Swizzie

Sengoku 6 results: Gomi upset, Santiago and Kitaoka win grand prix crowns | MMAjunkie.com

Takanori Gomi, one of the world's top lightweight fighters, suffered an upset split-decision loss to little-known Sergey Golyaev.

Additionally, middleweight Jorge Santiago and lightweight Satoru Kitaoka each won his respective division's grand prix titles.

It all happened at World Victory Road's Sengoku 6 event, which took place Saturday at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.

Gomi (29-4), a former PRIDE lightweight champion and one of WVR's top stars, could never put away his Red Devil opponent. In fact, Golyaev (11-6) capitalized on Gomi's slip and stumble in the second round and battered him with a series of blows. The third round was likely the deciding factor, and though Gomi finished strong, Golyaev got the decision.

Gomi, who this week was named the sport's top non-UFC lightweight by MMAjunkie.com (UFC blog for UFC news, UFC rumors, fighter interviews and event previews/recaps | MMAjunkie.com) readers and "Inside MMA" viewers, also threw a wrench into WVR's plans for a lightweight title fight. The organization's lightweight grand prix also concluded at Sengoku 6, and the winner was expected to meet Gomi for the first-ever WVR lightweight title in early 2009.

Instead, tournament champion Kitaoka will have to celebrate his victory and wonder what WVR executives will do about the disaster scenario that unfolded.

Kitaoka (23-8-9) first defeated and upset tournament favorite Eiji Mitsuoka (14-6-2) via first-round heel hook in the semifinals, and later in the night, he defeated Kazunori Yokota (8-2-3) via a dominating unanimous decision in the show's co-main event tournament finale.

Santiago (20-7), a former UFC and Strikeforce fighter, picked up his second major tournament win in a year with the WVR grand prix title. Almost a year ago, he defeated Trevor Prangley and Sean Salmon to win Strikeforce's first-ever four-man middleweight tournament, and Santiago again posted dominating performances to win the WVR crowd.

The first victory came via 70-second heel hook over submission specialist Siyar Bahadurzada (14-4-1), and in the night's main event, he dropped Kazuhiro Nakamura (13-9) and followed with fight-ending ground and pound in the third round.

It was Santiago's eighth consecutive win and his 12th victory his past 14 fights. None have gone to decision.

In non-tournament bouts, former Olympic wrestling hopeful Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal (2-0) sustained the momentum of his rookie campaign with a third-round TKO of Fabio Silva (11-5). Additionally, PRIDE and Affliction veteran Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (15-3) picked up his third consecutive win with a unanimous decision victory over Moise Rimbon (13-8-3).

The full results included:

* Jorge Santiago def. Kazuhiro Nakamura via TKO (strikes) -- Round 3, 0:49
* Satoru Kitaoka def. Kazunori Yokota via unanimous decision
* Sergey Golyaev def. Takanori Gomi via split decision
* Muhammed Lawal def. Fabio Silva via TKO (strikes) -- Round 3, 0:41
* Antonio Rogerio Nogueira def. Moise Rimbon via unanimous decision
* Jorge Masvidal def. Seung Hwan Bang via unanimous decision*
* Joe Doerksen def. Izuru Takeuchi via TKO (punches) -- Round 3, 4:13~
* Satoru Kitaoka def. Eiji Mitsuoka via submission (heel hook) -- Round 1, 1:16+
* Kazunori Yokota def. Mizuto Hirota via unanimous decision+
* Kazuhiro Nakamura def. Yuki Sasaki via unanimous decision^
* Jorge Santiago def. Siyar Bahadurzada via submission (heel hook) -- Round 1, 1:10^

+ - Lightweight GP semifinals
^ - Middleweight GP semifinals
* - Lightweight GP reserve bout
~ - Middleweight GP reserve bout

Relentless

I think this just pretty much makes it official on how overrated Gomi is

__________________
Guido Junior.

Swizzie

He lost to a guy, who hadn't fought in nearly 2 years. Japan must be proud of their biggest lightweight star

Relentless

shows how overrated a good amount of the Japanese "superstars" are

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Guido Junior.

MW2 rules

It was another good night for ATT guys . Gamebred fan here !

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Cain Velaszquez - mr. Brown Pride - world wide . heavyweight decimation has begun.

Paul Daley ftw..

Swizzie

Japan must not have been happy.

The only Japanese fighter to come out on top was Kitaoka.

Snuggles

I doubt any of you actually watched the fight, Gomi was robbed. Terrible decision, although Gomi should have finished him.

Here's the video for those interested and a couple others.

http://www.cagepotato.com/2008/11/01...ts-and-videos/

villin

I watched the fight and I wasn't impressed with either fighter. Gomi should have won the decision because he took round one easily and he got the better of the third round.

This fight shouldn't have made it past the first round; Gomi had a kimura, mount and an armbar off his takedown and he couldn't do anything with them. The kimura was the worst fuckup on his part because it was locked up hard and he was sitting on his opponent's chest, why he let that go i'll never know. His opponent tied him up pretty well so he wasn't able to dish out any effective G&P when he was on top and the armbar was locked all he had to do was extend but i'll forgive that because the round ended.

The second round started out much like the first, tentative striking with the slight advantage going to Gomi. The "knockdown" looked fishy to me because it didn't really look like Gomi was rocked, it looked more like he rolled his ankle and couldn't plant it. However, it looked bad enough to lose him the round.

The third round was again more tentative striking followed by a Gomi takedown where he landed about 20 punches to the back of his opponent's head, Herb Dean was probably screaming his head off where ever he was. After they got back to the feet Gomi continued to press the action while eating a feast of jabs. Gomi's bloody snout and wild flailing made him look bad in the last two minutes of the round but he won the first three minutes so I had gomi winning a UD 29-28.

Observations: Gomi has shit subs. Golyaev is one huge fuckin light weight. The fireball kid needs to find his agressiveness because it is long gone.

Swizzie

I did watch the fight, but the legendary "Fireball Kid" should have easily been able to dispatch a guy who hadn't fought in 2 years. Sergey had lost to every established name he had fought. Yeah Gomi got robbed. Other fighters got robbed against him too. Aurelio and Diaz both took him apart (outside of tournaments) and this guy still kept his title.

In Japan judges don't look at control, takedowns or any of those things. They only care about who presses the actions and does the most damage. What Sergey did in round 2 is what made the judges pick him.

Snuggles

I agree Gomi should have finished him in round 1 for the stature of a fighter that Gomi is. But there is no excuse at all for the decision, no possible way to even make an argument for Sergey. As far as pressing the action Gomi was the one constantly moving forward, and Sergey's gameplan seemed to be jab, jab, back pedal, jab, jab, back pedal. In round 2 it looked to me that Gomi did roll his foot, but to the judges all they saw was him getting dropped so I can see how they gave that round to him, but other than that Sergey had nothing.

villin

That is the heart of the matter right there. In the US Gomi wins the decision easily. Giving the fight to the guy who had one good moment in the fight is just foolish.

Snuggles

That and the system clearly is biased towards a standup fighter. One knockdown should never outweigh two takedowns, two mounts, and 2 near submission attempts.

Relentless

Serves Gomi right, i'm happy he got screwed after the screw job they gave Marcus Auerellio in the 2nd fight

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Guido Junior.