Khalidov
The opening bout features Yoshida Dojo’s Shigeki Osawa (4W-1L) taking a relatively unknown Kyung Ho Kang(4W-2L). Both men are coming off losses to crafty veteran fighters in Ronnie Mann and Atsushi Yamamoto, respectively. Even though Osawa and Kang are in the infancy of their careers, Osawa at this moment definitely seems poised to make a huge splash in a relatively stacked pool of Featherweights in WVR. Osawa is a decorated amateur wrestler who had the chance to compete in WVR’s version of TUF named Project Gold Rush. He went on to win the Featherweight finals with less than one year of MMA experience under his belt. Osawa showed an incredible amounts of heart and determination in a losing effort against Ronnie Mann at Sengoku 11, in a fight where Mann should’ve breezed through.
At first glance Osawa reminds me a lot of Tatsuya CRUSHER Kawajiri. He has that same poise and incredible strength from top position plus is incredibly athletic ability to prevent and escape any tough positions. Similarly Osawa possess incredible upper body strength similar to Kawajiri that allows him to rain down heavy from the top with some brutal group and pound. While Osawa isn’t necessarily ready to take on the upper level of WVR’s Featherweight division like Kanehara, Sandro or Hioki, he can be groomed into a major threat by allowing him to get a couple decent wins under his belt and letting him get more minutes in the ring.
Fight Prediction: OSAWA VIA TKO IN ROUND 2 While Kang can take a lot of punishment on the feet, I don’t expect that to be a factor because Osawa’s striking isn’t necessarily as great as his wrestling skills are so he will certainly look for a way to put Kang on his back. I think by brute force and just sheer strength Osawa will be able to muscle a takedown and relatively pound out his opponent at will. I truly believe that if Osawa could potentially become a huge rising star in WVR as long as they don’t too ahead of themselves and feed him to the lions.
Pancrase uber-veteran Kiuma Kunioku (34W-22L-9D) takes on Nova Uniao’s Leonardo Santos (6W-3L) in the 2nd fight of the night. When looking over both men’s records I thought it was particularly funny that Santos’ professional career, 9 fights, is equal to the number of draws Kunioku has. Kunioku has fought everyone including Guy Mezger, Frank Shamrock, Yuki Kondo, Bas Rutten, Evan Tanner, Masakatsu Funaki, Genki Sudo, Nate Marquardt, Sean Sherk, Kazuo Misaki and Akira Kikuchi to name a small few. Kunioku also has the distinction of being King of Pancrase for both welterweight and middleweight in the divisions’ early stages.
What a difference a couple years make. I remember a while ago maybe around mid 08 talking with my friends about how much we missed Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro and how great the new up-and-coming talent from Nova Uniao was going to be. Specifically, I remember always talking about Marlon Sandro, Jose Aldo, and Leonardo Santos and how those 3 guys in a couple years would explode. I’ll admit that back than I thought Sandro was the most talented and had the most potential to be ranked among the best. Fast forward to today and Aldo is untouchable, Sandro has confirmed himself as a beast but Santos seems stumped and relatively stuck in the same place where he’s been. He recently dropped an incredibly close fight to Kazunori Yokota in his last bout and in my opinion needs this win big time to retain any relevance in the near future.
Fight Prediction: SANTOS VIA UNANIMOUS DECISION. Both men really offer little with regards to the stand-up game so I expect Santos to shoot for a quick takedown and as often possible, which could prove hard since Kunioka is a good grappler in his own right. Personally, I don’t see anyway Kunioka can win the fight short of maybe a submission if Santos does miraculously give up an insane position. Santos has a lot riding on this fight and his slicker ground game, youth and training camp should get him through this fight. Kunioka has been inactive over a year and hasn’t really fought a fight that meant something since his fight with Fabricio “Pitbull” Monteiro in 2007. To be honest this fight will most likely be incredibly boring since both men aren’t finished easy and a decision is almost a sure thing. Santos should pick up the win but will probably do so unconvincingly.
The 3rd bout of the night pits the Cage Force Featherweight champion Yuji Hoshino(16W-7L-7D) against KOTC Canada Bantamweight Champion Nick Denis (9W-1L). Hoshino had a meteoric rise in 2008 in which he went through a gauntlet to become the Cage Force Featherweight tournament champion defeating Antonio “Pato” Carvalho, Takeshi Yamazaki and Akiyo “Wicky Akiyo” Nishiura in succession. Hoshino made his WVR debut against Marlon Sandro but was brutally knocked out by the Featherweight King of Pancrase in the 1st round at Sengoku 11. Hoshino is looking to rebound from that loss and to also try and lend some legitimacy to the Cage Force name.
Nick Denis also knows too well about the inhuman strength of Marlon Sandro because he too was dealt a brutal knockout in the 2nd round of the Sengoku Featherweight GP last year. Denis did not fair as well as Hoshino. “The Ninja of Love” as he is nicknamed only lasted a mere 19 seconds in what appeared to be open weight bout as Sandro towered over Denis, who at the very least from the looks of it gave up about 10 pounds to his opponent. Denis has managed to keep himself active since his loss to winning his last 2 bouts via knockout bringing his total to 8 wins by KO.
Fight Prediction: HOSHINO BY TKO IN ROUND 1. I’m predicting this as fight of the night. Both men are explosive and bring a very fast paced and active style of fighting. Hoshino definitely has the edge with regards to weight and reach and while his stand-up isn’t as clean and crisp as Denis, he can definitely hold his own on the feet. Hoshino will probably look to be the enforcer but has to be careful with Denis. Denis is just a headhunter and has incredible accuracy and isn’t afraid to exchange in the pocket. What might happen is that Hoshino might get a bit careless and could get tagged. Hoshino is a wily veteran and won’t find himself in an all out slugfest.
To round out the 1st half of the show we’re given a semi-freak show fight featuring Yoshihio KISS Nakao (8W-2L) vs. Sentoryu (6W-9L). Nakao is most famous for his pre-fight confrontation with Heath Herring in which he was knocked out cold before the opening bell. The sad thing is that Nakao could’ve had a promising career if he would’ve maybe taken his career more seriously because he is truly a naturally gifted individual. He did suffer a freak knee injury against Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva that had him sidelined for a while but came back to beat veteran Choi Mu Bae.
Sentoryu is the sumo name of Henry Miller, who came to fame in PRIDE when he debuted in the legendary 2004 PRIDE Heavyweight GP and lost to Giant Silva. In PRIDE he went 1W and 4L with loses to Zuluzinho, James Thompson and, of all people, Makoto Takimoto in his MMA debut! This man optimizes bad.
Fight Prediction: NAKAO BY KO IN ROUND 1. There’s nothing much to really much else to say about this fight. Nakao should have absolutely no problem. Nakao is so much more well rounded that Sentoryu makes him look like Frank Shamrock.
(part 2 coming soon)
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