Ryo Chonan, Masakazu Imanari Return to DEEP

by Chris Nelson on Jun 30, 2009 4:01 PM EDT

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Five fighters took to the ring during the intermission of Tuesday night's DEEP "42nd Impact" at Korakuen Hall, which saw Riki Fukuda (15-4) crowned as the new middleweight champion and the seemingly reborn Kazuyuki Miyata (7-7) improve his current win streak to two. (Full results at Japan-MMA.)

Following his elimination in the second round of DREAM's featherweight tournament, Masakazu Imanari (16-7-1, second from left) will return to DEEP on August 23rd to defend his bantamweight title against 2009 DEEP Protect Cup winner Tomohiko Hori (10-4-3, far left). Meanwhile, the man who handed Imanari his last loss in DEEP, featherweight ace Dokonjonosuke Mishima (19-6-2, second from right), will take on another former DREAM FWGP participant, AACC's Takafumi Otsuka (8-4-1, center) in a title bout. Finally, DEEP legend Ryo Chonan (15-10) will make his return to Japan in the promotion which made him after a disappointing 1-3 run in the UFC; his opponent has yet to be announced.

Top image via Kamipro; more after the jump from Sportsnavi.

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Miyata suplexes Takeshi Yamazaki

New champ Fukuda

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glad to see

that Chonan has a home to return to.
I really thought the UFC did a poor job of booking him. I also thought he should’ve won the decision in his last fight — Joe Rogan agreed that he won the fight, just lost 2 rounds.
why they threw him in against Karo I will never know.

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by Kid Nate on Jun 30, 2009 4:13 PM EDT reply actions

Unless you win a round 10-7, if you lose two rounds then the best you can hope for is a draw. Everyone knows that going in. If Chonan wanted to win the fight, he should’ve finished.

by Derek Suboticki on Jun 30, 2009 5:49 PM EDT up reply actions

Ryo!

by Nick Thomas on Jun 30, 2009 4:15 PM EDT reply actions

and no one should be surprised at Miyata's turn around

He’s the proverbial japanese olympian that got thrown into the grease to start his career. He should’ve started out in DEEP instead of K-1 and DREAM. Notching up losses to Genki Sudo, Royler Gracie, Kid Yamamoto in your first six fights and then going on to get beat by Vitor Ribeiro and Joachim Hansen is nothing to be ashamed of. Hopefully Miyata can finally grow and build up his skill set in DEEP and maybe come back to the big stage in 18 months or so.

Follow me on Twitter @KidNate

by Kid Nate on Jun 30, 2009 4:18 PM EDT reply actions

This.

He got the Nastula treatment and did pretty well considering. None of the fights [that I’ve seen] have been boring. Admittedly, I haven’t seen his fight against Genki Sudo and sadly I cannot find a video.

by Ahhhoki on Jun 30, 2009 5:25 PM EDT up reply actions