Shooto Tradition Final

Shooto is definitely one of my favorite promotions, perhaps second only to the now defunct PRIDE FC. Great matchmaking, well thought out structure, transparent rankings and die hard fighters and fans make for one brilliant promotion. To mark their 20th anniversary, Shooto put together one of it’s best cards of all time.

Jordan Breen along with Tony Loiseleur put together a really excellent series on Shooto to commemorate the occasion which can be found here and here.

The main event was the Shooto Charisma, Rumina Sato against promotional favorite and 143lb World Champ “Lion” Takeshi Inoue. I’ve lost count at the number of unsuccessful attempts at the title Sato has made and I really hoped he would get one so he could die a happy man I fear it will always haunt him though. Still, Lion is a solid champ (although he did beat my coach Hiroyuki Abe in an absolutely cracking match) and completely dedicated to Shooto. He gave up a shot for big money and bigger fame in the Sengoku Featherweight Tournament. Says a lot about Shooto to me.

Was trying to get Lions logo on his spats in the pic. Shirt was in the way though.

Sato lands a left to score a knockdown and looks (as usual) on route to an upset.

Lion quickly recovers (as usual).

Lion scores his own knockdown with a left hook.

Finishes in the corner with GNP for a ref stoppage. Was hard to get an angle on it.

While Lion vs. Sato may have been the official main event of the night, the fight that really brought the fans out was fallen 154lb king Takanori Gomi vs Shooto World 154lb Champ, Takashi Nakakura. Nakakura has been one of my favorite fighters for a long time now and I actually picked him to win this. He took a while off a couple years back to rededicate himself to MMA and totally transformed himself. Still, although he put in a valiant effort against Gomi - after a slow start, Gomi came back and scored the KO.

Nakakura gets off to a good start with a solid left.

Gomi gets his range and landed a great body-head combination for the KO.

It was just as the ref was walking in front of me. Made it hard to time the finish but I do like this shot. After the belt Nakakura tried to hand back his belt. I got a nice photo of it but Sherdog didn't run it. Strange.

Usually, in these big Shooto cards, they pad out the undercard with bouts that are good and usually important, but feature unknown fighters. They really went all out with this card though, the card was stacked from top to bottom with champs, former champs and the best pound for pound female in the world.

The undefeated Megumi Fujii works a toe hold. I happen to train with Fujii but even with bias asside, it is hard to argue against her being the best female in the world. Look for an up coming bout with Deep Queen Miku Matsumoto at a catchweight assuming Miku gets over Lisa Ward in their upcoming bout.

The undefeated Megumi Fujii works a toe hold. I happen to train with Fujii but even with bias aside, it is hard to argue against her being the best female in the world. Look for an up coming bout with Deep Queen Miku Matsumoto at a catchweight assuming Miku gets over Lisa Ward in their upcoming bout.

Shooto South America 154-pound champion Willamy Chiquerim submitted Pacific Rim 154-pound titleholder Yusuke Endo at 5:00 of the first round. Endo must be kicking himself about tapping.

Mizuho Hirota "knocks out" Mitsuhiro Ishida according to Wakabayashi. Now really, does that look like he isn't intelligently defending himself?

Kenichiro Togashi with a great jab against Tetsuji Kato

Another jab landing. It's not often that a fighter really establishes with their punches in MMA. Usually it would lead to the bout heading to the mat or a finish but when it doesn't we get that rare chance to get a whole lot of pictures of punches landing.

Kotetsu Boku lands some great punches for the finish. He has really been down on his luck for the past couple years. Hopefully things pick up for him - he is supremely talented.

I say this a lot but Wicky Akiyo is absolutely one of my favorite fights. Huge power with a hugely exciting game and a big art nut (but cant get off his back).

I say this a lot but Wicky Akiyo is absolutely one of my favorite fights. Huge power with a very exciting game and a big art nut. He is pretty much unsubmittable but he just cannot get off his back and it costs him too many big fights.

Check out some art that I shot by Wicky. You'll be glad you did.

A ring full of champions. This is a stitched panarama of three photos acutally, hence what happened to right hand side. If I get a bit more time I will try to correct it but I was working to a tight deadline and wanted to include the image.

A ring full of champions. This is a stitched panorama of three photos actually, hence what happened to right hand side. If I get a bit more time I will try to correct it but I was working to a tight deadline and wanted to include the image. Looks great full size. I got caught without my ultrawide as an assistant had it and he was not to be found. I'll make sure that doesn't happen again.

It was probably my favourite event of all time. Great fights featuring some of my favorite fighters with an amazing atmosphere. Add that to the prestige of the event and you have a winning combination.

Check out Jordan Breen’s follow up article and of course the full gallery at Sherdog.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 19th, 2009 at 6:33 pm and is filed under Photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Kris "Heart Throb" Hartrum says:

May 20, 2009 at 9:30 am

Sweet shot, Herbertson. This was by far my favorite night of fights all year. Ishida was my only let down, but it made for interesting emotions. Hooray for the kings and all their cronies. Nice work.

Ossu