World Victory Road’s SENGOKU “Seventh Battle” takes place tonight at 1:00 a.m. CST in Saitama, Japan. We here at PRO MMA (http://promma.info) will be providing real time round-by-round coverage of the event. It will host the creation of the first two Sengoku champions.
Sengoku 7 is headlined by “The Fireball Kid,” Takanori Gomi vs. Satoru Kitaoka for the Sengoku Lightweight Championship. Gomi will have his hands full against the undefeated submission specialist who has put away such MMA greats as Carlos Condit, Kurt Pellegrino, and Paul Daley.
Sparks will fly in the co-main event when Kazuo Misaki takes on Jorge Santiago for the Sengoku Middleweight Championship. Misaki really stepped up his game this year pulling off three straight wins. His last fight was a TKO victory against Joe Riggs back in September at the Playboy Mansion. Misaki is in for a war against Santiago who is riding an eight fight win streak.
Other noteworthy fights on this card include “the man on the run,” Antonio Silva taking on Yoshihiro Nakao, which should be an entertaining heavyweight battle. We haven’t seen “Bigfoot” since he defeated Justin Eilers at EliteXC back in July of ’08. His opponent, Nakao, is 7-1, with his only loss coming by way of decision to Kazuhiro Nakamura at PRIDE: FINAL CONFLICT in 2006. It would be a tremendous victory for Nakao if he could find a way to defeat the 6’4″ Brazilian.
Undefeated Dave “Pee Wee” Herman will see if he can continue down the road of perfection as he takes on PRIDE veteran, Mu Bae Choi. Choi has a record of 7-3 with his most notable win coming against “Big Daddy” Gary Goodridge. Choi knocked “Big Daddy” out with a punch, in March of last year in Seoul, South Korea.
One fight we will be playing close attention to here at PRO MMA (http://promma.info) is “King Mo” Muhammed Lawal vs. Yukiya Naito. Lawal is off to a great start in his Sengoku-only MMA career, defeating Travis Wiuff at Sengoku 5 and Fabio Silva at Sengoku 6. Lawal was a top level American wrestler who has sought out the training necessary to round out his skills. He is an entertainer inside and outside the ring and you can bet all eyes will be on “King Mo” in anticipation of another great performance.
“King Mo” will definitely be put to the test tonight as he faces the highly experienced 15-4-2, Yukiya Naito, who is coming into this fight on a six fight win streak. Naito has seven wins by submission, seven by TKO, and only one decision. He’s very well rounded and should be just the right opponent to see how far the King has come in his MMA development.
We could not very well tell you about the highlights on this card without mentioning PRIDE veteran and Japanese hero, Hidehiko Yoshida vs. Sanae Kikuta. Yoshida is an Olympic Judo gold medalist and submission master. His opponent, Kikuta is the founder of Team Grabaka. He is a PRIDE and Pancrase veteran and also a submission specialist. Because these two are so evenly matched on the ground, the difference could be in their stand up in which Kikuta will most likely hold the edge.
-Jack Bratcher
Here’s the full card for SENGOKU 7:
- Lightweight Championship bout:
Takanori Gomi vs. Satoru Kitaoka - Middleweight Championship bout: Kazuo Misaki vs.
Jorge Santiago - Light heavyweight bout: Sanae Kikuta vs. Hidehiko Yoshida
- Heavyweight bout: Antonio Silva vs. Yoshihiro Nakao
- Lightweight bout:
Sergey Golyaev vs. Eiji Mitsuoka - Heavyweight bout:
Dave Herman vs. 
Choi Mu Bae - Light heavyweight bout: Muhammed Lawal vs. Yukiya Naito
- Lightweight bout: Maximo Blanco vs. Seigo Inoue
- Light heavyweight bout: Hidetada Irie vs. Minoru Kato
