MMA has gone through many milestone changes this year. The end of Pride FC. Promotions openly working together. UFC expanding into new territories. This has produced some interesting results, and the trend seems to continue.
Recently DSE has announced a surprising event. Humorously called Yarennoka!, or in English “Can we do it!”. Strange title considering the fight card isn’t complete with the event less then 3 weeks away. Regardless, DSE has quickly allied itself with other big promotions to pull off this event which they hope will be a spectacular farewell to Pride FC.
Is it truly a farewell or the beginning of something bigger? Promotions such as M1 Global, K1, Shooto, Deep and Strikeforce are supporting Yarennoka! If they can collaborate effectively, we might be on a cusp of a new era in Japanese MMA.Between such promotions the sharing of fighters would lead to a true “Superbowl of MMA” feel.
Yarennoka fight card half way done looks intriguing. The talent on it exceptional and it smells a lot like a Pride FC Shockwave card.
Confirmed Fights:
Shinya Aoki vs. Gesias “JZ” Calvancante
Hayato “Mach” Sakurai vs Hidehiko Hasegawa
Gilbert Melendez vs Mitsuhiro Ishida
Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Luiz Azeredo
Rumored Fights:
Main Event: Fedor Emelianenko vs Hong Man Choi
Kazuo Misaki vs Yoshihiro Akiyama
Rumored Fighters:
-Ricardo Arona vs TBA
-Aleksander Emelianenko vs TBA
-Murilo Bustamante vs TBA
-Mark Hunt vs TBA
-Roman Zenstov vs TBA
If they can do it, we might see one of the best MMA cards ever. It’s too early to tell. Time is running out for DSE.
Can they do it?? I truly hope they can.
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December 12th, 2007 at 1:42am
Yeah, I truly hope this is a sign of things to come also. I mean even Zuffa has been willing this end of year to loan out a couple of fighters, specifically Keita Nakamura and Rani Yahya. The weird, mind bending thing is that Rani was loaned to K-1 Hero’s and will fight against one of the most dominant 145 fighters in the world but Keita Nakamura, SHOOTO and GCM veteran wasn’t allowed to fight one of the best kept secrets in MMA, Satouru Kitaoka at the last Cage Force show.
I think this will be great and hopefully this alliance sticks. I remember at the press conference for Yarennoka!! they had Shigeru Saeki, Sadaharu Tanigawa, Monte Cox and Takada together so I think this will prove to be wonderful.