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Hidehiko Yoshida vs. Sanae Kikuta booked for Sengoku 1/4 Saitama event
By Zach Arnold | November 17, 2008
On a marketing and interest level, this is not an appealing main-event match. It is an even stranger booking decision when you consider the following:
Kikuta last fought in June against Chris Rice on the Sengoku 3 show. Yet, he is ‘rewarded’ with the main event slot against Yoshida? When this fight happens, it will be Kikuta’s third fight in the last two years.
Further compounding the absurdity is Takanori Gomi facing Satoru Kitaoka in a top slot on the same card, right after Gomi lost to Sergey Golyaev in a lackluster display of fighting spirit on the same 11/1 Saitama show.
Topics: Japan, MMA, Media, Sengoku, Zach Arnold | | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Yoshida’s opponent is Sanae Kikuta? Is that the best they can come up with? And isn’t he much smaller than Yoshida? Yoshida was absolutely destroyed by Josh Barnett and it the beating was just brutal. It’s questionable whether he should even be fighting after the beatings that he has taken and the Barnett beating in particular.
It is also ridiculous that the title match is Kitaoka vs. Gomi instead of Kitaoka vs. Golyaev. I know that the survival of the company is dependent on the ratings of the January 4th show, but it’s still ridiculous to have Kitaoka vs. Gomi as a title fight. They could have booked Gomi against someone else in a non-title fight, while still booking Kitaoka vs. Golyaev in a title fight. Then, if Gomi wins impressively and if the company is still in business for another event, THEN maybe you could give him a title shot, but not right after a loss.
Yoshida didn’t really take a beating at all in the Barnett fight, and yeah, he should still be fighting because he’s the most popular fighter they have bby far.
I won’t be sad when this company folds. Hopefully their few top fighters will move over to DREAM.
Did you mean the Josh Thompson fight Ivan? The Barnett fight was more of a catch-wrestling/”real” UWF fight wasn’t it?
Yeah the barnett fight was pathetic. Barnett asked Yoshida three times if he was ‘okay’. Am I wrong to want my MMA fighters to give it their all regardless of the respect level between them?
The James Thompson fight was brutal, too, but not as much of a sustained beating for three rounds as the Barnett fight. You could tell that Barnett felt bad about brutalizing Yoshida (ie, asking “are you okay?” which I agree you shouldn’t do), but the beating kept on going.
“right after Gomi lost to Sergey Golyaev in a lackluster display of fighting spirit on the same 11/1 Saitama show.”
The fight was actually pretty good, and Gomi got robbed.
I think Golyaev was paid to lose that fight, and that is the only reason he didnt finish Gomi off.
[...] Hidehiko Yoshida vs. Sanae Kikuta booked for Sengoku 1/4 Saitama event [...]