« Saturday fight slate: Josh Barnett wins again in Japan | Home | Sunday night update (12/23/2007) »
Calvan vs. Aoki officially canceled
By Zach Arnold | December 23, 2007
Sherdog’s Friday news report about the JZ Calvan vs. Shin’ya Aoki 12/31 Saitama Super Arena fight being canceled has been officially verified by the producers of the Yarennoka event. Both Calvan and Aoki appeared at a makeshift press conference at the DEEP gym to address the media regarding the match cancellation.
While the Aoki/Calvan fight was not likely going to be a big-money draw in Japan, it was easily the best bout on paper in terms of expected match quality for the Saitama event. Aoki is expected to fight on the card, but now the search is on for a new opponent. The event is now at six matches officially booked:
- Fedor Emelianenko vs. Choi Hong-Man
- Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Kazuo Misaki
- Mitsuhiro Ishida vs. Gilbert Melendez
- Hayato “Mach” Sakurai vs. Hidehiko Hasegawa
- Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Luiz Azeredo
- Murilo Bustamante vs. Makoto Takimoto
Topics: HERO's, Japan, K-1, Media, MMA, PRIDE, Zach Arnold | 13 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
You are forgetting that Takimoto vs Bustamante was announced as well.
Ed. — Thanks for the reminder.
Crud! I was really, really looking forward to that. Good to hear Aoki will still be in action, I wonder who they can throw at him last minute?
I wonder how long they knew the fight wasn’t going to happen before they felt obligated to tell us about it.
I also wonder how the japanese promoters get away with things like this time and time again.. late bookings.. fight that don’t happen etc..
Is there no backlash from the japanese media or fans? Imagine a big american promoter pulling shit like this.. they would be crucified.
I totally agree with comment #2, they better find an opponent for Aoki!!
New Japan Pro-wrestling under the leadership of Simon Inoki used to announce cards for there Jan 4th Dome shows and then the card would get changed and matches pulled etc. The fans didnt appreciate this and New Japan suffered as the fans got sick and tired of being screwed around.
Melendez and Aoki, both on an NYE card for the 2nd year in a row, not fighting each other…..
things like this make Baby Jesus cry….
Mark my words……Aoki vs. Hunt!!!!!
man that stinks……….i hate those kind of hoaks – they know it long ago but they just keep the ravishment……….should be one of the fights of the year
To be fair, it seemed to be Calvan’s camp responsible for the fight being axed.
I forgot that Aoki was supposed to fight Melendez back in the day… that would have been a great fight.
Aoki vs. Giant Silva, most likely.
It’s most likely going to be Aoki vs. Kitaoka I think. Saeki owes him one because of the Bushido GP that never was.
Well, there goes my biggest reason to watch this card. Akiyama vs. Misaki is a decent fight, and Ishida vs. Melendez is pretty good, but other than that it’s very lackluster.
In my opinion, this card is worse than UFC 78.
Kitaoka and Aoki are good friends and training partners. I doubt they’ll fight each other.
I’m still hearing that Roman Zentsov vs. Mike Russow is a done deal, and I wouldn’t be shocked if they booked another lower-profile fight to fill things out.