sengoku
World Victory Road is set to air its fourth installment early Sunday morning and will feature a lightweight grand prix and the return of its prized acquisition Takanori Gomi. Sengoku 4 goes down tomorrow, August 24 at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.

All fighters were able to make weight without incident.

“The Fireball Kid” is looking for his second straight win under the upstart promotion after stopping Duane “Bang” Ludwig at Sengoku: First Battle back in March.

Opposing him will be current DEEP lightweight champion Bang Sueng Hwan. The South Korean debuted in 2007 and is the winner of five straight.

Also headlining the card will be former UFC welterweight Frank Trigg. “Twinkle Toes” last competed at HDNet Fights: Reckless Abandon back in December when he submitted Edwin “Babyface” DeWees by kimura.

Here are the official weigh-in results for Sengoku 4 (converted from kilograms):

Main Card:

Takanori Gomi (153) vs Sung Hwan Pang (154)
Makoto Takimoto (180) vs Frank Trigg (180)
Peter Graham (244) vs Moise Rimbon (211)
Takahashi Kazuo (207) vs Valentijn Overeem (238)
Pawel Nastula (223) vs Yang Dong Yi (220)

Lightweight GP:

Clay French (153) vs Satoru Kitaoka (154)
Rodrigo Damm (153) vs Eiji Mitsuoka (153)
Bojan Kosednar (153) vs Kazunori Yokota (153)
Mizuto Hirota (153) vs Ryan Schultz (153)

The GP may not have any household names, but I’ll be keeping a close eye on Clay French, who has wins over some tough competitors like Jason Ireland and Mac Danzig. And how do you not root for a guy with a glass eye? Also watch out for Brazilian black-belt Rodrigo Damm, winner of eight straight including his last match at Sengoku: Third Battle.

The winner of the tomorrow’s grand prix is expected to face Gomi for a chance to become Sengoku’s first lightweight champion later this year.

Finally making his return to MMA is Olympic judo gold medalist Pawel Nastula, last seen competing at PRIDE 32 back in 2006. While his 1-3 record is nothing to brag about, three of his four fights were against some of the world’s best including Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, Aleksander Emelianenko and Josh Barnett.

That’s pretty stiff competition for anyone, let alone a fighter new to the world of mixed martial arts. Now he’s on the main card matched against a more suitable opponent in Yang Dong Yi, the young and dynamic DEEP fighter who has two straight first round TKO wins to start his career.

It will be interesting to see how fans receive the Sengoku lightweight grand prix considering how soon it’s being held after the DREAM lightweight GP.

While I’ve yet to hear any fans complain about having too much MMA, there may be an unspoken expectation for the Sengoku participants to try and outshine their crosstown rivals.

Bookmark and Share
August 23rd, 2008     Comments

RSS feed | Trackback URI

8 Comments »

Comment by mikeybear
2008-08-23 11:58:37

Gomi neess to come to the states and take a real fight…
Punk @ss

Comment by Sean_M
2008-08-23 14:15:09

I like how on Dream they said that BJ Penn is the #2 Lightweight in the world behind Gomi, but didn’t BJ beat Gomi?

Comment by rob
2008-08-23 16:17:04

bj destroyed gomi.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
Comment by Bill Maher
2008-08-23 16:05:21

I’d prefer him to go to DREAM, or DREAM to merge with WVR. Either way.

Comment by john
2008-08-23 17:11:27

Yeah, I* agree! Gomi is better off in Japan. THe lightweight division of the WORLD is so stacked that they need to keep the balance of power even between the USA and japan, meaning that I like how Japan has many top lightweights as does America.

I want Gomi to sign with DREAM or DREAM to merge with WVR like you said. So many great opponents for Gomi in Japan like:
JZ
Aoki
alvarez
Hellboy (rematch)
Diaz (rematch)
Kawajiri (rematch, 1st fight was amazing)

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
 
Comment by matt 88
2008-08-23 13:07:50

Is HDnet showing this fight?

Comment by Djs3467
2008-08-23 23:14:20

who care? Japanese MMA these days is about as exciting as the IFL was and look where they are now.

 
 
Comment by dazzles
2008-08-23 19:05:40

clay french has a glass eye? thats pretty gnarley

 
Name (required)
E-mail (required - never shown publicly)
URI
Your Comment (smaller size | larger size)
You may use <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> in your comment.

Trackback responses to this post



Buy UFC Tickets





Support MMAmania.com

Burn this Feed!

Enter your email address:

Add to Google Add to My AOL



Site Sponsors

Mar clothing



pro mma radio

hockey tickets

Categories

Advertisements



Mar clothing

hypoxico

Disclaimer

MMAmania.com is neither endorsed by nor affiliated with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). We are an independent news site devoted to the latest UFC headlines, rumors, gossip, fighter updates, and event previews and recaps. For entertainment purposes only.

BlogBurst.com Add to Technorati Favorites


 

Upcoming MMA Events

UFC 104
Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009
Los Angeles, California
DREAM 12
Sunday, Oct. 25, 2009
Osaka, Japan
Strikeforce
Saturday, Nov. 7, 2009
Hoffman Estates, Ill.
UFC 105
Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009
Manchester, England
WEC 44
Wed, Nov. 18, 2009
Las Vegas, Nevada
UFC 106
Saturday, Nov. 21, 2009
Las Vegas, Nevada
UFC 107
Saturday, Dec. 12, 2009
Memphis, Tennessee
UFC 108
Saturday, Jan. 2, 2010
Las Vegas, Nevada