April 25th, 2010: Farewell Yoshida! ASTRA Announced Nightmare Of Battle
The retirement match of Olympic gold medalist Hidehiko Yoshida has been announced. The fight will take place in J-Rock MMA event “Hidehiko Yoshida Farewell Fight ~ASTRA~” at the Nippon Budokan (14 000) on April 25th.
Also on the card will be Michihiro Omigawa, Makoto Takimoto, Kazuhiro Nakamura, and future king Tatsunao Nagakura.
No word yet on if this new ASTRA will be a new promotion or just a one time thing.
Update: Yoshida said at the press conference that his number 1 most interesting/fun fights were the ones against Wanderlei Silva. Both Japanese fighters and foreign fighters are on the candidate list.
Update #2: Yoshida said that the reason for his retirement is that since the Mark Hunt fight in PRIDE he has had pain in his left shoulder which has been tough on him (he has had A LOT of other rumored injuries as well) and almost made him retire in the past. He wants to continue with his own Judo dojo after retirement.
Update #3: Former WVR
PR Kokuho said that they have both Japanaese and foreign fighters outside of Yoshida Dojo for the event and they’ll announce these names as time goes from now on. For now this is only a one time thing but if they receive cooperation from a lot of promoters and gyms, they’ll hold more events in the future.
Update #4: Kokuho said that they want Yoshida’s last fight be a meaningful one. Kazuhiro Nakamura then appealed for a fight with his teacher.
Update #5: The fights will be 3×5 minutes and the plan is 7-8 main fights and 3-4 opening fights. There will be a retirement ceremony for Yoshida after the main event. Yoshida is very familiar with the Nippon Budokan.
Hidehiko Yoshida Farewell Fight ~ASTRA~
Date: April 25th, 2010
Place: Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, Japan
Participants:
Hidehiko Yoshida, Makoto Takimoto, Michihiro Omigawa, Kazuhiro Nakamura, Tatsunao Nagakura
Farewell Hidehiko Yoshida Fight Announced
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