I watched his wins over Davis and Phan with keen interest on how positively bruising, strong, tactical and aggressive he looked (particularly when compared to his very lackluster UFC run). Jordan Breen explores the reasons for Omigawa's resurrection of sorts:

Omigawa's recent turnaround isn't just a personal success story; it a success story for Japanese MMA. His improvement can't be attributed to any one single factor but rather a holistic process of fighter development that is normally absent in Japan. For starters, after racking up a 4-7 record as a lightweight, he finally cut down to the featherweight division -- a weight class that actually physically suits him. Typically, Japanese fighters don't realize they're a poor fit in their weight class until about a decade into their career, if at all.

Secondly, he's been wise enough to realize that his determined but unskilled stand-up can't cut it. He has recently started working out at the Watanabe Gym responsible for several Japanese national and Ocean Pacific boxing champions, as well as where K-1 Max star Masato worked on his hands before his 2003 World Grand Prix victory. Omigawa's transformation since beginning to train there earlier this year has been dramatic, with a rich demonstration this weekend as he bobbed, weaved and battered a high-quality fighter in Nam Phan with his boxing.

He hasn't simply fallen in love with his hands -- the pitfall of many grapplers who improve their striking. His upset wins over Davis and Phan required gameplanning, another aspect of Japanese MMA that is sorely lacking in many regards. To talk to many Japanese fighters and trainers about fight preparation simply boggles the mind, especially given the likes of Greg Jackson bringing hyperspecific strategy en vogue in North America. Credit is due to Omigawa's team for helping him transform from a judoka windmilling punches at his own detriment to a fighter who, in his last two fights, has transitioned seamlessly between the feet and the ground and controlled his opponents tactically throughout.

Join us here at BloodyElbow.com for live results and discussion of World Victory Road's Sengoku VIII beginning with the start of the HDNet broadcast at 3AM EDT / 12AM PDT. The final four of Sengoku's Featherweight Grand Prix will be decided and WVR's top prospects and lightweight contenders will be on display, so stay up and get this big fight weekend started early with us.

And we're live! Ron Kruck and Bas are our announcers for the evening and it sounds like we've got a bit of previewing to go before we hit the opening ceremony.

Play-by-play and results hidden after the jump for those waiting for the replay.

FWGP: Hatsu Hioki (18-3-2) vs. Ronnie Mann (16-1-1)
FWGP: Michihiro Omigawa (5-7-1) vs. Nam Phan (15-5)
LW: Kazunori Yokota (8-2-3) vs. Leonardo Santos (6-2)
LHW: Xande Ribeiro (1-0) vs. Keiichiro Yamamiya (34-23-9)
FWGP: Masanori Kanehara (12-5-5) vs. Chan Sung Jung (3-0)
FWGP: Marlon Sandro (13-0) vs. Nick Denis (7-0)
WW: Makoto Takimoto (4-5) vs. Michael Costa (9-4)
LHW: Travis Wiuff (54-12) vs. Stanislav Nedkov (5-0)
LW: Maximo "Makishi" Blanco (2-1-1) vs. Akihiko Mori (6-6-1)

Continue reading this post »

Just a quick reminder that myself and the BE Night Crew will be up in full force for live results and discussion of the HDNet-broadcast Sengoku VIII beginning at 3AM EDT / 12 AM PDT on Saturday morning (aka late night tonight). World Victory Road's latest outing takes place at Yoyogi National Stadium in Tokyo and features four great bouts in the second round of the Sengoku Featherweight Grand Prix, as well as a possible lightweight title eliminator between Kazunori Yokota and Leonardo Santos, prospects like Xande Ribeiro, Maximo Blanco, Stanislav Nedkov and more.

In the meantime, be sure to check out:

- the show's final fight card and bout order
- Tony Loiseleur's enlightening chat with Sengoku rep Takahiro Kokuho
- Leland Roling's Weekend Primer (Part 1 & Part 2) and Betting Preview
- Nightmare Of Battle's "Final Preparations" post
- Loiseleur's brand new piece on Shigeki Osawa and the Japanese tabloids' role in MMA

When I went to sleep last night, I was fairly certain we'd already heard all the big news that was going to come out of Japan this week. Many offices and businesses have closed down for the Golden Week holidays, and besides, what could possibly top Wednesday's Fedor-Aoki Sambo spectacle? Then I woke up this morning and DREAM Event Producer Keiichi Sasahara shattered my brain.

- With a middleweight championship bout, a lightweight title eliminator and the second round of a loaded Featherweight Grand Prix, DREAM.9 was already going to be big. But today, things got huge. What Sasahara had originally referred to as a "Superdreadnought GP" has been re-christened the "Super Hulk Tournament" - Marvel Comics surely has a cease-and-desist in the mail already - and will feature opening round bouts such as Jose Canseco (0-0) vs. Hong Man Choi (1-2) and Bob Sapp (10-3-1) vs. Ikuhisa Minowa (41-30-8). Originally thought to face one another in a lightheavyweight bout, Gegard Mousasi (24-2-1) and Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou (5-4) will now take on K-1 fighters Mark Hunt (5-5) and Jan "The Giant" Nortje (2-5), respectively. The tournament bouts will have modified rules (shorter rounds, no knee strikes to grounded opponents' heads) and the semifinals and finals of the tournament will not take place on the same show, which leads me to believe the Super Hulk champ will be crowned on a ridiculously stacked New Year's Eve Dynamite!! card.

These matchups hearken back to the days of PRIDE FC (when Japanese MMA piggybacked off the puroresu craze of the 90s) and, along with the attention-grabbing lead-in of Daisuke Naito, are almost guaranteed to draw some much-needed extra eyes to May 26's primetime broadcast on TBS. What's more, Sasahara says today's announcement isn't all - he's still got a trump card to play. But what could trump this?

UPDATE: Minutes after I posted this, HDNet Fights CEO Andrew Simon made the no-brainer announcement that DREAM.9 will air live in North America. The past two DREAM events had been aired on tape delay.

Here's how the DREAM.9 card currently stands:

HEIWA DREAM.9
May 26, 2009
Saitama Super Arena
Saitama, Japan

DREAM Middleweight Title Bout
Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza (10-2) vs. Jason "Mayhem" Miller (22-6)

DREAM Lightweight Title Eliminator Bout
Gesias "JZ" Cavalcante (14-2-1) vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri (23-5-2)

Featherweight GP Quarterfinal Bouts
Norifumi "KID" Yamamoto (17-1) vs. Joe Warren (1-0)
Masakazu Imanari (16-6-1) vs. Bibiano Fernandes (4-2)
Yoshiro Maeda (24-6-2) vs. Hiroyuki Takaya (10-6-1)
Hideo Tokoro (21-16-1) vs. Abel Cullum (14-2)

Super Hulk Tournament 1st Round Bouts
Ikuhisa "Minowaman" Minowa (41-30-8) vs. Bob Sapp (10-3-1)
Jan "The Giant" Nortje (2-5) vs. Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou (5-4)
Gegard Mousasi (24-2-1) vs. Mark Hunt (5-5)
Hong Man Choi (1-2) vs. Jose Canseco (0-0)

Rumored Participants
Paulo Filho (16-1)
Melvin Manhoef (23-5-1)

- K-1 opened up a fan poll this week to help determine the retiring Masato's next-to-last opponent at the K-1 MAX Final 8 in July. (The "Silver Wolf's" final bout will be on New Year's Eve against the winner of this year's MAX tournament.) It features some legit candidates like Takanori Gomi and Juichiro Nagashima, as well as far-fetched options like Oscar De La Hoya, Akebono and Mirko "Cro Cop." Nightmare Of Battle has translated the options here in case you care to vote, though the poll is mostly for show and probably won't have much influence in FEG's decision making. Regardless of the outcome of his Shooto bout with Takashi Nakakura on May 10th, I'm personally hoping for Gomi.

- Yoshihiro Akiyama announced a new addition to Team Cloud on his blog today: DEEP light heavyweight Yusuke Sakashita (5-1). The 6-foot, 33-year-old Sakashita formerly trained with PUREBRED Kyoto, and the only blemish on his record stems from a 2005 bout with Poai Suganuma. Akiyama has said that he hopes that his own newfound association with the UFC will lead to more Team Cloud members getting a shot at the big stage.

- A source at HDNet tells me that top featherweight prospect Shigeki Osawa's (1-0) bout with Kota Ishibashi (0-3) will not be part of the live broadcast for Sengoku VIII this Saturday. It's one of two dark matches that will take place before the opening ceremony; the other is the Pancrase vs. ZST matchup of Hirotoshi Saito (2-1-1) vs. Yoshitaka Abe (2-2-1). Nonetheless, the FWGP quarterfinals are going to be fantastic, and we're hoping to have a good sized crowd joining the BE Night Crew for this weekend's liveblog (Saturday @ 3AM ET).

Continue reading this post »

The news and fight announcements just keep flowing out of Japan this week. I'm not sure how anyone can train at the DEEP Gym with all the press conferences they've been holding on the mats there lately. Today, it was DREAM Event Producer Keiichi Sasahara and Tatsuya Kawajiri (23-5-2) addressing the media and confirming a May 26th DREAM.9 lightweight dance for "Crusher" with former K-1 Hero's champ Gesias "JZ" Cavalcante (14-2-1). Sasahara also outlined a tentative plan for the lightweight title, which has gone undefended since Joachim Hansen defeated Shinya Aoki in last July's Lightweight Grand Prix finals: the winner of Kawajiri-Cavalcante will challenge the winner of Hansen-Aoki III (currently penciled in for July 20th at DREAM.10) on FEG's annual Dynamite!! New Year's Eve mega-card.

World Victory Road, meanwhile, added the finishing touch to next weekend's Sengoku VIII show: Pancrase's Hirotoshi Saito (2-1-1) and ZST's Yoshitaka Abe (2-2-1) will face off in an evening-opening featherweight scrap. Both men are coming off of losses and will no doubt look to throw down and secure further employment in the big league.

Don't forget to join the Night Crew here at BloodyElbow.com for the Sengoku VIII liveblog. The show airs live on HDNet next Saturday at 3AM ET. Here's the final card and bout order:

Sengoku VIII
May 2, 2009
Yoyogi National Stadium
Tokyo, Japan

FWGP: Hatsu Hioki (18-3-2) vs. Ronnie "Ushiwaka" Mann (17-1-1)
FWGP: Michihiro Omigawa (5-7-1) vs. Nam Phan (15-5)
LW: Kazunori Yokota (8-2-3) vs. Leonardo Santos (6-2) - Title Eliminator
LHW: Alexandre "Xande" Ribeiro (1-0) vs. Keiichiro Yamamiya (34-23-9)
FWGP: Masanori Kanehara (12-5-5) vs. Chan Sung Jung (3-0)
FWGP: Marlon Sandro (13-0) vs. Nick Denis (7-0)
WW: Makoto Takimoto (4-5) vs. Michael Costa (9-4)
LHW: Travis Wiuff (54-12) vs. Stanislav Nedkov (5-0)
LW: Maximo "Makishi" Blanco (2-1-1) vs. Akihiko Mori (6-6-1)
FW: Shigeki Osawa (1-0) vs. Kota Ishibashi (0-3)
FW: Hirotoshi Saito (2-1-1) vs. Yoshitaka Abe (2-2-1)

Continue reading this post »

World Victory Road announced today that not one but both of their "Sengoku training players" who took part in the Pancrase show a few weeks back will be in action at Sengoku VIII on May 2nd. Decorated amateur wrestler Shigeki Osawa (who was thought to have made his pro debut in Pancrase, but apparently had a fight in 2007 as well) will take on teenage DEEP fighter Kota Ishibashi (0-3) in the evening's opening bout, while the unpredictable Maximo "Makishi" Blanco (2-1-1, 1 NC) faces a stiffer test in the seasoned Akihiko Mori (6-6-1). At the press conference, "Makishi" said he's hoping to make an impact on Sengoku with a first round knockout.

Sengoku officials said there is still one fight to be announced, but here's the card as it stands:

Sengoku VIII
May 2, 2009
Yoyogi National Stadium
Tokyo, Japan

Featherweight GP 2nd Round Bouts
Hatsu Hioki (18-3-2) vs. Ronnie "Ushiwaka" Mann (17-1-1)
Michihiro Omigawa (5-7-1) vs. Nam Phan (15-5)
Masanori Kanehara (12-5-5) vs. Chan Sung Jung (3-0)
Marlon Sandro (13-0) vs. Nick Denis (7-0)

Lightweight Title Eliminator Bout
Kazunori Yokota (8-2-3) vs. Leonardo Santos (6-2)

Lightweight Bout
Maximo "Makishi" Blanco (2-1-1, 1 NC) vs. Akihiko Mori (6-6-1)

Light Heavyweight Bouts
Alexandre "Xande" Ribeiro (1-0) vs. Keiichiro Yamamiya (34-23-9)
Travis Wiuff (54-12) vs. Stanislav Nedkov (5-0)

Welterweight Bout
Makoto Takimoto (4-5) vs. Michael Costa (9-4)

Featherweight Opening Bout
Shigeki Osawa (2-0) vs. Kota Ishibashi (0-3)

Continue reading this post »