DEEP 57th IMPACT: CHOI MISSING; CARD DISCUSSION

BREAKING NEWS: DEEP confirms that Choi Doo Ho is missing and will be taken off the card.  He is replaced with Hideki Kadowaki - still a title bout for the vacant Featherweight championship against Kazunori Yokota.

Here are the five title bouts to take place at next weekend's DEEP 57th Impact:


Bantamweight champion defence

Takafumi Otsuka 大塚隆史 (AACC) VS Yoshiro Maeda 前田吉朗(パンクラス稲垣組)

Green Roman legion-skirted scrapper Takafumi Otsuka is 12-9-1 with the majority of his fights going the full distance.  His road to the Bantamweight  belt has been bumpy: he's seen more losses than wins in the last three years and he gained the DEEP title at 54 by manhandling - but not finishing - Hiroshi "Iron" Nakamura, who is now in Bellator. 

WEC veteran, Pancrase product and previous Featherweight King Yoshiro Maeda has a Roman legion record of 28-11-2 with fifteen wins by knockout.  His last three years have been a seesaw, and in his most recent outing at DEEP's Cage Impact, he also met Iron Nakamura, but lost a decision.

As Takafumi defends his belt for the first time, he will be desperate to maintain his tenuous hold on the title, as well as looking to avenge a previous decision loss to Maeda.  Maeda will be hungry to assert himself as still the better fighter than Takafumi, proving they aren't on the same level.  Takafumi thinks he hasn't begun to reach his peak yet.  Maeda's a seasoned warhorse not ready to leave the battlefield.  Given these fighters' do-or-die styles, this should be a very entertaining and bloody war.

Vacant Featherweight Championship 

Kazunori Yokota 横田一則 (フリー) versus Doo Ho Choi チェ・ドゥホ (CMA KOREA)
**NOW is Kazunori versus Hideki Kadowaki**

Keith Mills - Sherdog

Choi DooHo is a young and brilliantly shining star on the MMA scene right now.  At only 20 years old, he's already gone 8-1 in M-1, Sengoku and DEEP.  In his last fight, he only needed a minute and a half to KO his opponent by a knee and punches - the former Shooto Pacific Rim welterweight champion Mitsuhiro Ishida, veteran of PRIDE, DREAM, and Strikeforce.  Just a short six weeks prior, Choi went two full rounds stuffing single legs by the former Deep lightweight champion and PRIDE vet Nobuhiro Obiya, and KOed him with a flying knee less than a minute into the third.

Kazunori Yokota is a judo black belt veteran of Sengoku and a former DEEP Lightweight champion with a hefty record of 14-5-3.  After being KOed by upstart Mongolian and now Legend FC Lightweight Champion Jadamba Narantungalag in the final Sengoku show, he dropped to featherweight and came back in 2011 to dominate former lightweight King of Pancrase Shoji Maruyama winning a unanimous decision, then soccer kicked Shooto stalwart Katsuya Toida in the second round.

Choi has been thrown to the wolves and he is making wolfskin jackets.  Kazunori has shown what could be the makings of a born-again career at lightweight.  Choi formulates excellent strategy against every opponent with a goal to finish, but Kazunori is a pro at three round wars.  This could be fight of the year.

**Hideki fought once in 2011, and has a record of 14-11-3.  He is a Shoot champ.  This would have been a good match three years ago.**

Lightweight Champion defense

Mizuto Hirota 廣田瑞人 (CAVE) versus Seichi Ikemoto 池本誠知 (総合格闘技スタジオSTYLE)
Mizuto Hirota is 13-4-1.  He was the Cage Force champion, the Sengoku champion, and is now the DEEP champion, but will forever be known as "the guy who got his arm broken by Aoki".  After he recovered from it, Hirota came back to the ring against Karateka Katsunori Kikuno and punched his way to a three round unanimous decision.

Seichi Ikemoto has a mammoth fight career with 20-17-5 since 1999.  He has fought in almost every Japanese promotion you've heard of (and some you haven't) and is the former DEEP Welterweight champion.  He was on the end of the famous Zaromskis... backflip.

Hirota thinks he wants to fight at featherweight.  Ikemoto is a natural welterweight.  Both of them have only fought once in 2011.  Hirota handed Satoru Kitaoka a TKO with his knees two and a half years ago.  Ikemoto hasn't had a KO with his double-punch or a single one in three years.  Hirota won the title, and the proof will be on Ikemoto to see if he can take it away.

Female Openweight championship

Amanda Lucas versus Yumiko Hotta

Amanda Lucas, at only 3-1, is facing her toughest opponent in Yumiko - a pro wrestler who hasn't been in the ring in 12 years. That being said, there isn't much to talk about at this weight division in MMA.  Except that Amanda is the daughter of George Lucas.

Akihiro Gono 郷野聡寛 versus Daisuke Nakamura 中村大介

Gono.  32-16-7.  Everyone's favorite "Japanese Sensation."  His last time in the MMA ring was in Sengoku in 2010, where he was handed an upset by everyone's favorite upstart Mongolian, Jadamba.  Nakamura.  24-13.  Everyone's favorite master of flying arm bars from Osaka to Kansas City.  This fight kicks ass in so many ways.

Katsuya Toida versus  Makoto Kamaya

ADCC grappler and Shooto veteran Toida is 12-11-3 and coming off two back to back loss KOs from Kazunori Yokota and Issei Tamura.  Makoto at 20-10-1 is on a seven fight winning streak, five of which were in 2011.  This should be a grapplefest in the making.

Daiki "DJ.taki" Hata versus Yusaku Nakamura

DJ.taiki is 11-9-4.  Yes, he's lost to Imanari, Miyata, Sandro and Maeda, BUT he's never been KOed or submitted.  He's also only got one win by submission.  Nakamura at 4-2 may not have developed a steady record yet, but with his first 3 wins by KO,  he will be setting DJ's head in his sites as he climbs the ladder.  After four hard decision losses, DJ needs to start rattling some heads too.

Shoji Maruyama versus Tatsunao Nagakura

Shoji has a record of 10-7-1 with 7 KOS to his credit, coming from his background as a boxer in the army and then on the underground bare knuckle circuit.  He's a former Lightweight champ in Shooto as well.  Tatsunao Nagakura is 6-2 with all six finishes never leaving the first round, and four by KO.  This fight will definitely end up on the ground - because of a punch.  

Yuki Niimura (Team Tackler gym)  versus Bernard Ackah

Yuki started as a K-1 fighter then transitioned to the DEEP cage and ring last year earning two wins - one by stomp and one by KO - in just over two minutes total ring time.   Hereo's and DEEP vet Ackah will be looking to put his 5-5 record on the positive side by finishing Yuki quickly.  The ring time for this one may be a bit longer than five minutes because those big guys are hard to carry out of the ring.

Megaton Championship

Ryuta Noji 野地竜太 (TEAM GARO) versus Levan Razmadze
Levan Razmadze is megaton from Georgia.  As a Judoka, he entered MMA and went 4-0 in 2011, his first year of competition.  Ryuta Noji is a Karateka with a record of 15-6 with ten knockouts and was the DEEP Light Heavyweight GP runner-up. This will be an excellent first round test for Levan to see if he really can hang with the big boys.

Other fights on the card:

Yoshitomo Watanabe (DEEP vet) versus Naoki Samukawa

渡辺良知(AACC)
寒川直喜(バンゲリング・ベイ)

Makoto Shingo versus Fujiyama
Masato Kobayashi (the Outsider) versus Tatsuyuki Nakamura
Hiromitsu Kanehara will face Daijiro Matsui

金原弘光(U.K.R.金原道場)
松井大二郎(フリー)

Megaton Seigo Mizuguchi versus Hirohide Fujinuma
Noboru Samurai  versus ?
誠悟(TEAM東京CLUTCH)

藤沼弘秀(SKアブソリュート)
小林聖人(総合格闘技津田沼道場)
中村龍之(IMPACT GYM)

There will be a memorial exhibition match for Tomoya Miyashita including Hideo Tokoro and Takeshi Yamazaki among others.
■宮下トモヤ追悼エキシビジョンマッチ(試合時間や組み合わせは当日発表)
松本晃市郎(フリー)、所英男(リバーサルジム武蔵小杉所プラス)
砂辺光久(TEAM reversal)、山崎剛(GRABAKA)、堀内佑馬(TANG TANG FIGHTCLUB)