SHOOTO’s Mamoru Wins at Shinjuku Face

Also through the night SHOOTO presented two Rookie of the Year tournament finals in the featherweight and middleweight divisions.

The first of the rookie finals placed Wajiu-tsu sensation K-Taro Nakamura against Yoshiyuki Yoshida from the classic Tokyo Yellow Man gym.

Nakamura, an early favorite to take the tournament, struggled in the first minutes to pass through Yoshida’s restless striking and clinch control. In the last minute of the first round Nakamura found an opening and through some hard clinch work managed to take Yoshida’s back and sunk a rear-naked choke. Yoshida, however, survived after some struggle.

At the first minute of the second round an unfortunate incident happened when Nakamura was backing to the ropes after eating some punches. Yoshida kept pushing forward and at the moment to step in both fighters’ heads clashed, with Yoshida receiving the short end of the stick with a huge cut over his forehead.

With too much blood pouring out the doctor and referee called the fight and the decision was for the judges to score the fight up until this moment in the bout. K-Taro earned the majority decision (20-19, 20-20 and 20-19).

In the other final of the rookie tournament, but this time in the featherweight division, former ADCC Japan trials champion Tetsu Suzuki (Pictures) faced heavy hitter Takeya Mizugaki (Pictures) in a stand-up war.

While I really enjoy Suzuki’s antics with the costume entrances and the “flesh color” trunks that make it look like he’s fighting naked, I also noticed a certain “mistake” within Suzuki’s game, which is to follow and engage his opponents in a standing battle while it’s clear his striking is not as strong as his grappling game.

This was showed once again today with Mizugaki out-striking him in every exchange; Suzuki’s chin played a big factor to save the day. On the other side, Suzuki’s takedown are not “world class” so we have here a bad combination of skills against a good sprawler and counter-striker like Mizugaki, who also happens to be smart enough to avoid or briefly engage someone with ADCC credentials like Suzuki.

At the end the judges scored 20-18, 20-17 and 20-18 for unanimous decision to Mizugaki.

The rest of the card consisted of two welterweight bouts under Class B SHOOTO rules between Mizuto Hirota and Kabuto Kokage, and Wataru Miki and Koumei Okada (Pictures). Both Miki and Hirota took home the unanimous decision.

The opening match of the night placed Masatoshi Kobayashi (Pictures) against Kyotaro Nakao (Pictures), with the fight stopped early at 3:36 into the first round thanks to doctor and referee stoppage after a cut on Nakao.