Preview: Shooto 'Tradition 5'

The Undercard The Shooto “Tradition 5” undercard lacks the usual intrigue and potential pop and sizzle of your typical Sustain-promoted Shooto show for two distinct reasons.

First, the last crop of Class B up-and-comers on the road to Class A legitimacy have been promoted, and now fighters like Shintaro Ishiwatari and Hiroshi Nakamura are main card fodder. Secondly, and most crucially, the always eye-opening and often eye-popping annual Shooto rookie tournament series does not kick off until Jan. 31, when Gutsman Shooto Dojo promotes the seventh installment of its popular Shooting Disco series.

Nevertheless, in a quest for a Class A license, one-time Dream last-minute replacement Junya Kudo will take on the reliably exciting Takahiro Hosoi in a 132-pound scrap. This sort of a fight -- where both athletes are aggressive punchers but neither holds a distinct advantage -- has the makings of a close decision or dreaded draw. If someone does have a slight advantage, it’s Kudo, who has shown a more solid ability to get top position and use his fists, along with more economy of motion and wealth of power when he uses his punches. Expect entertainment but not closure and clean resolution on the scorecards, unless Kudo puts together his best performance to date.

In an interesting pairing of 168-pounders, former Shooto rookie champion Akihiro Yamazaki meets South Korean jiu-jitsu practitioner Yon Se Son -- a curious inclusion in this new Shooto foreign policy. Short of a miracle, Yamazaki should be looking at an easy evening of work. While he’s far from perfectly well-rounded, Yamazaki has shown natural power in his striking and a willingness to mix it up to compliment an aggressive, go-for-the-kill submission style that has allowed him to tap some stalwart grapplers in his career. Unless the South Korean import is UFC welterweight Dong Hyun Kim hiding under a mask, Yamazaki’s exciting aggression should earn him a stoppage against his curiously underqualified opponent.

It will look like a grappling match has broken out in the history faculty library when bookish elder statesmen Jin Akimoto and Ayumu Shioda meet in a bit of 123-pound matchmaking sophistry. While the fight would seem well-made due to both fighters being aggressive, technical grapplers closing in on 40 years of age, the style matchup is not a great one. Neither fighter is a markedly better wrestler, which will either force a stand-up battle -- where neither fighter has any real goods to offer -- or allow both to get takedowns. The latter will only spark a stalemate on the ground, where Akimoto’s diving for leglocks will be thwarted by the Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Shioda, who will have trouble working his guard passing to take the back of the 14-year vet Akimoto. Unless the stars line up for a scramblefest, expect the MMA equivalent of the acid-base reaction and a draw.

Batting leadoff for the evening, Hayato Sakurai student Tomonori Taniguchi -- fresh off a victorious MMA vacation in Guam -- will look to right his ship further in a rematch with Rumina Sato protégé Sakae Kasuya, who took a unanimous decision against him in July 2006. Neither featherweight has the game of his mentor -- Taniguchi is a relatively one-dimensional brawler, and Kasuya is an ironically cautious top-position grappler. Although Taniguchi is the fighter with the dynamic skills and the power to put away Kasuya, look for Kasuya to use a painfully conservative top position game to grind down Taniguchi and take a close, pedestrian decision, which will do little to validate the amount of sponsorships his Sato connection has garnered him.