Sengoku Middleweight Championship: Kazuo Misaki vs. Jorge Santiago

Thankfully, Murphy's Law didn't jeopardize all of WVR's champion-crowning designs. While the Gomi-Kitaoka bout may expose the inherent promotional danger in booking a fighter nearly a year in advance with fight results pending, Sengoku's middleweight title bout has no such plague. Rather, it's quite simply the best fight on the card and a fantastic scrap for a division crying out for more of its top talents to fight one another.

After a disappointing 2007, Kazuo Misaki had a resurgent 2008, knocking off Siyar Bahadurzada and Logan Clark in the Sengoku ring before punching out Joe Riggs at the Playboy Mansion in September. Meanwhile, since flunking out of the UFC two years ago after back-to-back plunkings at the hands of Chris Leben and Alan Belcher, Santiago has ripped off eight straight wins. Santiago took Strikeforce's middleweight tournament in '07 before running through Sengoku's middleweight grand prix last year, stopping Logan Clark, Siyar Bahadurzada and Kazuhiro Nakamura en route to earning the right to vie for the promotion's middleweight championship.

While the striker-versus-grappler boilerplate has largely been destroyed in recent history due the legitimate versatility that has began to permeate deeper into MMA, this bout will likely be a tale of two strategies. Although Santiago has worked on improving his striking skills and showed some natural heavy handedness in his come-from-behind crushing of Kazuhiro Nakamura in November's tournament final, Misaki's unorthodox and high-flying counterstriking should be avoided at all cost if Santiago wants to win. And, while Misaki is certainly a solid grappler, his often flimsy takedown defense can be exploited, and Santiago's strong positioning game and extremely versatile submission arsenal aren't to be toyed with.

Perhaps WVR had some foresight when they decided to deviate from Japanese norms by instituting five-round title fights for Sengoku, as the round structure will significantly benefit their ace Misaki. While the maturation of his striking and natural power has given Santiago a daunted offensive game, there are chinks in his armor. In fact, Santiago's winning streak may be a good bit longer if not for a mediocre gas tank and a questionable chin, both of which were the contributing factors in his starchings at the hands of Leben and Belcher.

Misaki, on the other hand, is the personification of gameness, with a rock solid chin (though in the wake of Nogueira and Hunt, that may not mean as much as previously thought) and an uncommon toughness. While he may surrender position, Misaki has been submitted just once in his MMA career, and to see his insistence to fight in spite of a gruesomely deformed and broken arm against Nathan Marquardt is to witness grit.

Expect a tale of two fights. Early on, Santiago may find some success with his punches and should be able to close the distance on the elusive Misaki to put him on his back, and work a solid top game. However, after finding a finish hard to come by, Santiago will slow over the course of 25 minutes, allowing Misaki's offbeat counterstriking to take hold late in the fight en route to a TKO stoppage, and a much needed victory for a slumping Grabaka squad.