Saturday, July 16, 2011, Dream - Fight for Japan went live from Ariake Coliseum in Tokyo, Japan, with 8,124 fans in attendance to take-in the event. The show featured two championship bouts as Gegard Mousasi and Hiroyuki Takaya put their promotion straps on the line against Hiroshi Izumi and Kazuyuki Miyata respectively. Also on the card, Hideo Tokoro and Masakazu Imanari battled to a decision, deciding the winner of the 2011 Japan Bantamweight Grand Prix.Mousasi (31-3-2) was simply too much for the former Olympian Izumi (4-2-0), as the Armenian's boxing was the difference in this one. Mousasi stopped the still-green Izumi on strikes at 3:29 of round 1, notching the 18th [T]KO of his professional career. After the fight, Mousasi indicated a deep interest in making the Olympics himself for boxing, and also suggested he would likely appear next this fall under the Strikeforce banner.
Takaya's (16-9-1) night proved to be a sterner test, as the featherweight champion was involved in a back and forth affair with Miyata (11-8-0) over 20 minutes that resulted in a split decision victory. It was Takaya's first title defense since capturing the DREAM belt in September of 2010. Meanwhile, Hideo Tokoro (30-23-1) walked away a happy man as he was crowned the 2011 Japan Bantamweight Grand Prix champion when he defeated submission specialist Masakazu Imanari (23-9-2) by unanimous decision.
In other action over the weekend, Chinese promotion Legend Fighting Championships held Legend FC 5, Saturday night at Macau’s City of Dreams where Auckland, New Zealand native and welterweight champion Rodney MacSwain (12-4-0) had his hands full with Korean, Myung Ho Bae (12-5-0). Bae used superior grappling to control where the match took place and wore down his foe over three hard fought rounds to take a unanimous decision on the judges cards. With the win, Bae improves to 4-0 under the Legend FC banner and hasn't been defeated since his KO defeat to Marius Zaromskis at DREAM 12 in October of 2009.
Full Results for both events can be found below:
Dream:
1 Eiji Mitsuoka def. Bruno Carvalho via Decision (Unanimous) rd2 5:00
2 Marius Zaromskis def. Eiji Ishikawa via Decision (Unanimous) rd2 5:00
3 Tatsuya Mizuno def. Trevor Prangley via KO (Knee to the Body) rd1 4:41
4 Kenji Osawa def. Keisuke Fujiwara via Decision (Unanimous) rd2 5:00
5 Tatsuya Kawajiri def. Drew Fickett via TKO (Punches) rd1 4:41
6 Gegard Mousasi def. Hiroshi Izumi via TKO (Punches) rd1 3:29
7 Hideo Tokoro def. Masakazu Imanari via Decision (Unanimous) rd2 5:00
8 Hiroyuki Takaya def. Kazuyuki Miyata via Decision (Split) rd3 5:00
Legend FC:
1 Sung Ming Yen def. Vincent Siu via Submission (Rear-Naked Choke) rd1 N/A
2 Fransino Tirta def. Chengjie Wu via Decision (Unanimous) rd3 5:00
3 Mark Striegl def. Yusuke Kawanago via Decision (Split) rd3 5:00
4 Jingliang Li def. Alex Niu via Decision (Unanimous) rd3 5:00
5 Yui Chul Nam def. Rob Hill via TKO (Punches) rd2 1:12
6 Honggang Yao def. Nam Jin Jo via Decision (Unanimous) rd3 5:00
7 Myung Ho Bae def. Rodney MacSwain via Decision (Unanimous) rd3 5:00
Follow us on twitter @mmacombatDOTcom
facebook @ http://www.facebook.com/update_secur...63733427002469
youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/mmacomba...m?feature=mhum
Blogger: http://mmacombatdotcom.blogspot.com/
And on Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/mmacombatdotcom
