American Top Team fighter Marcus Aurelio finally got his shot at the title after beating PRIDE lightweight champion Takanori Gomi (Pictures) in a non-title bout last April, but things didn’t turn out as the Brazilian had hoped.
Aurelio’s jab was fast as lighting, tagging the champion several times. Gomi, often switching his stance, replied with strikes of his own.
Gomi wanted nothing to do with Aurelio on the ground. Several times the American Top Team fighter ended up on his back after failed takedown attempts. Rather than follow him down, Gomi just kicked his Aurelio’s legs until the referee would stand the action back up.
Aurelio scored a clean takedown at the end of the first, then once again in the second, only to see the “Fireball Kid” work his way back to his feet. After sprawling away from another takedown attempt, Gomi refused to follow Aurelio to the ground despite his opponent’s taunting. The bout ended with the champion connecting with a hard kick to Aurelio's body just before the final bell.
The fight went to the judges and the lightweight champion retained his title, walking away with the split-decision.
Paraestra jiu-jitsu ace and Shooto middleweight champion Shinya Aoki (Pictures) was supposed to meet Gilbert Melendez (Pictures) in his second appearance in a PRIDE Bushido ring, but the Cesar Gracie (Pictures) lightweight had to pull out at the last minute due to a bad elbow injury. On short notice, American Clay French (Pictures) stepped up to fill the gap.
Aoki doesn’t have the greatest stand-up game in the world, as French showed by tagging the Shooto champion several times on the feet, but the guy does have an incredible ground arsenal. Once in the clinch, Aoki pulled guard, dragging French to the guard. From here he pulled his leg up French’s back — just like he did in his fight against Jason Black (Pictures) — and attempted to secure a triangle. French defended the technique and escaped to his feet.
It wasn’t long before Aoki was once again trying to catch French with his patented triangle and this time he sunk it in. After realizing that he couldn’t pull out, French stepped over to try to escape. This gave him a temporary reprieve, but eventually he lost his balance and Aoki rolled up on top of him, forcing all his weight into the triangle. At this point there was no escape and French tapped at 3:57 of round one.
Shooto Pacific Rim welterweight champion Mitsuhiro Ishida (Pictures) totally controlled the positioning in his bout against Sweden’s David Bielkheden (Pictures), keeping the tough European on his back most of the fight. Despite bridging hard several times and struggling to get out from the bottom, Bielkheden just couldn’t get the final few inches he needed to score the reversal.
Ishida kept his weight on the Swede by jumping from guard to half and then side-control. It just seemed like there was nothing Bielkheden could do to shake off Ishida, who was awarded a unanimous victory.