New Year’s Eve Brings Two Fight Cards to Japan
New Year’s Eve is traditionally a huge MMA extravaganza in the ‘Land of the Rising Sun.’
The Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye always holds a huge event, and this year they will continue with their tradition, and go head-to-head against DEEP’s organization.
DEEP will live up to it’s name, with the event holding 22 (yes, 22) match ups. Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye will hold eight matches, including a four-man tournament (six, if you count the reserve match-up), and the main event will be a rematch between former Pride and UFC legend Mirko “CroCop” Filipovic against Satoshi Ishii.
Filipovic pulled off a big upset by defeating the favorite Ishii back in August at IGF – Inoki Genome Fight 2. It was Filipovic’s first win in nearly two years, after many assumed the 40-year old was at the end of his career, while Ishii (12-3) is on the rise.
The rematch will be a huge draw in Japan, as Ishii, the Olympic Judoka gold medalist will look to avenge that loss in his proud home country, during Japan’s biggest date annually in mixed martial arts.
Here are the line ups courtesy of mixedmartialarts.com
Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye 2014
Mirko Filipovic vs. Satoshi Ishii (GF Championship
Chris Barnett vs. Shinichi Suzukawa
Shinya Aoki vs. Yuki Yamamoto
Yusuke Kawaguchi vs. Justin Willis
Kiuma Kunioku vs. Ramazan Esenbaev
Road to Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye 2014 Challenge Tournament (semifinals)
Tsuyoshi Kurihara vs. Ryo Sakai
Takaaki Oban vs. Yusuke Masuda
Road to Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye 2014 Challenge Tournament (reserve match)
Shuji Morikawa vs. Katsuyoshi Sasaki
DEEP Impact 2014
Kazunori Yokota vs. Isao Kobayashi
Satoru Kitaoka vs. Yoshiyuki Yoshida
Takafumi Otsuka vs. Shintaro Ishiwatari
Yuya Shibata vs. Kiyotaka Shimizu
Toshiaki Kitada vs. Taichi Nakajima
Yasuaki Kishimoto vs. Yoshiaki Takahashi
Yoshiro Maeda vs. Haruo Ochi
Ayaka Hamasaki vs. Mei Yamaguchi
Satoko Shinashi vs. Rika Hamada
Emi Fujino vs. Emi Tomimatsu
Shizuka Sugiyama vs. Raika Emiko
Makoto Kamaya vs. Yoshiki Harada
Sota Kojima vs. Masato Kobayashi
Hiroto Sakuma vs. Ryo Roy
Hidetora vs. Takashi Sato
Naoyuki Kato vs. Yuma Horiuchi
Tatsumitsu Wada vs. Ryuichi Miki
Yuki Motoya vs. Matt Manzanares
Tomoya Kato vs. Young Bok Kil
Tatsunao Nagakura vs. George Hickman
Hikaru Sato vs. Hirohide Fujinuma
Mizuto Hirota vs. Kyu Hwa Kim