World Victory Road Comes Up Short at Sengoku IX

It's no secret that I've long been openly rooting for World Victory Road's Sengoku to surpass DREAM as Japan's #1 MMA promotion. DREAM came out of the gate faster by putting on some spectacular events, but I'm not a fan of the way they do business.

World Victory Road at least has given lip service to changing the business practices that killed the Japanese MMA boom. Despite their willingness to serve as a "get out of jail free card" for fighters who have run afoul of the drug testing regime of various American states, they do have a regime for testing athletes for PEDs.

Their major corporate sponsors and signing of Olympic gold medal Judoka Satoshi Ishii and a great deal of wishful thinking on my part that they're on the verge of getting a real network TV deal in Japan have had me hoping they were on the verge of getting to the top.

They've had a fair amount of bad luck though and today's Sengoku IX was no exception. Not one, not two, but THREE of Sengoku's divisions got screwed up: lightweight, middleweight and featherweight. Plus welterweight star Akihiro Gono got KTFO'd. Sergio Non sums it up best:

The lightweight champion lost his first title defense. The winner of the Featherweight Grand Prix only reached the finals because the fighter who beat him a few hours earlier was injured, and the other finalist arguably received a gift from the judges in the semiefinals. The middleweight title eliminator didn't, because the victor is being suspended. A star returning from UFC ended up laid out on the canvas.

They originally planned to center their lightweight division around Takanori Gomi, but a pair of back-to-back losses and a series of lackluster wins before that destroyed Gomi's star value.

But Satoru Kitaoka, the man who beat Gomi for the title was showing every sign of emerging as a star, at least among hardcore MMA fans. His go for broke submission style and impressive string of wins at lightweight had begun to get the attention of geeks like me at least. But after Sengoku IX it's back to the drawing board, because Kitaoka got KTFO'd by Mizuto Hirota and they have to start all over in building a lightweight champ.

The middleweight division was supposed to feature either Kazuo Misaki or Kazunari Nakamura as their champ, but Jorge Santiago had other plans. That's a set-back for a Japanese promotion, but not a fatal one. And besides they were going to give the winner of Misaki vs Nakamura a 2nd bite at the apple. But then Misaki had to go and get himself arrested and because Japan has a shame culture, they made him fight for free and denied him the title shot in advance. So predictably, Misaki doesn't just beat Nakamura, he toasts him quickly and definitely. Leaving Sengoku with no opponent for their star-crossed middle weight champ.

And then there was the atrocity that was their featherweight tournament finale. Not only did anointed favorite Hatsu Hioki get a concussion after winning his semi-final bout, but Marlon Sandro got screwed in a terrible decision in the other opening round. So they had to send Masanori Kanehara, the man Hioki beat, in against Michihiro Omigawa, the beneficiary of Sandro's robbery. And naturally Kanehara wins the final.

[UPDATE: I meant to write about this originally, but WTF is the deal with Chan Sung Jung, the winner of the FW reserve bout not going into the finals against Omigawa?]

And I'm not even going to bring up what happened to Gono. It's too painful. But let's just say that there's not a big future in promoting Dan Hornbuckle fights. [Update: I mean Hornbuckle will need to win many more fights before he becomes a marketable commodity in Japan, if ever. Not saying he's not a talented and entertaining fighter.]

But keep plugging away World Victory Road, MMA is an unpredictable game and sometimes the cards aren't going to come up your way. Someday soon Satoshi Ishii will make his MMA debut and I hope you get right with the MMA gods so his career doesn't get screwed up too.

Zach Arnold has more on Ishii:

The main headline coming out of the Sengoku 8/2 Saitama show was… Satoshi Ishii in the ring to announce his MMA debut on 11/7 in Tokyo at Ryogoku Kokugikan. It seems very likely that the 22-year old will make his debut against 39-year old Hidehiko Yoshida. With Barnett likely in the semi-main event slot, his options for opponents seems limited. "Bigfoot" Silva looks to be likely the next opponent for Barnett. It’s a tough fight to take because if Barnett wants to fight Fedor on 12/31 for K-1 on NYE, he would have to hope that he comes out the Silva fight relatively unscathed. Not an easy task.

Photo via sherdog.com