Sengoku 10 - Sengoku Fight Night #39

Again with the card lacking in star power but excellent finishes.


1. Maximo Blanco defeats Tetsuya Yamada via Submission (verbal)

When was the last time you saw someone submit verbally in a match?
It was bound to happen again and who better than "Maxi" Blanco to have the first verbal sub in Sengoku. It's also not surprising given the world class, wrestler is a BEAST on the feet. This wasn't his best performance but he still got the job done in Silverback stomping fashion.
Yamada had some reasonable submission attempts but nothing Cerrone-esque (see next post). I do however, want to see more spinning leglock attempts.


2. Joe Doerkson defeats Takenori Sato via TKO

Not sure how these fellas got matched up, but this was just easy money for "El Dirte".
Sato did what he could to take this fight to the ground but he still got dropped a few times by Joe and finally made the mistake of trying to stay in the pocket and get blasted.


3. Dan Hornbuckle defeats Nick Thompson via TKO

I really want to see "The Handler" in the UFC. He really knows how to use his long limbs standing and good bjj defense to stop world class ground guys. He also had Thompson's number with his southpaw stance. "The Goat" made the mistake of circling into Dan's power side once too many times and ate some hard shots to end the match early.


4. Fabio Silva defeats Ryo Kawamura via KO

I liken Fabio to an overweight version of Wanderlei, and stuck Japan as if Pride never went down.
Kawamura just looked like canon fodder for Silva as he took a barrage of punches and knees, including a DIVING punch to the face right about when the ref had to stop the mugging. That should be on mix video somewhere.


5. Kazunori Yokota defeats Ryan Schultz via KO

Schultz is becoming the new Sean Salmon in my book with three, disturbingly bad losses since leaving IFL for Sengoku. Previously,"The Lion" was doing very well in the IFL, accruing a 6 fight win streak and defeating young, standup, wunderkind Chris Horodecki to become the first and only IFL LW champ. Currently, Lady Misfortune seems to be peeing all over Schultz's MMA career.
Yokota got the opposite treatment, with a great Hendo-like overhand right to the unlucky Schultz. I figured he'd have taken a TKO or decision give both fighter's histories.


6. Makoto Takimoto defeats Jae Sun Lee via Decision

A very uneventful match between to barely above .500 fighters. Lots of weak sauce ground striking and smothering. The high points were a nice jumping knee and hip toss by Takimoto.


7. Antonio Silva defeats Jim York via Submission

The arm triangle was a great move to pull off by "Bigfoot". It showed more variety to his game than his usual standup strategy. Plus, "Big" Jimmy had the power to shut off Silva's lights at any moment - man has shoulders like bowling balls.
Let's see if Silva's got more tricks in his bag in his next match with Fabricio Werdum.


8. Antz Nansen defeats Hiroshi Izumi via TKO

The "Notorious" one spoils Izumi's inaugural bout with various punches and kicks that left him with no answer standing.

Tried to keep this one short given the amount of matches shown but still ended up being more than I expected.
Stay tuned for a late analysis of WEC 43 tomorrow.

~S