1) Baru Harn vs. Seigo Mizuguchi: A pair of heavyweights from DEEP who I have never seen before. Harn is from Mongolia, so he's probably a former sumo or something. Both men come out to Pokerface. Incredible.
FIGHT: Baru Harn Unanimous Decision. Terrible fight between a couple lousy asian heavyweights engaging in sloppy standup. (0)
At this point, the show actually starts with a big long movie about Yoshida, a live rock band, and the classic MMA introductions.
2) Akihiko Mouri vs. Tatsunao Nagakura: Mori has a very fancy outfit to enter with. Nagakura and his team yell a lot and then dance. This is at lightweight...I think.
FIGHT: Mouri TKO Rnd 1. Nagakura keeps jumping in with hooks and then sitting on the outside. Mouri catches him sleeping with a left hook from waaaay back, drops him, and lands hammerfists until the fight is stopped by the ref. (0)
3) Yuya Shirai vs. Che Mills: Che Mills looked on paper to walk through TUF 9. Then he got beat in the opening round by James Wilks in a shocker. Shirai is a middle of the road sorta welterweight from Japan.
FIGHT: Shirai Submission Rnd 1. Not enough in the fight to sit here and give much in terms of analysis of both men. This was more of a submission grappling bout, and with Che Mills giving up his advantage as a kickboxer, the end couldn't be in doubt. Even with his omaplata and taking the back of Shirai briefly, he never really had Shirai near a point where he might be finished. After getting thrown off the back of Shirai, Mills ended up on the feet, but in a clinch where Shirai had underhooks and the leverage advantage. Its a tired cliche on here to say that a guy is who he was thought to be, but in the case of Shirai, is there any growth here? (1)
4) Ganjo Tentsuku vs. Daisuke Nakamura: Nakamura is one of the great b-show characters of all time. He's a guy with Pancrase boots who is in great fights more often than not. Tentsuku is an oft inactive Shooto lightweight I lack familiarity with, to be honest.
FIGHT: Nakamura Unanimous Decision (2)
Nakamura: The usual things happen here as any Nakamura fight - there's flying armbars, there's hands being kept low and a pumping jab from below the sightline of the opponent, there's wild grappling, there's fun. Nakamura constantly works to finish, even if it is sometimes in his best interest not to. In spite of having a handspeed advantage on Tentsuku and strafing him with jabs, he has major issues not getting hit in the face. This is why he's 22-12 and not 34-2. Combined with not being able to finish with holds when he has them seemingly sunk (he comes ohsoclose to an armbar at the end of the second), and Nakamura is a guy who was good, but never good enough.
Tentsuku: Japanese fighter with heart! Well, OK, so lots of them have heart and are willing to take beatings. What makes Tentsuku different? He has adequate submission defense that allows him to see all 15 minute rounds. He has good cardio, which means that in round 3 he actually begins to make a rousing comeback striking. His striking is not that good though - he clearly works off timing and only begins to be successful when Nakamura slows to a point where he is not brutally outclassing Tentsuku anymore. Maybe its Nakamura getting lazy and throwing fewer jabs and I'm not seeing it that way? Regardless, Tentsuku either needs to be able to adjust faster or he can't compete against regional lightweights in Japan, much less the big boys.
Throughout the show, I should mention, there's a ton of well wishes given to Yoshida by various celebrities from Japan. Among them I notice race car driver Aguri Suzuki and MMA newb Ishii.
5) Naoyuki Kohtani vs. Jorge Masvidal: ZST's GOAT faces one of the great underachievers in MMA.
FIGHT: Masvidal Split Decision. (3)
Kohtani: It takes a special kind of fighter to force the worst bout in Masvidal's career out of him. Kohtani is that sort of fighter. Once pulled into PRIDE's 160lb Grand Prix at the height of Japanese MMA as ZST's representative, he responded by being knocked out cold in 11 seconds. He went 0-2 in the UFC. He's never beaten a relevant fighter before. Here, as was always the case, Kohtani proved ineffective in all capacities standing, and chose instead to pull guard in order to get the fight to the mat in an attempt to get a position he deserved. That he won on even one card was embarassing. He landed perhaps one meaningful jab and aside from a kimura attempt that led into nearly being KOed in round 1, had no periods of really effective offense.
Masvidal: Is Masvidal gunshy now after having lost as many times as he has? Was Kohtani just negating anything entertaining in both directions? Masvidal's next bout effectively answered this when fighting a welterweight striker. Its not his proudest win, but it counts.
6) Ryo Chonan vs. Jung Wah Cha: Uhh, okay. Chonan against bum. Great.
FIGHT: Cha TKO Rnd 2. (3)
Chonan: The fall is complete - from beating Anderson Silva to getting KOed off a superman punch from a guy who is an also ran in Spirit MC. Chonan was never fully in the fight, landing only some weak leg kicks through the 7:30 it went.
Cha: I mean, I dunno, he looked okayish. He is pretty lean and long, throws some solid kicks, and showed capability to keep distance against a guy who has trained to wrestle with real wrestlers. This was his first fight in almost 2 years though, and there's nothing booked now. What a strange career.
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More guests join the booth - Akiyama has been there in and out most of the night, but TK drops in as well. Odd that TK is such a hero even now after being shunted down as a second rate wrestler in RINGS by the bookers there only to rise up by force through legit shoots in the UFC.
We hit intermission as well: Fedor comes in and says something or other, there's replays of earlier fights, and we have random Asian ring girls walk around.
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8) Antz Hansen vs. Enson Inoue: Yes. BUDO LIVES. In this case, it fights a lousy MMA fighter converted from a New Zealand based thai kickboxer. Hey, Aussies do know how to kickbox. Its like where they all vacation and shit.
FIGHT: Inoue Submission Rnd 1. Hansen grazes Inoue early in the fight with a right hand, but that's pretty much it as far as offense goes. Inoue eventually gets this fight down, passes to mount, and then gets an armbar. Fun fight in theory and execution but it gets a (1) because its the least essential fight of Enson's to watch.
WANDERLEI SILVA~ talks about how Yoshida was a tough dude.
9) Michihiro Omigawa vs. Micah Miller: The resurrection of Omigawa after his poor run in the UFC has been impressive to some. Really, there is credit you must give there. He beat LC Davis and Hiroyuki Takaya legit. However - the decisions over both Sandro and Hioki were total garbage. And then he lost to Kanehara. So there are wins of value, don't get it twisted. But its not what people claim it may be. He's better at 145, but not THAT much better. Meanwhile, Micah Miller, brother of Cole - the loss out of the WEC to Maeda was ugly, and that he's picking wins over badly outmatched opposition doesn't really fix things.
FIGHT: Omigawa Unanimous Decision. (3)
Omigawa: If this was PRIDE judging, Omigawa would have still won the fight because he is Japanese. However, the criteria would have favored the American. Omigawa basically laid on Miller for the first two rounds and did next to nothing while dodging the occasional halfassed omoplata attempt. In round three Miller put some stuff together standing and was able to get on the mat in the top position. At the end of the fight Omigawa was deep in a triangle attempt. You see the usual issues with Omigawa - pushes punches, top control grappler utilizing his ne-waza skills to nullify, but not necessarily finish, opposition, likes trips and throws because his single or double are subpar.
Miller: Slow start leads to losing another decision over in Japan in a close fight. He is still entranced by his guard game, and until he learns that being off his back, he won't win and get to the next level, this is the kind of thing he can look forward to. More losses against top 25 level featherweights (ex top 100 lightweights) in boring fights where he's generally just grinded out. Hands are a little loose and sloppy too.
10) Hidehiko Yoshida vs. Kazuhiro Nakamura: Judoka vs. Judoka. Teacher against student. The final match in Yoshida's illustrious but really not long MMA career. 8 years isn't really that long, ya know.
FIGHT: Nakamura Unanimous Decision. Expecting a grappling bout? Sorry. Mostly slow and sloppy standup fight that gets a little exciting in the second when Yoshida is dropped by Nakamura. From that point on Nakamura is totally in control. He drops Yoshida again in the third as they wildly exchange and Yoshida is nearly armbarred. This isn't a bad fight or anything, don't get me wrong. Its a fun fight. Yoshida removing his gi jacket in the 3rd and final round as he comes out to slug with Nakamura is a great final image for a legend of the sport. In the end though, he goes out like so many others - the loser. But don't cry for Yoshida. Few men made the fortunes he had in MMA nor brought the sort of attention he did to the sport for a nation.
Rating this fight is difficult. To be honest, it doesn't matter who wins from a rankings perspective. They are both unrankable and Yoshida was retiring anyhow. In the end, I give it a (3). It is of major value to hardcore MMA fans stateside, but is not essential or critical. It is a historical footnote and book end.
Post fight we have people on mics, and then SAKURABA APPEARS with a bottle of sake. And then a bunch of other people present him with things - Kawajiri, Minowaman, Fujita, Ishida, pretty much everyone from the card. His parents I think present him with flowers? Yoshida cries. There is a slient bell salute about something. Then he goes and exchanges his belt and gi, gives a speech at a podium by the entrance ramp surrounded by kids. When its over streamers are launched out and its a career.
FIGHT OF THE NIGHT: Tentsuku/Nakamura
KO OF THE NIGHT: Chonan/Cha
SUBMISSION OF THE NIGHT: Shirai/Mills
OVERALL FOR THE EVENT: 6 out of 10. Surprisingly smooth going down though admittedly there is little taste. Kinda like drinking Miller Lite, my preferred megabrew. Yoshida had taken some beatings over the years and it was time for him to hustle on out of here about 2 years ago, so its good to see him leave now with most of his mental faculties. Argurable contender for the best Japanese card of 2010 given the dearth of good shows, ASTRA admittedly felt like a funeral watching. A very fun funeral at times, but still a burial of Japanese MMA's hey-day. Where will it be in 5 years? Who knows.
D&R Rating: 32% (16/50)
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