Sengoku's 11th Battle - Nov 7

[CPT]

Lost in all of the Fedor-Rogers hype is the fact that Sengoku has a half decent card going today as well.

* Hatsu Hioki vs. Michihiro Omigawa
* Mamed Khalidov vs. Jorge Santiago
* Satoru Kitaoka vs. Jorge Masvidal
* Eiji Mitsuoka vs. Kazunori Yokota
* Stanislav Nedkov vs. Kevin Randleman
* Akihiro Gono vs. Yoon Young Kim
* Yuji Hoshino vs. Marlon Sandro
* Dave Herman vs. Jim York
* Ronnie "Ushiwaka" Mann vs. Shigeki Osawa
* Ryota Uozomi vs. Yuichiro Yajima
* Hirokazu "Bull" Konno vs. Tomoaki Ueyama

The top 4 fights are all pretty good.

Then you've got Randleman in action (I always hold out hope for a big suplex slam when he fights), Gono probably bouncing back (Kim Yoon-Young is a local Korean fighter who really isn't all that good....tall and lanky though, he could use that to his advantage), Sandro vs. Hoshino is a hell of a fight as well.

I'm interested to see how this makes the Sengoku NYE card shape up, because I'm considering going to that.

[Cammo101]

Hioki got absolutely robbed by the judges, which is a staple of WVR. It is getting harder and harder to watch WVR because of all the terrible decisions.

[CPT]

Hioki should have won, but I don't think it was that bad. The fight was fairly close, and if they even use the 10 point must system in Sengoku (it's never really clear what they do), they tend to give out a lot more 10-10 rounds in Japan. Anyway, Omigawa staggered Hioki early in the 1st, and then had the guillotine going for a while. Hioki worked his way into an armbar before the round ended, but other than that, Omigawa was defending fairly well for most of the round, and I could see how the judges could give him that round or score it 10-10. Second round was pretty clearly Hioki, no argument there. In the third round, Omigawa was the aggressor and probably did more damage. I could see that round being scored in his favour or 10-10 as well. For me, that still adds up to a win for Hioki, but I guess he wasn't impressing the judges with his jabs, while Omigawa was throwing power shots. Knowing what happened before I saw the fight and having to listen to those brutal HDNet commentators probably made me a little bit more sympathetic towards Omigawa, as I was looking for total domination by Hioki and just didn't see it. Should be noted that this isn't the first sketchy decision Omigawa has seen go in his favour, and that his manager is one of the owners of WVR.

I really liked the Kitaoka vs. Masvidal fight. I'm a sucker for those fights where a guy is getting pounded on but is always close to getting a submission. Didn't go Kitaoka's way this time though. Good win for Masvidal.

Very nice KO by Sandro, and a pretty good (and surprising) one from Khaledov over Jorge Santiago.

[Cammo101]

In and of itself, the decision was not the worst ever. But, when you take intoa ccount how often WVR has these type of decision and how many have gone in the favor of Omigawa, it starts to add up.