I rarely hear any positive comments on this class . I always hear how Robson Moura is very boring and does nothing but play the position game in his fights. Then Mamoru has been tagged as a boring fighter lately even by himself. Urushitani doesn't appear to be too exciting either. I haven't seen any fights in this weight class though.I only read about the fights on sites and from magazines. Is it truly that boring?
Really tough weight to get the publicity deserved.
Its a really hard division to rank right now.
Mamoru used to fight at 135 and was the first 135 champ before being beaten by Masahiro Oishi and moved down to 123.
He lost to Moura by decision, and then Urushitani beat Moura, and then not to long ago Mamoru beat Urushitani, so as you can see the rankings are a little tough lol
It's not exactly hard,because Mamoru is champ,making him #1.
It's a fucking awesome weight class.I love it.Masatoshi Abe is one of the most exciting fighters in Shooto.Junji Ikoma usually manages to pull stuff out of his skinny ass.Hiroaki Yoshioka is an entertaining fighter,despite being in a slump lately.Urushitani can be exciting when his opponent pushes him.Yasuhiro Akagi is a very good wrestler,and an entertaining fighter.HIRO is also a very good striker,who can be quite entertaining.
"It's not exactly hard,because Mamoru is champ,making him #1"
Who would you rank under him? I think either Robson or Urushitani of course. I heard their fight was controversial in its decision for Uru.
It does suck that the best 3 fighters in the division are all boring. They will have the occasional good fight here and there (the Mamoru/Urushitani title match was surprisingly good), but when I see those 3 on a card, I immediately think "boring."
But like Gunjin EX said, there are some really exciting fighters lower on the top 10. Abe and Ikoma are awesome. They are juuuuust not good enough to beat the top 3 (though I think Abe's style matches up well with Mamoru), but they are both super exciting. I really like Akagi a lot also. Akagi was actually beating Urushitani until Urushitani pulled a submission out of nowhere.
Cool to see some interest in this division. Shooto doesn't get enough attention (mainly because it's not on US PPV, of course).
"Cool to see some interest in this division. Shooto doesn't get enough attention (mainly because it's not on US PPV, of course). "
Yeah, Shooto is awesome. I started getting into it around 1999 when I got a grappling magazine that covered Abu Dhabi where Mach and Uno did well. It had features on Rumina and Sakurai as well. I got some tapes with those two on them. Most of the tapes I have seen are olders ones from 2000 and older. I'd love to see some of the newer ones with the 123, 132, and 143 lbs guys.
make sure you guys contribute a flyweight top 10 at www.mmaranks.com
Votes for that division are desperately needed!