It was already established that Sengoku’s lightweight and featherweight titles would be up for grabs on Aug. 2. Now, parent company World Victory Road has filled in all the necessary details.
WVR formalized four bouts for the August offering at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan, on Friday, announcing that lightweight champion
Satoru Kitaoka will defend his 154-pound crown against heavy hitter
Mizuto Hirota. Meanwhile, the Sengoku featherweight tournament will witness bracket favorite
Hatsu Hioki square off with ZST torchbearer
Masanori Kanehara and featherweight King of Pancrase
Marlon Sandro take on the surprise star of the tournament,
Michihiro Omigawa.
Also, in a middleweight title eliminator, Grabaka ace
Kazuo Misaki will square off with
Hidehiko Yoshida pupil
Kazuhiro Nakamura, with the right to challenge 183-pound champion
Jorge Santiago later this year at stake.
Kitaoka is now 5-0 since his arrival in the lightweight division last May but has not fought since winning the vacant crown against
Takanori Gomi in January. The submission stalwart is scheduled for a tune-up bout in his home promotion of Pancrase on June 7, where he will take on
Yukio Sakaguchi. Hirota, the GCM Cage Force lightweight champion, earned his title shot by virtue of his 93-second stoppage over Pride and Dream standout
Mitsuhiro Ishida in Shooto earlier this month.
Atypical for Japanese promotions, the Kitaoka-Hirota bout is scheduled for five five-minute rounds.
Hioki and Kanehara took much different paths to the semi-finals of Sengoku’s featherweight tournament in May, as Hioki rolled over Brit
Ronnie Mann in the first round and Kanehara won a razor-thin and much-disputed decision win over Korean brawler
Chan Sung Jung. Sandro and Omigawa, however, both impressed in their May bouts. The unbeaten Brazilian blew away previously undefeated
Nick Denis in 19 seconds, while Omigawa turned in his second straight upset by blitzing the favored
Nam Phan in the first round; Omigawa remains unbeaten as a featherweight.
Nakamura and Misaki share much in common heading into their 183-pound elimination bout, as both are coming off losses to current divisional champion Santiago. Nakamura was in the driver’s seat of their Sengoku middleweight tournament final last November, when Santiago punched him out just 49 seconds into the third and final frame. In January, Misaki was less two minutes away from becoming Sengoku's middleweight champion when Santiago struck again with last-round heroics, choking Misaki out cold with 94 seconds left in the fifth and final round to claim the vacant title.
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