TOKYO, Japan, Mar. 4 — Shooto's 2007 Rookie Tournament series kicked off today with the exciting Gutsman Shooto Dojo promoted card, "Otoko wa tsuyoi yo" (a play off of the popular long-running series of movies, "Otoko wa tsurai yo"*) at the now-established Shooto Class B hotspot, Kitazawa Town Hall.

The evening's main event pitted Gutsman Shooto Dojo's Akihiro Murayama against Taijutsu Soho's Seiji Furukawa in a rare Shooto light heavyweight bout. After a brief exchange in the opening moments of the bout, Murayama managed to get side-control off of a trip takedown from the clinch where he quickly secured "Jyuuza's" right arm for a keylock.

It wasn't long before Furukawa's arm was being stretched far enough back for the referee to first call a catch, followed only seconds later by a stop, giving Murayama the victory at a mere 39 seconds in the first round.

Given his lightning quick performance, a happy Murayama commented post-fight about what may be his imminent promotion to Class A, where he would have the opportunity to represent Japan in a weight class oftentimes dominated by foreigners, and made a parting entreaty to the Shooto Commission to use him for an upcoming Shooto event at Korakuen Hall.

In what was arguably the fight of the night and the card's most compelling match outside of its rookie tournament bouts, X-ONE Shonan Gym's Yuuki Shoujou brought the fight to crafty Paraestra Hachioji black belt, Ayumu Shioda, in a classic match-up between grappler and striker. The first round saw Shioda clinching with his opponent in order to pull guard — a tactic both meant to nullify Shoujou's advantage on the feet and to set up submission opportunities from the bottom. Tying up Shoujou's hands, "GOZO" quickly set up the rubber-guard for a gogoplata attempt, getting so far as locking one leg under Shoujou's chin.

It may be safe to say that given the gogoplata's recent surge in popularity, it was apparent to Shoujou that this was no position to be in when fighting a grappler, and thus struggled to extricate himself, bringing the fight back to standing. Undeterred, Shioda pressed in to pull guard once more, but again, Shoujou was able to escape and stand, where he was able to deliver a series of hard kicks to the left leg of the grappler while he lay on the mat.

Shioda's third attempt to pull guard and bring it to the ground was met with an even worse fate as Shoujou punished him with heavy strikes to the face — strikes that were hard enough to send the Paraestra black belt squirming out of the ring momentarily, before being saved by the bell.

The second period began with GOZO landing on his back from a missed flying knee, once again giving Shoujou the opportunity to soften Shioda's legs with kicks. Not waiting for the referee to stand him up, GOZO hopped back to his feet where he proceeded to engage Shoujou with combinations and the next potential guard-pull. Before finding any kind of success however, a heavy right straight from the X-ONE rep put Shioda out for good at 2:45 into the second round.

Purebred Omiya's Mateus Irie Nechio (Pictures), recently notable for winning ADCC Japan's Kanto qualifiers in the absolute division, was subject to a surprising loss via heelhook to SUBMIT Shizuoka's Akira Yamazaki at 1:38 in the first round.

At the opening of the bout, a failed takedown attempt off of a hard Yamazaki low-kick put Nechio in the bottom position. All appeared to be going according to Nechio's plan however, as he quickly pulled a leg up to lock Yamazaki in what looked to be a tight triangle attempt. Having patiently fought through the submission to an eventual escape, Yamazaki found himself in trouble once more as Nechio moved then to attack an exposed leg. Following his opponent, Yamazaki attacked Nechio's leg as well, and in the ensuing battle of leglocks, managed to beat out the ADCC qualifier at his own game, forcing him to tap.

This win puts Yamazaki into the middleweight rookie tournament semifinal against the winner of the April 21 match-up between Hiroshi Konishi and Daisuke Okumiya.

Gutsman Shooto Dojo representative Yuji Inoue stopped Purebred Omiya's "Tesshin Nankaiou" (Nobuyuki Minami) in their lightweight bout with cut-inducing strikes for the TKO victory at 3:21 in the second round.

While both men appeared to have the same ideas, it was Inoue's offense that stood out of the two. The bout's duration saw both men mixing it up in the clinch, with Inoue delivering crushing knees to the mid-section of Nankaiou, whose knees to the legs were not nearly as damaging. A brief tussle on the ground saw much of the same results, with Inoue working hard strikes from the top, while Nankaiou did his best to attempt some of his own offense from guard, peppering Inoue with strikes from the bottom position. Naturally, gravity proved Inoue's punches the more effective of the two, however.

Round two saw both men trading up knees from the clinch once again before a crushing Inoue combo that both dropped Nankaiou and opened a fight-ending cut over his left eye, forcing the referee to stop the bout at 3:21.

Featherweights Naoki Yahagi and Hiromasa Ougikubo of Purebred Omiya and Paraestra Matsudo, respectively, fought to a unanimous draw after two back-and-forth rounds. Ougikubo, a favorite for this year's featherweight rookie tournament, sought to impress with a win over 2006 rookie tournament participant Yahagi in what would be one of the evening's non-tournament bouts. Yahagi, however, had other plans, chief amongst which was to knock his opponent out.

After a first round spent under the control of Ougikubo's side-mount — where he was subject to hammerfists to the face and bruising knees to the ribs — Yahagi brought vengeance in the form of fully-loaded punch combinations in the second round, teeing off on the fatigued grappler between takedown attempts. With one round going to either man, all three judges ruled the bout a draw after two periods.

Mach Dojo's Tomonari Taniguchi appeared to have his lightweight bout with Gutsman's Shintaro Ishiwatari (Pictures) in hand when he apparently abandoned his game plan of grappling control to trade blows with his opponent, resulting in his downfall. Though it was clear from the outset that Ishiwatari had little answer to Taniguchi's takedowns, he certainly had more than enough to put Taniguchi away on the feet.

After controlling Ishiwatari for the first half of round one, Taniguchi chose to strike with his opponent after a referee stand-up, resulting in him falling to powerful Ishiwatari punches that put him on his back. Smelling blood, Ishiwatari followed with two unanswered strikes to the head before the referee was able to charge in and declare a knockdown.

Upon answering the eight-count however, Taniguchi appeared to be so dizzy that he could not find the direction of the referee addressing him. Noticing then how battered Taniguchi's face was, the referee brought him to a ring corner to be checked by a doctor. Determining that the Mach Dojo representative was unfit to continue fighting in his current state, the bout was called, giving Ishiwatari the TKO win at 3:41 into the first round.

In this year's first bantamweight rookie tournament bout, Yosuke Ebihara (Pictures) of Paraestra Matsudo took out Mach Dojo fighter Yuichiro Takase via rear-naked choke at 1:40 in round one. Wasting no time at all, Ebihara charged Takase with a takedown attempt, quickly securing his back and throwing his arms into choke position. A bewildered Takase had just enough wits about him to tuck his chin and tie up Ebihara's hands, but Ebihara would not be denied, muscling through the defenses. His insistence soon paid off, as he was able to get his arm under Takase's chin in order to secure the choke, forcing Mach Dojo fighter's face to go a light shade of purple before the tap.

Ebihara's victory puts him on track to meet the winner of the Kenji Hosoya and Fumihiro Kitahara match-up, later this Spring.

In the evening's welterweight rookie tournament bout, Kunio Nakajima of Mach Dojo drew with Shinobu Miura of WK TIGER PLACE in a back-and-forth battle. While Nakajima had the majority of better strikes coupled with superior grappling control in the first round, Miura was able to return in second with heavy strikes of his own, getting the better of Nakajima and winning him the round.

With all three judges scored the bout 19-19, both fighters were forced draw envelopes in order to see which would advance to the quarterfinals. Nakajima, by merit of the lucky draw, will be the one facing Paraestra Sapporo's Michiyuki Ishibashi (Pictures), later this year.

* The evening's event, entitled "Otoko wa tsuyoi yo," essentially means "men are strong." It is a play off of the popular, long-running Japanese series of movies entitled, "Otoko wa tsurai yo," which, in the context of the films, means, "it's tough being a man."