Rumina Sato defeated Katsuya Toida by KO (Punch) 1:21 2R
As I wrote, tonight's card was awesome. But I don’t have enough vocabulary to write about the entire thing, and in Japan we have only 23 hours in a day (don’t believe me). So let me cut through some of the fights.
Let’s go to Rumina Sato versus Katsuya Toida. This fight itself could be the main event of some Korakuen Hall show. Rumina Sato is the fighter about which Sherdog wrote in Japanese Martial Arts Magazine early this year: “He is now winding down in his career. But he is still one of the most exciting fighters in the world today for the first round.” Yes, he is a very exciting fighter. But now he’s very exciting not only in first round, but also in the second round, too. He knocked out Toida, who was ranked No. 8.
Rumina, yes, he went down to the bottom of the sport once, as my mentor Mike Sloan picked him as “Fighter who should have retired 2003." (Yeah, Rumina’s record in ’03 was not funky. I agreed with him that time). And I think he was completely out of confidence. Since he lost against Caol Uno, Rumina’s losses stick out more than the wins in his fight record. But now he’s getting his way back to the top, again.
Three straight victories by finishing his opponents off. Let’s look at the SHOOTO ranking which shows his future opponents: No. 7 Jens Pulver; No. 6 Makoto Ishikawa (who just defeated No. 4 Hiroyuki Abe tonight); No. 5 Naoya Uematsu (Rumina’s teammate); No. 3 Stephen Paling; No. 2 Joao Roque; No. 1 Hiroyuki Takaya (SHOOTO "new schooler" who high-kick KO'd Paling); and champion Alexandre Franca Nogueira.
Wow, looks like his path is set on the edge of a razor-sharp sword. Or maybe he’ll just fight some "cans" next, and keep winning. Because if his win, the crowd got hyped. His resurgence may be good for SHOOTO's promotion.
(No, I’m kidding, he won’t fight no-names because he is The Charisma of SHOOTO. And nobody can cheat SHOOTO fans. SHOOTO fans know who’s real and who’s not. Yes, Rumina is still the Charisma of SHOOTO. Everybody wants him to win. To be honest, personally, when he was walking toward the ring, I thought “Oh Boy, he can lose this fight. But I just want to see him every SHOOTO show." He’s that classy. I wonder if Mr. Dana White is still a fan of Rumina Sato. He’s still somebody in the Japanese fight scene.)
Aside from Rumina’s fight tonight, here in Japan they're about to release Rumina Sato’s 10th anniversary DVD on December 18. It contains all of his bouts -- win and loses; more than 30 fights, as well as several grappling matches. Looks like a very cool DVD, but everything costs an arm and a leg in this country. Can’t pay $60 for one DVD. Or, maybe I can pay that much if this DVD is four hours long. Starting tomorrow, I gotta cut my lunch budget.
