Ishii Is Coming

satoshi ishii will take over HW MMA in the next few years


he is going to be having his first fight within the next year and will probably be fighting in the US :(

hed be far better off in japan moneywise but for some reason hes pretty determined to fight in the us


seems that hes considering affliction now (which may not be great for him, they try to put on cards that contain only competitive fights) but says the UFC is still his main option


i dont know if the UFC will try to build him, i think hed be best off in sengoku, as they are willing to build fighters (DREAM is the exact opposite, as its essentially PRIDE, and likes to just throw guys in against big names, they actually tried to get ishii to fight fedor at NYE (08), but ishii ultimately decided to wait to go pro and fedor was told by affliction they didnt want him fighting in japan on NYE while he was scheduled to headline an event for them in january)


whereever he goes he will dominate, he won the gold medal in judo at the beijing olympics, and his judo is criticized as being 'too rough'


hes huge and looks like hed be able to take a punch

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there is a promotion that will be running (i think weekly) shows on ESPN deportes

i like what i have seen of this alot, it seems they want to do tournaments, and do them in a seasonal style

i think what they plan to do is have 1 round each week


they have confirmed that eddie alvarez and jorge masvidal will participate in their first tournament, they have also signed wilson reis to an exclusive deal


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DREAM and sengoku will both have FWGPs this year

i was hoping to see inoue hioki and imanari all in the DREAM GP, but hioki is now confirmed as being in the sengoku GP (and imanari im assuming is in the DREAM GP, im pretty sure DREAM intended to do imanari vs kid yammamatto at the NYE show, but yamamatto was pulled off the card and imanari (who was at the initail press conference for the event) was left off the card without any mention, at least none that i saw)


i think inoue has a fight scheduled soon, but if he wanted to be in one of the GPs i doubt either promotion would turn him down

DREAM has decided to use some of the DEEP shows (and i think a few other smaller promotions shows) as qualifiers for their GP

nakamura has said he wants to fight misaki

there are also rumors that cro cop is gonna end up back in the UFC