There is speculation that Olympic Gold Medalist Hidehiko Yoshida might not be fighting another Gracie after all. Yoshida, who was supposedly going to match up against Roger Gracie, might not get the chance to fight the 2005 Abu Dhabi 88+ kg and Absolute Weight class Champion as originally reported. GracieMag.com had originally reported that Yoshida vs. Gracie was close to finished but there is still a chance for that to change. The name Josh Barnett has been thrown around as a possibility to face the Japanese Judoka.
There seems to be a weird lust in Japan for seeing their Idols get smashed, literally, by bigger fighters on a constant basis. I guess popularity comes at a very heavy price. Ikuhisa Minowa, Hidehiko Yoshida, and Kazushi Sakuraba have all been subjected to this kind of treatment. Not to mention fighters some of the time get the discourtesy of not having a “tune up” fight to get their careers rolling, which is definitely the case with Kazuhiro Nakamura, who questionably has one of the craziest looking records in MMA. In his 1st 2 years of fighting he’s faced Wanderlei Silva, Igor Vovchanchyn, Dan Henderson, Murilo Bustamente, Kevin Randleman, and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira on 2 occasions and 1 of those being his MMA debut.
Both men (Yoshida and Barnett) last saw action at PRIDE 2006 Shockwave show were both men fell to their opponents. Barnett had a hard fought rematch with Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera, while Yoshida saw himself nearly forcefully retired at the hands of the “Colossus” James Thompson, which proved to be a very brutal fight. I see it highly unlikely that Barnett is actually the person who Yoshida will face in March. I think that the Yoshida vs. Gracie match-up, while still kind of obscure and weird, is more likely to happen considering that Gracie is already confirmed at the event and opponent-less, and that talks about a potential Aleksander Emelianenko vs. Josh Barnett match-up are sprouting up. We’ll see from here to March what happens and how this all unfolds.
Speaking of March, it was re-officially announced that Shinya Aoki vs. Gesias “JZ” Calvancanti will still happen on the inaugural HERO’S or DREAMS show of 2008. No sure word if we’ve seen the end of HERO’S, but signs show that HERO’S will be changed. Another rumored match-up for this event is the Jeff Monson vs. Sergei Kharitonov fight. Kharitonov was supposed to fight “Might Mo” at Dynamite!! 06 but that fight was axed from the show silently. March is definitely going to be a great month with UFC 82, Sengoku, and the New FEG Show all happening at relatively the same time.
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