A Look Back at the Year in Japanese MMA

This is the first of (hopefully) a series of retrospectives on the last year in MMA. I start off with Japanese MMA because I thought it was a particularly great year over there and we are all pretty much familiar with the American MMA scene. 

To really understand this last year in Japanese MMA I really need to start in late 2007 after the demise of Pride Fighting Championships in 2007. In October of 2007 World Victory Road was created and at the time it was touted to be the replacement to the disbanded Pride FC. Naoya Kinoshita, CEO for WVR, revealed the name "Sengoku" saying it was selected from fan suggestions for an event name. The word Sengoku consists of two Chinese characters, "Sen" and "Goku". "Sen" literally translating into "Fight" and "Goku" into "Master." Sengoku had big shoes to fill if they were to be replacements for PrideFC. At the time though there was no time table as to when the new promotion would debut. Months later at the end of 2007 Shooto, FEG, M-1 Global and former Dream Stage Entertainment employees all came together for a Pride farewell show entitled "Yarennoka!". After this event there was outcry from Japanese fans for a continuation of Japanese MMA events similar Pride. With the outcry from the fans and the longing by the DSE employees to continue promoting MMA came the creation of a new MMA promotion. The new Japanese promotion was formally announced in February and it was revealed to be a partnering of former DSE employees with Fighting and Entertainment Group. FEG decided to dissolve their MMA promotion, HERO’S, in order to create a completely new promotion entitled DREAM.

Their inaugural event was held in March and it featured the opening round of the Lightweight Grand Prix. The event featured such fighters as Mitsuhiro Ishida, Eddie Alvarez, Tatsuya Kawajiri, Shinya Aoki, JZ Calvancante and Joachim Hansen. Not to be outshined by rival Dream, Sengoku also held their inaugural event in March featuring many former Pride stars such as Hidehiko Yoshida, Josh Barnett, Takanori Gomi and Kazuo Misaki. Dream’s second event featured the opening round of the Middle weight Grand Prix with many stars participating in the tourney. Fighters like rising star Jacare, Melvin Manhoef, Denis Kang, Kazushi Sakuraba and Gegard Mousasi. Like rival Dream, Sengoku held their own Lightweight and Middleweight Grand Prix later on in the year featuring fighters like Ryan Schultz, Rodrigo Damm, Jorge Masvidal, Cyborg Santos, Jorge Santiago and Kazuhiro Nakamura.

In the coming months of the year both organizations would go on to hold six events, proving that MMA in Japan is far from done. In the Dream Lightweight GP we got to see the rise of Eddie Alvarez as one of the top lightweights in the world with exciting victories over Joachim Hansen and Tasuya Kawajiri. Shinya Aoki also climbed up the lightweight rankings with impressive victories over JZ Calvancante and Caol Uno. Eventually though there could only be one champion and alternate Joachim Hansen took advantage of Eddie Alvarez ‘s inability to continue after a brutal fight with Tatsuya Kawajiri. Hansen faced Aoki for the second time in his career in the finals of the Lightweight GP and he TKOed Aoki to become the first Dream Lightweight Champion as well as the LWGP Champion. The Dream Middleweight GP was also a proving ground for up and coming fighters as well as seasoned vets. However, this GP saw the up and comers wind up on top with Gegard Mousasi upsetting tournament favorite Denis Kang and powerful striker Melvin Manhoef. Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ de Souza proved he’s got a bright future in MMA with wins over Jason Miller and Zelg Galesic. Jacare and Mousasi went on to meet in the finals of the GP with Mousasi coming out on top after a devastating up kick that KOed Jacare. With that Mousasi increased his stock and became the MW GP Champion as well as the MW Champion.

On the other side of the Japanese MMA scene was Sengoku’s LW and MW Grand Prix. For their LW GP Sengoku took a different route, making the Grand Prix a ‘Road to Gomi’. The winner of the GP would get the right to fight Takanori Gomi, who was already a lock for the Lightweight championship. It was an odd move by Sengoku but there is a method to their madness. Gomi was by far their biggest star acquisition in the lightweight division and their other lightweights were not all too popular, if at all, in Japan. The LWGP would give the rising LW stars a chance to shine and it would give Japanese fans new fighters to root for. It would also serve as a way to legitimize whoever Gomi would eventually be fighting for the lightweight championship down the line. Eventually Satoru Kitoaka would go on to win the GP in turn earning the right to fight Gomi at the Sengoku No Ran 2009 event at the beginning of next year. Unfortunately for Sengoku at the same event where the LWGP Champion was crowned Gomi lost to Sergey Golyaev, a virtual unknown. Now, to me at least, the fight at Sengoku No Ran 2009 between Kitoaka and Gomi is sort of anti climatic because they are having Gomi fight for the championship based on name and popularity alone instead of merit. Such is Japanese MMA politics.   

The Sengoku MWGP was much smaller in scale than the Dream counterpart but it produced some great fights. Like the Dream MWGP, the Sengoku MWGP saw the rise of new stars. American Top Team fighter Jorge Santiago won the GP crown with a stunning TKO over former Pride star Kazuhiro Nakamura. This would be Santiago’s second overall Grand Prix he’s won in the past year, having won the Strikeforce MW tournament in November of 2007. Now Santiago looks to take on Kazuo Misaki for Sengoku’s vacant MW title at the Sengoku No Ran 2009 event.

The Japanese MMA year came to a close with an absolutely enormous event this morning, or last night depending on where you are, at FiELDS Dynamite!! 2008. An unheard of 18 matches ranging from a dream title fight to a freak show fight of epic proportions to a match between two aging legends and everything else in between. FEG has really brought out the stars for this years installment of the Dynamite!! event lining up fighters such as Mirko Cro Cop, Badr Hari, Hayato Sakurai, Kazushi Sakuraba, Shinya Aoki, Hong Man Choi and many, many others. The event absolutely lived up to it's billing of being a Dynamite!! show. MMA fighters dominated the event against their K-1 counterparts and Badr Hari now has the enjoyment of having to eat his words from what he said earlier this year at Dream.6.

He also insulted the performance of the competitors by stating "All I've seen tonight is a bunch of hugging and kissing"

Alistair Overeem practically decapitated Hari and did so under K-1 rules. The former K-1 Heavyweight champ has some humble pie to eat once he regains conciousness. There is reportedly a MMA match between Hari and Overeem set for sometime in early 2009 but who knows if Hari will even take the fight now after being thourghly embarassed last night. Alistair iced the cake in his post fight speech: "For all MMA fighters, and everybody, who think respect is important: there you go". Kawajiri and Mousasi also had dominate victories in their K-1 rules fights against top opponents. It's suffice to say that the MMA guys had quite a night.

Also on the card was what some fans were calling the real Dream LWGP Finals with Shinya Aoki vs Eddie Alvarez. You'll recall that Alvarez was unable to continue after his win of Kawajiri in the semi finals of the GP and he was replaced by alternate Joachim Hansen. Aoki made quick work of the Philidelphia native by submitting him in the opening minutes of the first round. Unfortunately a fight between Dream LW and LWGP champion Joachim Hansen and JZ Calvacante was cancelled due to Hensen not being medically cleared. It's a shame that we didn't get to see the fight as it definitely would have added even more dynamite to the incredible event. I think though that the rest of the event made up for the one fight's absence. Hopefully we will see the two square off sometime in 2009.

Probably most surprising of all was the fight between Mark Hunt and last second replacement Melvin Manhoef. Mahoef replaced Jerome Le Banner who was out due to the flu. Manhoef made Hunt's legendary iron chin look like silly putty as he KOed Hunt with 2 well placed punches. And this is a guy who was able to withstand a direct Mirko Cro Cop LHK and not even flinch. That really is dynamite in Melvin's hands. And this is a guy who recently retired from MMA competition!

The night was capped off with a less than stellar match between two aging legends in Sakuraba vs Tamura. Throughout the fight it was apparent that one legend was aging faster then the other. Sakuraba looked rally off his game the whole night and was picked apart by Tamura who won by unanimous decision.

Even though the new years has already come and gone in Japan the New Years extravaganza doesn’t stop there. Sengoku has their first ever New Years event on January 4th and they are also trying to pack in a lot of great fights for the fans. Japanese superstars Takanori Gomi, Kazuo Misaki and Hidehiko Yoshida plus many rising stars all look to entertain the fans at this event. Both events are a great to put an exclamation point on what has been an exciting year in Japanese MMA.    

FEG President Sadaharu Tanikawa at announcement press conference stated that "We've wanted to put on a new mixed martial arts event that would continue the great dream alliance of last New Year's Eve… We want to create a show that, first of all, would be enjoyed by the fans and will make for an exciting live event." I believe that FEG has lived up to its promise of putting up a great new promotion. 2008 was a great year for Japanese MMA after what seemed to be a disaster of a 2007.