Smackgirl sets championship stage in Shinjuku this Sunday

With females beginning to truly stake their claim in mixed martial arts, pioneer promotion Smackgirl will return on March 11 with a two part day-and-night card at Shinjuku FACE.

The afternoon card will prominently feature the opening rounds of this year's Next Cinderella Tournament series, Smackgirl's own rookie tournament series, with bouts at 106, 115 and 128 pounds, as well as a series of gi-grappling match-ups as part of the Smackgirl Grappling Princess League.

In other action, ALIVE's Kyoko Takabayashi will face Zendokai's Saori Ishioka, T-BLOOD's Miki Morifuji will match up with HARUMI, and winless Yuka Okumura will look to gain her first victory against upstart SACHI. The main event of the afternoon portion will pit female grappling trailblazer Yasuko Mogi against Akiko Naito.

However, the true meat and bones of the event is the evening card, which features a multitude of match-ups with significant championship ramifications in Smackgirl. First, the Smackgirl Super Girls Cup tournament will continue, with Yuiga taking on HIROKO, and Tama Chan (Pictures) taking on Michiko Takeda in the semifinals. The winner of the Super Girls Cup in May will go on to face Yoko Takahashi (Pictures) in a Smackgirl open-weight title eliminator, to determine the next challenger to open-weight titlist Amanda Buckner (Pictures).

In a 128-pound title eliminator, Takayo Hashi will take on upstart Sybil Starr, a student of UFC Hall of Famer Dan Severn (Pictures). While most of Starr's career has came as a professional wrestler, she has made a so-far-successful transition to MMA, submitting Melissa Vasquez (Pictures) in HOOKnSHOOT this past November. Meanwhile, Hashi has won three in a row, and a win over Starr will give her the opportunity to avenge her only career loss, against current Smackgirl middleweight champion Hitomi Akano (Pictures).

Smackgirl's Killer Queen tournament at 106 pounds will begin with Mai taking on Masako Yoshida (Pictures) and Yukiko Seki taking on Eri Kaneya (Pictures) in quarterfinal contests. The winners will advance to the May card at Shinjuku FACE, along with the winners of two yet-to-be-determined bouts in the tournament scheduled for April 28 in Osaka. The eventual winner of the Killer Queen tournament will likely be the next challenger for Smackgirl's 106-pound title.

Who the Killer Queen tournament winner faces will be decided in the main event, when Misaki Takimoto (Pictures) takes on reigning champion Satoko Shinashi (Pictures) for the Smackgirl flyweight title. The match-up has drawn heavy criticism from female MMA followers: not only has Shinashi already gone 2-0 with decisive armbar victories over Takimoto, Takimoto has only one win in her last five fights.

The heaviest criticism levied against the title match-up however, is that there is a clearly more deserving challenger in American Lisa Ward (Pictures). Ward, who has won five straight, holds a victory over Takimoto in addition to a win over Miku Matsumoto (Pictures), not to mention her recent win stateside over Masako Yoshida (Pictures) under the Fatal Femmes Fighting banner.

While perhaps it would be premature to say that Shinashi is ducking Ward, it seems clear that promoters are looking for a softer touch for the champion, who has been recently training in Brazil as she continues to rebound from her devastating knockout loss to Hisae Watanabe (Pictures) this past August.

With the curious choice in title challenger, it will be interested to see whether Ward is offered one of the remaining spots in the Killer Queen tournament for April 28 in Osaka, to give her the opportunity to fight for the title in the near future.

DEEP makes April Impact official

Coming off of a sensational event on Feb. 16 before a jam-packed Korakuen Hall, DEEP will return to the Mecca of kakutougi on Friday, April 13 for the 29th edition of the DEEP Impact series.

While match-ups aren't official, the card will feature the participation of fallen DEEP aces Jutaro Nakao (Pictures) and Hisae Watanabe (Pictures). The Feb. 16 DEEP card saw Nakao drop his DEEP welterweight title to Hidehiko Hasegawa (Pictures), giving him back-to-back losses for the first time in over six years. Meanwhile, despite still having the belt around her waist, DEEP's 106-pound queen Hisae Watanabe (Pictures) dropped a shocking decision loss to South Korean Muay Thai champion Ham Su Hi.

Also slated for action on the card are former King of Pancrase Kiuma Kunioku (Pictures), former DEEP title challengers Ryan Bow (Pictures) and Seichi Ikemoto (Pictures), "Barbaro44" Yoshihiro Tomioka (Pictures), and Naoki Matsushita (Pictures).

The most outstanding performer of the Dream Stage Entertainment-sponsored PRIDE Challenge amateur event on March 11 will also be awarded a spot on the card, as previous outstanding PRIDE Challenge competitors such as Cristiano Kaminishi (Pictures), Andre Nishino and Geovani Pereira (Pictures) were.

CAGE FORCE tournaments take off in March

After much confusion amongst organizers from the Worldwide Cage Network, Japanese WWCN affiliate Greatest Common Multiple have announced 155- and 170-pound tournament match-ups for the March 17 card at Differ Ariake in Tokyo.

GCM announced this past January that its biggest goal in 2007 would be to organize two tournaments — one at 155 and the other at 170 pounds — that would offer top talent from all the WWCN affiliate promotions. The tournaments would not only offer the opportunity for talent to test their meddle against other strong international competitors, but it is the hope of GCM and WWCN officials that the winners of the two tournaments will be given the opportunity to compete in the UFC Octagon.

While the complete logistics of the tournament are not yet clear in terms of bracketing and scheduling, GCM scheduled five bouts in the 155-pound tournament for March 17, with two competitors (Wataru Miki (Pictures) and Takumi Nakayama (Pictures)) already having advanced in tournament bouts last month, at the CAGE FORCE card in Tottori. This will make for seven competitors to go onward to the CAGE FORCE card on May 27. It isn't known at this time whether GCM will proceed with the curious number of seven competitors, or attempt to add in another fighter to an even eight.

Lightweight action will see former Shooto Pacific Rim champion Koutetsu Boku (Pictures) take on Jarkko Latomaki, the representative from Finnish promotion The Cage; PRIDE veteran Eiji Mitsuoka (Pictures) face American Pangea Fights representative Brian Cobb (Pictures); Cage Warriors tournament winner Tomonari Kanomata (Pictures) do battle with 18-year-old Aussie "Dinosaur" Jacob Sidic, the representative from Down Under promotion Warriors Realm; journeyman Wataru Takahashi (Pictures) meeting South Korea's In Seok Kim (Pictures); and in perhaps the most compelling of the 155-pound contests, ex-Spetsnaz officer turned hot MMA prospect Artur Oumakhanov (Pictures) going up against Kaynan Kaku (Pictures), representing Hawaii's Rumble on the Rock.

The 170-pound tournament would at least seem to make more sense. Three match-ups are scheduled for March 17 and English Cage Warriors ace "The Outlaw" Dan Hardy is slated to be inserted into the bracket for May. This would make for a clean and neat four semifinalists for the May 27 card at Differ Ariake.

The welterweight contests will see former Shooto world champion Akira Kikuchi (Pictures) take on American Pangea Fights rep Jared Rollins (Pictures); former King of Pancrase Katsuya Inoue (Pictures) square off with Noboru Asahi student Yoshiyuki Yoshida (Pictures); and HERO'S veteran Hidetaka Monma (Pictures) face Janne Tulirinta, representing Finland's The Cage.

Admist politics, PRIDE lay plans for Saitama return

Even your most casual fans at this juncture are aware of the swirling politics embroiling PRIDE and Dream Stage Entertainment. Between the dissent between DSE and PRIDE USA president-turned-agitator Ed Fishman, stories of mounting debts to employees, and the seemingly ever-escalating talks of selling PRIDE's assets, DSE is clearly caught between a rock and a hard place, with Scylla and Charybdis nearby. Nonetheless, plans are beginning to take shape for some proposed PRIDE action in the coming months.

With the previously scheduled Las Vegas date on April 28 for PRIDE 35 now officially nixed due to the growing tensions with USA backer Ed Fishman, some planning has already begun for PRIDE's next scheduled event at the Saitama Super Arena on April 8. The Saitama card will reportedly feature Japanese heavyweight Kazuyuki Fujita (Pictures) in the main event, against a yet-to-be-determined opponent.

The 36-year-old Fujita was scheduled to compete on PRIDE's Feb. 24 Las Vegas card, however Dream Stage Entertainment missed the deadline to submit his medical paperwork to the Nevada State Athletic Commission, effectively knocking him off of the bill.

DSE has also started to construct its May Saitama Super Arena card, which is scheduled to be the beginning of this year's proposed Lightweight Grand Prix. While they have yet to announce a body of fighters for the tournament, they have already reportedly tabbed Turkish-born, English-based fighter Sami Berik (Pictures) to be an opening round opponent for one of the division's Japanese stars.

It was originally thought that Berik would provide a softer touch for the PRIDE champion, who is coming off of his wild loss to Nick Diaz (Pictures) in Las Vegas. However, Berik has since stated that he instead expects to sign to officially face Hayato Sakurai (Pictures) later this week.

Also, after defeating Brazilian Gustavo PC at Pancrase's Feb. 28 stop on their 2007 RISING TOUR, Satoru Kitaoka (Pictures) confirmed suspicions that it was his goal to compete in this year's PRIDE Lightweight Grand Prix. While nothing is official in regards to Kitaoka, he may be a likely addition to the tournament roster, being both a skilled Japanese competitor, as well as a close friend and frequent training partner of Shinya Aoki (Pictures), who will also likely compete in the Grand Prix.