No matter how big of a fowl fan you are, Thanksgiving really is a second-rate holiday. For a holiday nauseatingly purported to be steeped in some sense of "tradition," it's usually marked by passive-aggressive interfamilial relations, canned yams and mismatched NFL teams.

Thankfully, your pals from leading Shooto promoter Sustain have a better sense of tradition. They'll trot out the fourth edition of their ongoing Shooto Tradition series Saturday at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, with a card that should be more than proficient at perking you up from your postprandial pass-out.

Besides, wouldn't Thanksgiving be vastly improved with a yearly infusion of pro Shooto? Kick back on a holiday, watch some READ Final or maybe even re-enact Takaya-Palling on an unsuspecting, overbold relative. Sure as hell would beat watching the Detroit Lions play ball.

Shooto World 143-Pound Championship
Hideki Kadowaki vs. "Lion Takeshi" Takeshi Inoue

Fun (or, at least informative-without-being-obnoxious) fact: No Shooto world champion has ever lost his title and then regained it. Sure, it's probably not as good as Mike Goldberg telling you that Georges St. Pierre is successful on 204 percent of his takedown attempts or Roger Huerta is 5-for-731 lifetime on Superman punch attempts, but I do consider it more useful than Compustrike gibberish coming from Kenny Rice, and I don't even have a team of statisticians working for me. Plus, I have already set aside the "You should feel engrossed by this fight because of WEC" pitch for later in this article, and I still need an opening paragraph.

Looking to create this bit of second-rate MMA history, pro Shooto poster boy Takeshi Inoue takes on whatever-the-complete-opposite-of-poster-boy-is, Hideki Kadowaki, looking to regain the Shooto world 143-pound title that promoters were desperate to put on him the moment he turned pro.

In an MMA landscape where illegitimate title shots are hardly blue moon rarities, this is yet another. Since losing his Shooto world title to WEC-bound Akitoshi Tamura in May 2007, Lion Takeshi is a modest 2-1 and is coming off of a loss to unheralded journeyman Savant Young. While it must be noted that the Young fight was an idiotic, abbreviated two-round bout that Inoue would've assuredly won if there had been a third round, it does little to change the fact that as a well-regarded top-10 featherweight, Lion Takeshi should've dealt with Savant Young like quality fighters tend to, rather than pushing his opponents into “Upset of the Year” candidacy.

Owing to a fire-handed fight style and considerable charisma, Lion Takeshi was groomed to be Shooto champion from day one. Despite his often-unfocused and inconsistent fighting, there's no way Shooto fatcats will sit by idly and let a guy like Hideki Kadowaki be champ. Certainly not when there's a guy with stripy hair and customized spats that could be wearing that belt.

Kadowaki becoming Shooto world champion isn't so much a feel-good underdog story as much as it is just completely bizarre and seemingly not-of-this-world. More like an episode of “The Twilight Zone,” really. Sure, you can rationalize it: By pulling off the not-so-difficult task of lighting up Rumina Sato, Kadowaki was the only available challenger for then-champion Akitoshi Tamura, a stylistically preferable opponent whom he was able to outwrestle to a mind-meltingly tedious decision in March. Yet, somehow it doesn't really speak to the strangeness of one of Japan's most anonymous mid-level featherweights suddenly wearing a Shooto world title.

Whether or not he's earned the chance to vie for the crown again, the deck is stacked in Lion Takeshi's favor. So long as he has no problems making weight, which was at the root of what led to his pathetic showing against Tamura in his title loss, Lion's length and standup arsenal should be more than adequate to beat up Kadowaki on the feet. While Kadowaki is not a bad wrestler by any stretch, his takedowns were aided in his title win by the fact that Tamura's standup is kick-heavy, which allowed him to catch his legs and dump him on the mat. Against the hand-oriented Lion, Kadowaki will be kept outside and forced into long-range shots while, for the most part, Lion shouldn't have trouble defending.

Lion's defensive skills are good enough to keep him out of trouble even if he ends up on his back. His only major concern should be the transition game and scrambles, as Kadowaki's only real remarkable offense is that he's exceptionally adroit at getting the back crucifix and finishing with the rear-naked choke, so much so that the Japanese MMA community has dubbed the technique "The Kadowaki Special." However, if he avoids sloppy scrambles, Lion's blue plate should be the only one being served, as he punches his way to a decision, much to the joy of Sustain, women and spandex-pant enthusiasts.

Should Kadowaki somehow retain his title, look for him to take over Peaksville, Ohio, and to banish people to the cornfields. It's a good life.