With today's announcement of four new participants, the field is set for World Victory Road/Sengoku's Asian bantamweight grand prix.
As MMAjunkie.com reported this past week, the Japanese-based promotion announced the four Sengoku fighters who compete at Sengoku 15's tourney continuation: Wataru Takahashi (12-13-4 MMA, 2-0 SRC), Shoko Sato (9-3 MMA, 2-0 SRC), Jae Hyun So (6-8 MMA, 2-0 SRC) and Shintaro Ishiwatari (9-3-3 MMA, 2-0 SRC).
Joining them and coming from outside promotions are Manabu Inoue (9-5-1 MMA, 0-0 SRC), Shunichi Shimizu (17-6-9 MMA, 0-0 SRC), Akitoshi Tamura (14-9-2 MMA, 0-0 SRC) and Taiyo Nakahara (10-6 MMA, 0-0 SRC), WVR officials today announced.
Specific matchups have not been announced for Sengoku 15, which takes place Oct. 30 at at Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo. HDNet broadcasts the event in North America.
The bantamweight tournament finale, likely to take place later this year, will crown the first-ever Sengoku welterweight champion.
Inoue, a current Pancrase title-holder, carries a three-fight win streak into the fight and most recently defeated Tatsuya So, an eliminated Sengoku tourney participant, at a Pancrase event.
Shimizu is a five-year vet of the Tokyo-based ZST organization, and Tamura, who earned a decision win over Manny Tapia at WEC 40, represents Shooto.
Finally, Nakahara, whose most recent appearance came at an April 2008 GCM event, looks for his third straight victory when he enters the tourney field.
In addition to the bantamweight-tourney bouts, Sengoku 15 features welterweight-tourney semifinals matchups of Keita Nakamura (19-4-2 MMA, 1-0 SRC) vs. Takuya Wada (20-8-10 MMA, 1-0 SRC) and Yasubey Enomoto (5-1 MMA, 2-0 SRC) vs. Taisuke Okuno (10-4-2 MMA, 1-0 SRC). The winner of that tournament also gets a belt.
Source: http://mmajunkie.com/news/20483/sengoku ... tamura.mma