11/1 Sengoku - Gomi Fighting!

It has been said that Gomi needed to be on this card in order to fill Saitama Super Arena, that might very well be true. Today it was announced that he is fighting, he is facing Sergey Golyaev, a new name for me (even though he fought Hellboy in 2004) and a guy that has not fought since December 2006 (according to Sherdog's fight finder). Most of his fights are in M-1 and it will be interesting to see if he poses a threat to Gomi. He was the Russian Muay Thai champion in 2000/2001 according to the Sengoku information.

Fabio Silva is returning to the ring, he is probably best known (depending on who you ask) as a Wanderlei Silva look alike, but he is a good fighter and against King Mo I would say that anything can happen. Silva has the experience, but the question is if that's enough... I would have favored Wiuff for the same reason... Silva is also giving away a bit of size in this one.

This event is looking very strong, and there is the possibility of an 11th fight. NoB is saying someone familiar to Japan and hasn't fought here (in Japan) for about 2years... There are lots of fighters that fall into that category and I don't want to speculate but there are a few names that stick out from the last couple of Pride events.

Announced today:
Takanori Gomi 29-3-0 vs. 10-6-0 Sergey Golyaev
Middleweight GP Reserve Fight: Izuru Takeuchi 25-9-6 vs. 40-12-0 Joe Doerksen
King Mo 1-0-0 vs. 11-4-0 Fabio Silva

That makes the card look like this:

Middleweight GP:
Final: Winner Sasaki/Nakamura vs. Winner Santiago/Bahadurzada

Semi-Finals:
Yuki Sasaki 22-14-1 vs. 12-8-0 Kazuhiro Nakamura
Jorge Santiago 18-7-0 vs. 14-3-1 Siyar Bahadurzada
Reserve Fight: Izuru Takeuchi 25-9-6 vs. 40-12-0 Joe Doerksen

Lightweight GP:
Final: Winner Kitaoka/Mitsuoka vs. Winner Yokota/Hirota

Semi-Finals
Satoru Kitaoka 21-8-9 vs. 14-5-2 Eiji Mitsuoka
Kazunori Yokota 7-1-3 vs. 10-2-0 Mizuto Hirota
Reserve Fight: Bang Seung Hwan 5-2-0 vs. 14-3-0 Jorge Masvidal

Non-GP Fights:
Takanori Gomi 29-3-0 vs. 10-6-0 Sergey Golyaev
"King Mo" Muhammed Lawal 1-0-0 vs. 11-4-0 Fabio Silva

Yesterday NoB posted some interesting rumors. I have not seen them confirmed anywhere, but would it would be interesting if they were true. KJ Noons vs. Nick Diaz in Japan… NoB is speculating that it will be in Sengoku, I would agree… DREAM would probably put Diaz against Sakurai, as they were intending first. But let’s see.