As this week's news percolates from Nihon, it is the individual that takes the forefront. Between rookies and veterans, and the “who's who” and the “who's that?” this week we put the spotlight on the faces, rather than the places, that deserve the MMA fan's watchful eye in the near future.

"Wicky" Akiyo Nishiura (Pictures) is a contradiction to the proverbial middle child syndrome; it's the youngest of Shooting Gym Yokohama's three Shooto 143-pound champions that is the wild child — and he's ready to make waves with his Class A Shooto license in tow. While "Wicky" might be the youngest of Kenji Kawaguchi (Pictures)'s Shooto rookie aces, he's the eldest of the 2006 champions, with another six rookie kings to be crowned in the next weeks.

Another young Shooto standout, Toshimichi Akagi (Pictures), may soon join the fray in Shooto's wide-open 123-pound class. First, he will look to score another win and nab his Class A license at a tiny offering at the Tokyo Kinema Club amidst other Class B talent.

But it isn't just Shooto looking for young stars. DEEP is looking for the next Shinya Aoki (Pictures) and Nobuhiro Obiya (Pictures), as it began scouring for talented up-and-comers to fill out the brackets of the 2006 Future King Tournament series.

Meanwhile, Pancrase has revealed that Yukio Sakaguchi's professional MMA debut is just around the corner, and the son of the pro-wrestling legend may bring necessary star power to a rebuilding Pancrase in need of hot draws.

Unlike these youngsters, Sanae Kikuta (Pictures) has paid his dues. Kikuta has a career spanning over a decade, and leads one of Japan's most prominent gyms in GRABAKA. However, no man is immune to criticism, and Kikuta's blog has become a battleground as some fans, not at all in favor of his PRIDE Bushido return, have hit him hard.

However for female superstar Megumi Fujii (Pictures)'s return to the ring opposition may be hard to find, in more ways than one. Not only will she grab female MMA fans' attention with her confirmed participation at Smackgirl's November card, but promoters must battle the burden of finding her suitable opponents, as women aren't lining up to fight Abe Ani Combat Club's kakutougi queen.

Finally, and perhaps most interesting of all, could PRIDE Bushido and K-1 HERO'S collide in the confines of Shooto? Shooto world champion Tatsuya Kawajiri (Pictures) has unfinished business with Joachim Hansen (Pictures), but it's breakout star and HERO'S Grand Prix champion Gesias Calvancanti (Pictures) that he's targeting for his next Shooto excursion. Will 2007 bring us a showdown between representatives of Japanese MMA's rival rulers?

Condolences

Best wishes and condolences are extended to Chad "Akebono" Rowan. Rowan's mother, Janice Rowan, passed away at 12:49 a.m. in Hawaii on Tuesday, October 17 due to respiratory failure. She was 60 years old.

Congratulations

On a lighter note, congratulations go out to longtime Shooto veteran Shigetoshi Iwase (Pictures), who was married on October 8. Close friends and fellow fighting compatriots Tatsuya Kawajiri (Pictures), Mitsuhiro Ishida (Pictures), and Ryuta Sakurai (Pictures) among others attended the wedding of the 31-year-old T-BLOOD member.

"Wicky" wins Shooto 143-pound rookie crown

Congratulations are also in order for "Wicky" Akiyo Nishiura (Pictures), who was crowned the first Shooto rookie champion of 2006 this past weekend, and as a result, became the first of this year's rookie aces to be promoted to Class A Shooto.

On Saturday at Shooto's Champion Carnival in Yokohama, Nishiura took an exciting decision over Sapporo super-striker Daisuke Ishizawa (Pictures) in the finals of Shooto's 2006 143-pound rookie tournament. Earlier this year, "Wicky,” nicknamed for the Japanese sound of a monkey's scream, used his wild, breakneck style to take decisions in his quarterfinal and semifinal bouts. With the win over Ishizawa, the 23-year-old dynamo upped his record to 5-1, four of those wins coming in the Shooto ring.

Nishiura's tournament win makes him the third consecutive 143-pound rookie tournament champion from Shooting Gym Yokohama. Kenji Kawaguchi (Pictures)'s brood captured previous 143-pound rookie glory when "Lion" Takeshi Inoue (Pictures) captured the rookie tournament in 2004 and Tenkei Fujimiya (Pictures) took last year's rookie crown.

"Wicky" is likely the first in a line of this year's rookie champs to be promoted to Class A Shooto. Last year, four of the seven rookie champions — Takeya Mizugaki (Pictures), Tenkei Fujimiya (Pictures), Mizuto Hirota (Pictures) and "K-Taro" Keita Nakamura (Pictures) — were promoted to Class A Shooto following their rookie tournament wins, and 2005's 123-pound champion Yusei Shimokawa (Pictures) earned his Class A license earlier this year with a win over Takeyasu Hirono (Pictures).

Last year's 114-pound champion Kenichi Takeda has not yet been promoted due to the fact that Shooto's 114-pound class is still in its nascence and has no Class A competitors, while 183-pound champion Masashi Yozen (Pictures) its 0-1-1 since his tournament win in August 2005.

Timetable set For Shooto rookie tournament finals

"Wicky" was not the only rookie on display at the Pacifico Yokohama National Convention Center on Saturday. Tsudanuma Dojo's Yoshitaro Niimi (Pictures) and Shooting Gym Kobe's "Leo" Yuki Konishi (Pictures) squared off in a 167-pound rookie semifinal, with Konishi coming out the victor after a two-round unanimous decision. With Konishi's victory and subsequent advancement in the 167-pound rookie tournament bracket, all of the remaining rookie tournament finals have been decided.

The year's second rookie champion will be crowned on November 10 at Korakuen Hall. In the finals of the 154-pound rookie tournament, undefeated BURST MMA Dojo fighter Shinji Sasaki (Pictures) will head east to Tokyo to meet hot prospect Yoshihiro Koyama (Pictures). Just under three weeks later, at Kitazawa Town Hall, the year's 123-pound rookie king will be decided between Paraestra Sapporo's Takuya Mori (Pictures) and GUTSMAN Shooto Dojo's Ryuichi Miki.

Similar to last year, when December 17's card at Shinjuku FACE saw three rookie champions crowned, this year will have the remaining four rookie champions crowned on December 2 at Shinjuku FACE. Wajyutsu Keisyukai RJW G2 Hiroaki Takezawa was fortunate enough to get a bye to the 114-pound finals, and will look to prove his worth against stalwart submission artist Shinya Murofushi of SUBMIT Shizuoka; Combat Wrestling national champion Masakazu Ueda of Paraetra Tokyo will meet Shooting Gym Osaka's Teriyuki Matsumoto (Pictures) in the 132-pound rookie final; hard hitters square off in the 167-pound final between GUTSMAN Shooto Dojo's Taisuke Okuno and Shooting Gym Kobe's "Leo" Yuki Konishi (Pictures); the island of Hokkaido will be assured at least one rookie champ this year, when Mitsuhiro Takeda of Paraestra Hakodate battles Atsushi Matsuki of Sapporo's North Kings Dojo.

Shooto up-and-comers hit Kinema Club as Akagi aims for Class A

This weekend, the cozy Tokyo Kinema Club will play host to a Shooto featurette, as G-Shooto promoter G-STYLE returns with another G-Shooto Special card, featuring both male and female talent.

The G-Shooto female portion of the card will see Wajyutsu Keisyukai Tokyo prospect Kanako Takeshita meet Paraestra Hachinohe's Mamitora, while multi-talented Emi Tomimatsu meets a very stiff test in 106-pound stalwart Masako Yoshida.

The male Shooto portion of the card features three Class B bouts that put the spotlight on some compelling fighters.

A match between two of this year's defeated 132-pound rookie tournament competitors, Hayato Sakurai (Pictures) pupil Kazuya Tamura (Pictures) will meet brash Paraestra Tokyo product "Atsushi13" Atsushi Asano (Pictures). Both men come off losses, and both young fighters will look for a serious kick-start to their young careers with a win. A win is seemingly necessary for either man to keep pace in a dynamic 132-pound class full of young and bright talents.

In a 114-pound bout, 2005-rookie champion Kenichi Takeda will look to score a strong victory over divisional doormat Takahisa Toyoshima. Takeda's success may be important to the advancement of Shooto's 114-pound class. For the weight class can be fully integrated into Shooto, it is important to establish a hierarchy, where Takeda figured to be one of the top talents.

Most importantly however, is the return of 2004 123-pound rookie runner-up Toshimichi Akagi (Pictures). The eccentric Cobra Kai disciple may be on the cusp of his Class A Shooto license, but has stumbled in some key fights, namely a loss to Yusei Shimokawa (Pictures) and a draw with "Tomohilock '84" Tomohiro Hashi (Pictures). However, Akagi will have an opportunity to showcase his abilities against a fairly hapless Shinichi Hanawa (Pictures). A strong showing in this bout may set Akagi up for his Class A license in the near future, following in the footsteps of his older brother Yasuhiro Akagi, who was promoted to Class A Shooto last month.

DEEP starts search for 2006's Future Kings

DEEP has announced that they are accepting applications for their Future King Tournament series, which begins December 9 at Shinjuku FACE in Tokyo. The organization will again continue this year with four weight class tournaments, at 143, 154, 167 and 180 pounds.

Unlike in years previous, in which the divisional tournaments have had lengthy brackets that were contested over two separate cards, DEEP's executives have revealed that their plan for this year's Future King Tournament is to create the best eight-man fields for each tournament.

In the likely event that more than eight applications are received for a given weight class, the DEEP executive will examine each fighter's application and choose the best eight to compete in each tournament.

Despite the brief history of the FKT series, DEEP has already had some notable Future Kings, including PRIDE Bushido competitors Shinya Aoki (Pictures) and Nobuhiro Obiya (Pictures).

Sakaguchi's son set for Pancrase's star treatment?

Pancrase revealed that hyped amateur Yukio Sakaguchi would make his professional Pancrase debut December 2 at the Differ Ariake.

The 33-year-old Sakaguchi is the son of former Olympic judoka and famous pro-wrestler Seiji Sakaguchi. The elder Sakaguchi rose to fame in the pro-wrestling world in the 1970s, often teaming up with the legendary Antonio Inoki, and is viewed as a legendary puroresu figure himself.

At Pancrase's September 16 Differ Ariake card, Sakaguchi faced amateur Akihiro Ono in a Pancrase Gate amateur bout, knocking Ono out with a knee at 2:47 of the second round. The bout with Ono, despite being a pre-event amateur fight, grabbed national sports headlines in Japan due to Sakaguchi's relation to his famous and ever-popular father.

Sakaguchi has trained in judo, karate and Brazilian jiu-jitsu over the past few years, and when the Sakaguchi Dojo opened in October of 2005, Sakaguchi began trained mixed martial arts with Pancrase veterans such as Daisuke Ishii (Pictures), Ryushi Yanagisawa and Kousei Kubota (Pictures). In May, Sakaguchi told the media that he hoped one day to fight in organizations such as HERO'S.

His father Seiji talked with Pancrase president Masami Ozaki this past August in regards to Sakaguchi fighting in Pancrase. At the end of August, Yukio underwent a fight evaluation at P's LAB Tokyo with head instructor Yoshinori Umeki at the Sakaguchi Dojo. Sakaguchi was easily able to take Umeki down, secure back-control, and submit him with a rear-naked choke. As a result, Sakaguchi was able to compete as an amateur in Pancrase.

With the public interest in Sakaguchi and his obvious crossover appeal, Pancrase undoubtedly has a keen interest in seeing Sakaguchi succeed. A successful debut fight for Sakaguchi would give Pancrase the opportunity to continue to build him as a fighter, making him a potential key player in the success of 2007's Pancrase tour.

In the midst of a rebuilding era for the organization, with a myriad of new champions and challengers, Sakaguchi would provide a very compelling figure and thus a valuable draw to an organization in need of star power that’s looking to grab the attention of not only fight fans, but the general public.

Kikuta catches criticism from blog browsers

While some may be happy to see GRABAKA leader Sanae Kikuta (Pictures) head back to PRIDE as part of the Bushido series on November 5, there are a vocal contingent of fans that have criticized Kikuta's return to the ring.

The 35-year-old Kikuta has competed only once in roughly the last two years, taking a lackluster unanimous decision over Olympic gold medal judoka Makoto Takimoto (Pictures) this past New Year's Eve. However, Dream Stage Entertainment revealed this past week that Kikuta would return to the ring and compete for the first time at 183-pounds against France's Jean Francois Lenogue (Pictures) at the November 5 Bushido Welterweight Grand Prix finale at Yokohama Arena, alongside his GRABAKA partners Kazuo Misaki (Pictures) and Akihiro Gono (Pictures).

With the announcement of the bout on his personal blog, Kikuta has received some harsh comments from fans for accepting the fight. Kikuta stated that he hopes to be able to show the strength of GRABAKA by notching a victory alongside Misaki and Gono, however the dissenters have stated that if Kikuta truly wanted to show the strength of GRABAKA, he would focus on training and aiding Misaki and Gono for their Grand Prix bouts, rather than taking a seemingly meaningless fight against "an obscure foreigner.”

Kikuta's motivation for the bout may reside within Lenogue having drawn Yuki Kondo (Pictures) this month in Pancrase. In recent years, Kikuta has become more highly selective of whom and when he fights, refusing several offers to fight in PRIDE. Much of Kikuta's time has been focused on training the GRABAKA team and building the GRABAKA gym.

However, Kikuta does have a rivalry with Kondo, whom he is winless against in two encounters. And perhaps a win over the relatively unknown Lenogue, who has at least speciously proven to be Kondo's equal, will give some satisfaction to the GRABAKA front man whose fighting days may be soon over.

Match-ups mishaps for "Mega Megu" to materialize again?

As usual when she is scheduled to compete, Smackgirl's promoters have now begun the arduous task of finding an opponent for Megumi Fujii (Pictures).

Fujii is slated to compete at Smackgirl's November 29 card at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, and promoters are actively and openly searching for an opponent to face the female superstar. Fujii has reportedly agreed to fight at a weight contract up to 119 pounds, which will offer her a change from her last bout in June, when she took on Tama-Chan, who outweighed her by somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 pounds, at a 135 pound weight contract. Fujii won the bout by submission in only 53 seconds.

The most decorated female grappler in all of Japan — boasting countless national titles in sambo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and submission grappling — Fujii has found great success in MMA and sports a 7-0 record. However, with her laurels and accomplishments also comes the problem of finding opponents who are both suitable in skill but still willing to fight.

Shooto promoters have struggled severely to find opponents for "Mega Megu" in the past, often being forced to settle for women are game to fight but in no way adequate to compete against Fujii, such as Holland's then-17-year-old Nadia van der Wel (Pictures) and unknown Korean competitor Dah Le Chong.

This kind of intense scouring for opponents is not necessarily unique to Fujii. DEEP boss Shigeru Saeki has had difficulty signing females to fight against another grappling and MMA queen Satoko Shinashi (Pictures), and has employed an open application system to procure opponents. Now Smackgirl is on the clock to find a worthy opponent for arguably the most talented female in mixed martial arts.

"CRUSHER" calls out Calvancanti for next Shooto title defense

While calling out another fighter may come as a surprise coming from Tatsuya Kawajiri (Pictures), the Shooto world 154-pound champion vocalized his preference for his next title defense — and his choice certainly offers a tantalizing prospect to MMA fans.

After a quick and dirty dispatching of Sweden's Per Eklund (Pictures) in the main event of Shooto's Champion Carnival on October 14, Kawajiri told the fight media that he planned on returning to the Shooto ring next February, where he would likely defend his Shooto world title.

While logical thought would suggest that Kawajiri would want to resolve his unfinished business with Joachim Hansen (Pictures) after their bout this past February which ended in a mere eight seconds after an unceremonious kick to Kawajiri's groin, Kawajiri suggested that he wanted to face "JZ" Gesias Calvancanti (Pictures), who was recently crowned the HERO'S 154-pound tournament champion at the Yokohama Arena.

Calvancanti has been arguably the biggest breakout star in all of mixed martial arts this year, going from a virtual unknown to establishing himself as an elite caliber lightweight as he blazed through the bracket of the 154-pound HERO'S tournament. However, "JZ" is no stranger to Shooto. Calvancanti is the Shooto Americas 154-pound champion, and is currently ranked seventh in the Shooto world rankings.

While it seems unlikely that Shooto would award a title shot to a fighter ranked seventh in the Shooto world rankings, the magnitude of a match-up between Kawajiri and Calvancanti, as well as recognition of Calvancanti as the Shooto Americas champion, may convince Shooto promoters to attempt to put together the seemingly implausible bout for February 2007.

Most importantly, if the bout were to happen, it may set an interesting precedent in terms of providing the MMA world with a middle ground to explore match-ups between PRIDE Bushido and K-1 HERO'S competitors, which would be unthinkable otherwise.