Official Pancrase Rankings - June 2009

by Chris Nelson on Jun 13, 2009 2:31 PM EDT

Pancrase released their updated rankings on Friday:

Official Pancrase Rankings
Updated: June 7, 2009

Openweight - no change
10th Openweight King of Pancrase
Josh Barnett (24-5 / CSW)

Heavyweight (93kg - 120.2kg) - no change
4th Heavyweight King of Pancrase
vacant

Light Heavyweight (83.9kg - 93kg) - no change
4th Light Heavyweight King of Pancrase
Ryo Kawamura (10-4-2 / PANCRASEism)

#1: Keiichiro Yamamiya (35-24-9 / GRABAKA)

Middleweight (77.1kg - 83.9kg) - no change
7th Middleweight King of Pancrase
Izuru Takeuchi (25-10-6 / SK Absolute)

Interim Middleweight King of Pancrase
Yuki Kondo (49-23-6 / PANCRASEism)

#1: Takenori Sato (9-5-4 / Laughter7)
#2: Ichiro Kanai (9-10-3 / PANCRASEism)

Welterweight (70.3kg - 77.1kg)
4th Welterweight King of Pancrase
Takuya Wada (18-8-9 / SK Absolute)

#1: Tomoyoshi Iwamiya (6-8 / Takada Dojo)
#2: Masahiro Toryu (6-4-4, 1 NC / PANCRASEism)
#3: ↑ Hiroyuki Nozawa (6-4-2 / Stand)

- Jason Palacios was removed from the rankings due to inactivity, so Nozawa moves from #4 to #3.

Lightweight (65.8kg - 70.3kg)
2nd Lightweight King of Pancrase
Katsuya Inoue (18-6-4 / Wajyutsu Keisyukai RJW)

#1: Koji Oishi (18-8-6 / PANCRASEism)
#2: ↑ Satoru Kitaoka (25-8-9 / PANCRASEism)
#3: Daisuke "13" Hanazawa (12-11-5 / Cobra Kai MMA Dojo)
#4: Hiroki "AB" Aoki (2-2 / Wajyutsu Keisyukai Suruga)
#5: Maximo "Makishi" Blanco (2-2-1, 1 NC / Yoshida Dojo)

- Satoru Kitaoka returns to the rankings, taking Yukio Sakaguchi's spot at #2.

Featherweight (61.2kg - 65.8kg)
1st Featherweight King of Pancrase
Marlon Sandro (14-0 / Nova Uniao)

#1: Jameel Massouh (21-5 / Freestyle Academy)
#2: Masaya "J-Taro" Takita (9-11-2 / Wajyutsu Keisyukai Tokyo)
#3: Masanori Kanehara (13-5-5 / Team ZST)
#4: Kenji Arai (13-13-3 / PANCRASEism)
#5: ↑ Tashiro "Akai" Nishiuchi (11-5-9 / Nova Uniao Japan)

- "Akai" enters the rankings at #5 with his June 7th win over Takumi Murata.

Bantamweight (58.0kg - 61.2kg) - no change
1st Bantamweight King of Pancrase
Manabu Inoue (7-5-1 / U.W.F. Snakepit Japan)

#1: Seiya Kawahara (7-2 / P's Lab Yokohama)

Flyweight (58.0kg)
1st Flyweight King of Pancrase
Mitsuhisa Sunabe (9-5-3 / freelance)

#1: ↑ Isao Hirose (6-0 / Strapple)
#2: Takuya Eizumi (5-2 / Bumonkai MMA Dojo)

- Former #1 ranked Sunabe becomes the first Flyweight King of Pancrase, defeating Eizumi who stays at #2.
- Hirose moves from #3 to the vacant #1 slot with his unanimous decision win over Keiji Nakamura.

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Bloody Elbow readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bloody Elbow editors or staff.

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Comments

Quality work, dude.

I really enjoy some of the Pancrase fights.

But first and foremost, I enjoy Org rankings; it’s the most sensible way to rank fighters- by organization. Because global rankings are, for the most part, subjective and speculative, whereas divsional rankings within one org (UFC, Strikeforce, Bellator, Dream, WVR, Pancrase, Shooto, etc) do a better job of showing you where the fighters most likely to compete against eachother are.

Not to say that I think we should get rid of global rankings, but Org rankings should be the first/ foremost priority of MMA sites.

Supporting all Las Vegas MMA. Xtreme Couture FTMFW.

'09 is the year of the FW's.

by ElliotMatheny on Jun 14, 2009 1:26 AM EDT reply actions 1 recs

If the elite talent in MMA was spread more widely, I’d agree. But the predominance of top ten – hell, even top twenty five – fighters reside in the UFC.

by Derek Suboticki on Jun 14, 2009 2:49 PM EDT up reply actions