Wannabe Defector Ishii Rolls Through Another Bizarre Matchup: Shibata Suffers Tenth Loss

Published on various websites, 14 November 2010


Satoshi Ishii was supposed to be the saviour of J-MMA.

Not just of Sengoku, or of Dream. The Olympic Champion Judoka was destined to dazzle adoring Asian audiences and drag the struggling scene out of the doldrums it has found itself in since the demise of Pride. It was nailed on; he was The Chosen One. He challenged Fedor, he was scheduled to fight the green but powerful Lesnar, and when this fell flat he instead ended up headlining the prestigious New Years Eve Dynamite 2009 card with another Japanese Olympic Judo hero, Hidehiko Yoshida….. and he lost.

From there on in, his career has been a circus show; mismanagement and bizarre fights, crazy rumours, and it only continued at the K-1 MAX Grand Prix 2010 card, on which he fought the nights only MMA fight, against late replacement…. puro resu star Katsuyori Shibata.
In all fairness, Ishii’s original opponent Antz Nansen cancelled late, citing poor health. But even so; Ishii’s career began with a very high profile loss against a now-retired, then-post prime Yoshida, and has been hectic since. He was even rumoured to be fighting Jerome LeBanner – under K-1 RULES! Madness. All credit to Shibata for stepping in like the warrior he is, but the tenth defeat of his MMA career was inevitable, and it came courtesy of a kimura three minutes into the first round.

Now, the spectacle continues. Ishii has spurned the chance to fight at FEG’s illustrious Dynamite NYE card, and has called out Tito Ortiz to do battle. Tito is contracted to the UFC; the very org that Ishii declined to sign with nearly two years ago prior to his debut, instead allying himself to Japanese promoters World Victory Road, from whom he defected in turn to FEG.
Whether or not this further defection – this time from JMMA altogether – will go down as Ishii intends, remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure; Ishii’s management have NOT done a bang up job in terms of nurturing the image of their supposed “saviour of JMMA”… an image that is being increasingly tarnished with every crazy rumour, every freak show fight he has against vastly undersized opponents, or every noise that emerges that suggests he now wishes to defect from the very fight scene that he is supposed to help revive.

Fletch