TOKYO, June 2 -- Amidst the throngs of drunken university students celebrating the Waseda versus Keio weekend baseball tournament, Gutsman dojo, sanctioned by the Professional Shooto Commission, put on the first installment of it new event series, Shooting Disco, at Shinjuku FACE in the city's seedy red-light district.
This one was a real mismatch in terms of experience. Mamoru, who lost his Shooto 123-pound title to Shinichi Kojima (Pictures) last Oct., was fighting in Shooto when Shimokawa was still in high school. So wide was the gap that when the Shooting Gym Yokohama fighter was the featherweight champion prior to dropping weight and taking the bantamweight title, Shimokawa was still applying to fight in Shooto's Class C Amateur tournament.
Shimokawa has a decent wrestling and mat game, but unfortunately this alone is not enough, especially when the top four guys in the division -- Shinichi Kojima (Pictures), Mamoru Yamaguchi (Pictures), Masatoshi Abe (Pictures) and Yasuhiro Urushitani (Pictures) -- are such talented strikers.
The recently married Mamoru again showed that he has some of the best knees in the business, connecting hard shots to the ribs from the clinch that sent Shimokawa to the mat in the first. The K'z Factory fighter beat the count, but was in obvious pain and was never really the same from this point on.
Mamoru often sprawled Shimokawa's takedown attempts, firing punches down at his turtled opponent and maintaining dominate ground control. The former champion nearly had a rear-naked choke at the end of the second, while the third saw him continue to sprawl and pound his opponent from the top.
To his credit, Shimokawa dug deep and took the much more experienced Yamaguchi the distance. But the Afro-coifed striker was just to much for Shimokawa at this point in his career. The scorecards came back and Mamoru walked away with the unanimous decision.
Toshimichi Akagi (Pictures) faced off against Masaaki Sugawara (Pictures) in a return bout. The last time these two met, Akagi, who is now looking to acquire his Class A license, needed just 36 seconds to submit Sugawara with a heelhook in 2005's Rookie Tournament.
This time around, it was Sugawara's fists that did all the talking. The long-limbed fighter sprawled to defend Akagi's takedown attempts and used his considerable reach advantage to tag his opponent from the outside, connecting on some very impressive combinations.
Eventually Sugawara's right hand found the sweet spot on Akagi's chin, sending the Cobra Kai fighter to the canvas. Akagi beat the count, but Sugawara knew the end was near, rushing in on the restart and putting Akagi down for good with a flurry of punches at 4:27 of round one.
Shinobu Miura and Koumei Okada (Pictures) fought a pretty close fight. Both guys looked sharp and crisp on their feet, moving around the ring and throwing combinations, although Miura landed a higher percentage. Okada scored takedowns from the clinch, but really couldn't capitalize on them before his opponent worked his way back to his feet.
This one was pretty hard to call at the end of two rounds, but on this night luck must have been on Okada's side, as the judges awarded him the majority victory.
Masatoshi Kobayashi (Pictures) displayed some excellent wrestling, scoring all the takedowns in his bout against Yuuji Inoue. Kobayashi pounded his opponent from the top and even attempted an Achilles lock towards the end of the first.
Inoue couldn't really seem to get anything going, but rather was just reacting to the pressure Kobayashi brought down on him. His best attempt came in the second round, when he went for an armbar from the bottom, but he ended up in an awkward position where his opponent landed more punches.
The fight went the distance and Kobayashi walked away with the decision victory.
Takahiro Hosoi (Pictures) connected with a big knee to Naoki Yahagi halfway through the first, sending him stumbling to the mat, but the Purebred Omiya fighter quickly got to his feet and rallied back with punches before Hosoi could capitalize.
The second round saw Yahagi score the takedown and fire knees from side control. Eventually Yahagi scored mount, then transitioned to Hosoi's back as he worked to escape. Failing to sink in the rear-naked choke, Yahagi pounded his opponent from the guard for the last 10 seconds of the fight.
Despite all his effort, the judges were more impressed with Hosoi on this night, awarding him the unanimous victory.
Shintaro Ishiwatari (Pictures) knocked out "Yokosai" Toshihiko Yokoyama with ground punches from within the guard at 2:45 of the first.
Hiroshi Shiba defeated Guy Delameau (Pictures) via triangle choke at the 1:58 mark of the first round.