UFC Heading to Japan

The Japanese press is reporting that the UFC is looking to put on a mega-event in Japan as early as next spring. Dave Meltzer reported on this a while back.

Word is they're calling out the top Japanese stars and hoping to set up a battle of the Zuffa champs vs the Japanese stars. Dana is apparently hoping to land Kazushi Sakuraba, Kid Yamamoto, Hidehiko Yoshida and Takanori Gomi to face Zuffa's top stars. Presumably they want Urijah Faber vs Yamamoto and B.J. Penn to rematch Takanori Gomi. Not sure who which wolf they want to throw Sakuraba to. And Brock Lesnar vs Hidehiko Yoshida is just too dreadful to contemplate.

Clearly from a business angle they're after the right Japanese fighters, although you could make a case for Yoshihiro Akiyama instead of Sakuraba, both as a draw and as a top fighter. Regardless, it would require getting both DREAM and World Victory Road on board, as well as securing a Japanese TV deal.

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Ambitious....I sure hope they pull it off. They can play on the whole national pride angle. US top talent against the best Japan has to offer.

Yawnnnnn... Instead of GOMI VS BJ, AOKI VS BJ makes the card unmissable!

hope it happens, yamamoto vs. faber is the most intriguing

unfortunately this sounds like it wont happen.

not so much doin a show in japan but the champ vs champ thing.

dont see that happening for one second.

Awesome, Japanese fighters always seem to be exciting.

I'd like to see Kawajiri, Gomi, Sakuraba, Ishida. I hope they don't try and use all apanese fighters because just like in the UK the UFC realized that other countries are pretty well informed about MMA outside of their respective homeland and will be just as excited to see UFC superstars fight.

i suspect that theyll put gomi versus penn because thatll solidify the no1 lightweight position and silence all the doubters... and i wouldnt be suprised if they put someone like sherk up against aoki because i dont see aoki being able to handle a fighter like that

if they could bring faber with them and put him up against yamamoto and bring back some of the pride stars for a good romp then i think theyll have a sold out crowd and some serious penetration into the japanese market for an annual or semi annual ufc event out east

AOKI VS FLORIAN FTW!!!!!!!! LET AOKI GRACE THE CAGE WITH THE STRETCHY PANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BJ vs Gomi...finally Gomi will lose and i can drop him a few fights
Yamamoto vs Faber...Yamamoto gets to prove he is the best FW fighter
Yoshida vs Lesnar...this would be perfect for the Japanese fans as Lesnar resembles some of the freak show fights they enjoy so much. on;y this time their national hero will be literally devoured in the cage.

Then when the event is over and the Japanese fighters look more closely at their """one fight contract""" they'll notice that they are not allowed to ever fight again until the UFC comes back a year later to do the show again

I'd say the american fighters win all of those fights pretty easily, except for Faber. I think Yamamoto would put him to sleep.

I'm not sure if I agree with the previous poster on the aoki penn fight... I used to think it would be a great matchup, but after thinking on it I think BJ would just use his boxing and beat aoki fairly easily. I don't think we would actually see much jiujitsu in that fight. Aoki's best chance would be to jump guard and try for a submission IMO, which would be incredibly hard to do against BJ.

I'd much rather see something like aoki vs sherk. I think Aoki's jiujitsu is too good for Sherk to blanket him for 3 rounds. I think at some point he would get into Aoki's guard, try to hold him down and get rubber guarded into a gogoplata.

Yamamoto vs penn?

Except Yamamoto fights at 145 and would get mauled by Penn...

i just want them to steal some fighters and bring them on board

faber/kid = fight of the year. whether that's 2008 or 2009.

i think alot of ex pride guys will make a return like wandy, rampage, shogun, aurelio, sokou, gono, chonan to name a few hendo??

If this event happens, I hope Rampage gets to fight there. Was a star among the japanese. And Of course Wandy.

Gomi vs Penn - would be awesome - Penn round 1 KO

Kid vs Faber - is one of the Dream matchups left with fighters comin outta the far east - Faber UD

Yoshida vs Lesnar - are u kidding me? Lesnar will get smashed by Randy, so why are we even talking about this?

but who would Sakuraba fight? Anderson would destroy him, maybe Franklin or Maia?


All in All, the only fight I can see non UFC fighters having a chance is Kid vs Faber, but Faber will just pwn right through him, just watch. Once the killer bee loses his stinger, hes dead

This would really make my year, which ever one they could get it together durring that is. It seems like more of a pipe dream really as you would need the cooperations of several differnt organizations, and with the UFC's problems with "playing nice" i just don't see it happening. I hope is totally wrong. I would love nothing more than to see Faber vs Kid for undisputed feather weight bout... but again what with Kid's legal problems at the moment and he bad injury leaving him out for a long time... there are just too many "X-Factors" But some fights on there are just too good not to make happen at some point.

If this happens it will make my day a lot better....having just found out about Tanner and all. This could be the way they have Randy v Fedor as well....sorry to bring that up.

Oh yeah, and I will put up any bet you can think of on Faber winning against Kid Yamamoto!

I know it's a long shot but Diaz vs Gomi 2

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Posted by RMFG_187

Gomi vs Penn - would be awesome - Penn round 1 KO

Kid vs Faber - is one of the Dream matchups left with fighters comin outta the far east - Faber UD

Yoshida vs Lesnar - are u kidding me? Lesnar will get smashed by Randy, so why are we even talking about this?

but who would Sakuraba fight? Anderson would destroy him, maybe Franklin or Maia?


All in All, the only fight I can see non UFC fighters having a chance is Kid vs Faber, but Faber will just pwn right through him, just watch. Once the killer bee loses his stinger, hes dead

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Would be pretty funny if they put Saku in there against Wandy again.

Gosh if they really did this it would be so cool

This would be a great place for the Fedor vs Couture thing to happen. If the UFC is relying on the Japanese TV deal then they might be shit outta luck since it's very tough for outsiders to get on national TV there. Don't think FEG will go for it unless they get something big in return. Awsome thought though.