First Kitazawa Card Cuts Tape on Shooto Rookie Tourneys
If there is one fundamental flaw in the Shooto rookie tournament
series, or perhaps scheduled tournaments altogether, it is the
inflexibility offered in regards to the occurrence of injuries in
the gym as fighters train and prepare.
This year, two rookies will exit their rookie tournament brackets before even competing.
Hayato Sakurai (Pictures) pupil Norio Tokuhisa, fighting at 154, was originally scheduled to meet PUREBRED Kyoto's Hiroshi Shiba on March 16 in the Shooto welterweight rookie tournament. However, Nakajima has sustained an injury to the posterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, which will reportedly sideline him for approximately nine months.
Due to Tokuhisa's injury, Shiba will advance in the tournament bracket, and face 2006 All Japan amateur Shooto runner-up Guy Delameau in the coming months.
Also, 132-pound rookie Yoshihiko Oyama of Wajyutsu Keisyukai Tokyo has suffered a broken bone in his right foot, which will sideline him for a month and cancel his bout with PUREBRED Kyoto's Yasuaki Nagamoto.
While in some cases a four week delay would only postpone a rookie tournament fight, the size of the 132-pound bracket (with 10 competitors) as well as the fact that the match-up was an opening round bout, which must be completed in order to move forward with match-ups, necessitates that Nagamoto receives an injury bye to the quarterfinals, where he will meet Junya Kudou.
Despite the disappointing aforementioned injuries, the 2007 Shooto rookie tournament series will get started this Sunday in Tokyo, when Kitazawa Town Hall hosts its first Shooto action of the year.
While the event will feature a lackluster main event, in the form of Akihiro Murayama taking on Seiji Furukawa at 183 pounds — essentially a dead division in Shooto — the undercard features compelling pairings of Class B Shooto talent, including three rookie tournament bouts.
In a 154-pound rookie tournament opening round bout, Wajyutsu Keisyukai TIGER PLACE's Shinobu Miura will meet Hayato Sakurai (Pictures) student Kunio Nakajima, while in a 123-pound tournament quarterfinal, another Hayato Sakurai (Pictures) pupil, Yuichiro Takase, will take on Paraestra Matsudo fighter Yosuke Ebihara (Pictures).
By the far the most compelling of the three rookie tournament bouts is a 168-pound rookie tournament quarterfinal between PUREBRED Omiya's Mateus Irie Nechio (Pictures) and SUBMIT Shizuoka's Akihiro Yamazaki.
Nechio and Yamazaki are the most experienced of this year's middleweight rookies — perhaps dubiously so in Yamazaki's case — and possess aggressive but contrasting grappling styles, which could make for a highly engrossing ground battle. A sterling performance for the winner could see them emerge as the tournament favorite at 168.
Another bout worthy of some attention is a 132 non-tournament bout between PUREBRED Omiya's Naoki Yahagi, a rookie tournament competitor last year and Paraestra Matsudo rookie Hiromasa Ougikubo, who is in this year's rookie tournament bracket.
The hook to the fight is the fact that Ougikubo is considered one of the bright spots in a very deep 132-pound tournament this year, and his performance against Yahagi may give us a better picture as to whether or not he's a true tournament favorite.
The 19-year-old Ougikubo is eerily reminiscent of a current Shooto star — his own teammate — Ryota Matsune (Pictures). At the same height, and same weight, Ougikubo and Matsune both primarily train out of Hiroshi Tsuruya (Pictures)'s Paraestra Matsudo. Both have a similar wrestler-grappler style with a solid top game, and both won the All Japan amateur Shooto championships at the tender age of 18.
With all the striking similarities, the Yahagi bout takes on a greater significance than just another Class B match-up, as Shooto enthusiasts look to see whether Ougikubo may follow in the championship footsteps of "The Shooto Junkie".
However, the most intriguing bout on the card is a 123-pound clash between Yuki Shoujou (Pictures) and "GOZO" Ayumu Shioda. With Shooto's bantamweight division rapidly expanding and intensifying, with a new champion, emerging contenders, and increasingly strong crops of rookies, more and more 123-pounders are fighting their way to the Class A ranks.
Shioda, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt under Yuki Nakai (Pictures), was an All Japan amateur Shooto champion, but struggled to make the transition to pro Shooto in 2006 and was bounced from the rookie tournament by eventual champ Ryuichi Miki. However, in his last outing this past November, he put on a dominant grappling display against Class B veteran "Heat" Takeshi Sato, and looked to be emerging into a better pro Shootor.
Meanwhile, a three fight winning streak in 2006 put an emerging Shoujou close to gaining a Class A promotion, before falling short in a wildly action-packed fight against Masaaki Sugawara (Pictures) this past November, and instead, Sugawara walked away with his Class A Shooting license. Therefore, the winner of "GOZO" and Shoujou will take another big step toward joining the mix among Shooto's world-ranked bantamweights, where some of the best action in professional Shooto is set to happen in 2007.
This year, two rookies will exit their rookie tournament brackets before even competing.
Hayato Sakurai (Pictures) pupil Norio Tokuhisa, fighting at 154, was originally scheduled to meet PUREBRED Kyoto's Hiroshi Shiba on March 16 in the Shooto welterweight rookie tournament. However, Nakajima has sustained an injury to the posterior cruciate ligament in his left knee, which will reportedly sideline him for approximately nine months.
Due to Tokuhisa's injury, Shiba will advance in the tournament bracket, and face 2006 All Japan amateur Shooto runner-up Guy Delameau in the coming months.
Also, 132-pound rookie Yoshihiko Oyama of Wajyutsu Keisyukai Tokyo has suffered a broken bone in his right foot, which will sideline him for a month and cancel his bout with PUREBRED Kyoto's Yasuaki Nagamoto.
While in some cases a four week delay would only postpone a rookie tournament fight, the size of the 132-pound bracket (with 10 competitors) as well as the fact that the match-up was an opening round bout, which must be completed in order to move forward with match-ups, necessitates that Nagamoto receives an injury bye to the quarterfinals, where he will meet Junya Kudou.
Despite the disappointing aforementioned injuries, the 2007 Shooto rookie tournament series will get started this Sunday in Tokyo, when Kitazawa Town Hall hosts its first Shooto action of the year.
While the event will feature a lackluster main event, in the form of Akihiro Murayama taking on Seiji Furukawa at 183 pounds — essentially a dead division in Shooto — the undercard features compelling pairings of Class B Shooto talent, including three rookie tournament bouts.
In a 154-pound rookie tournament opening round bout, Wajyutsu Keisyukai TIGER PLACE's Shinobu Miura will meet Hayato Sakurai (Pictures) student Kunio Nakajima, while in a 123-pound tournament quarterfinal, another Hayato Sakurai (Pictures) pupil, Yuichiro Takase, will take on Paraestra Matsudo fighter Yosuke Ebihara (Pictures).
By the far the most compelling of the three rookie tournament bouts is a 168-pound rookie tournament quarterfinal between PUREBRED Omiya's Mateus Irie Nechio (Pictures) and SUBMIT Shizuoka's Akihiro Yamazaki.
Nechio and Yamazaki are the most experienced of this year's middleweight rookies — perhaps dubiously so in Yamazaki's case — and possess aggressive but contrasting grappling styles, which could make for a highly engrossing ground battle. A sterling performance for the winner could see them emerge as the tournament favorite at 168.
Another bout worthy of some attention is a 132 non-tournament bout between PUREBRED Omiya's Naoki Yahagi, a rookie tournament competitor last year and Paraestra Matsudo rookie Hiromasa Ougikubo, who is in this year's rookie tournament bracket.
The hook to the fight is the fact that Ougikubo is considered one of the bright spots in a very deep 132-pound tournament this year, and his performance against Yahagi may give us a better picture as to whether or not he's a true tournament favorite.
The 19-year-old Ougikubo is eerily reminiscent of a current Shooto star — his own teammate — Ryota Matsune (Pictures). At the same height, and same weight, Ougikubo and Matsune both primarily train out of Hiroshi Tsuruya (Pictures)'s Paraestra Matsudo. Both have a similar wrestler-grappler style with a solid top game, and both won the All Japan amateur Shooto championships at the tender age of 18.
With all the striking similarities, the Yahagi bout takes on a greater significance than just another Class B match-up, as Shooto enthusiasts look to see whether Ougikubo may follow in the championship footsteps of "The Shooto Junkie".
However, the most intriguing bout on the card is a 123-pound clash between Yuki Shoujou (Pictures) and "GOZO" Ayumu Shioda. With Shooto's bantamweight division rapidly expanding and intensifying, with a new champion, emerging contenders, and increasingly strong crops of rookies, more and more 123-pounders are fighting their way to the Class A ranks.
Shioda, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt under Yuki Nakai (Pictures), was an All Japan amateur Shooto champion, but struggled to make the transition to pro Shooto in 2006 and was bounced from the rookie tournament by eventual champ Ryuichi Miki. However, in his last outing this past November, he put on a dominant grappling display against Class B veteran "Heat" Takeshi Sato, and looked to be emerging into a better pro Shootor.
Meanwhile, a three fight winning streak in 2006 put an emerging Shoujou close to gaining a Class A promotion, before falling short in a wildly action-packed fight against Masaaki Sugawara (Pictures) this past November, and instead, Sugawara walked away with his Class A Shooting license. Therefore, the winner of "GOZO" and Shoujou will take another big step toward joining the mix among Shooto's world-ranked bantamweights, where some of the best action in professional Shooto is set to happen in 2007.
