Sengoku Raiden Championship: What Every Fan Should Know

I realize that Japanese MMA is not something that’s followed in the states at nearly the same level it is in, well… Japan. Still, it’s worth taking a look ahead a couple of months to what will be an incredibly exciting event organized by World Victory Road.

The organization that puts on the Sengoku events will be putting on a large New Year’s Eve show that, while most fights remain unannounced at the moment, may feature a number of the world’s greatest competitors and definitely merit some attention (whether it gets that attention or not) from the internet media.

The card will feature a matchup between two Olympic gold medalists in judo. Pride veteran and 1992 gold medalist Hidehiko Yoshida(8-7-1 MMA) will take on 2008 heavyweight winner Satoshi Ishii (0-0 MMA) as Ishii looks to make his MMA debut.

There was a lot of speculation that Ishii was going to come to the UFC, but that quickly faded when he signed with World Victory Road with the intention of fighting in front of a home town crowd for a little while before making the jump across the Pacific. There has been a lot of speculation made about Ishii’s game, especially with respect to striking that many believe is suspect.

Yoshida is not known for his striking, and so that’s not something that will dramatically concern Ishii. That said, the last time (and only time) Yoshida fought an Olympic gold medalist, he got destroyed by 2000 Greco-Roman wrestling gold medalist and legendary Cinderella story Rulon Gardner (1-0 MMA). That said, Ishii’s a good deal smaller than Gardner and doesn’t necessarily have the quality of training that Gardner did with Team Quest. Though Ishii has done some work with top lightheavyweight Lyoto Machida (15-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC, #1 IWMMAR) and many other well known fighters.

Any time two world class athletes meet, it makes for an exciting fight, and Yoshida vs. Ishii should be no exception. What will be interesting is whether or not the two fighters wear the gi in competition. Yoshida has competed with his gi on through much of his career, even winning a bout early in his career by choking with the sleeves of the gi. Frankly, I’d like to see the two compete with the gi, to see the quality of judo that can be used in full contact, but it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.