This fun style vs style match took place in 2006 for the Hero’s promotion and featured judoka Yoshihiro Akiyama taking on Olympic wrestler Katsuhiko Nagata.
Nagata is an accomplished wrestler who won the silver medal in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 2000 Summer Olympics in the 63–69 kg weight class. While Akiyama is an accomplished judoka who won numerous championships in the sport before making the move to MMA.
Both men are wearing the respective uniforms of their chosen sports for this one too, with Nagata in the singlet and Akiyama in the gi.
What’s surprising about this fight is that it takes place entirely on the feet despite both fighters coming from a high level grappling background. This can happen sometimes in MMA though as when two fighters are both high level grapplers their grappling ability can often negate each other and they end up in a striking affair.
After standing and trading for a bit Nagata eventually shoots in for a take down though that is easily stuffed by Akiyama. Akiyama seems to be the better striker of the two which makes sense as this was Akiyama’s seventh MMA fight and for Nagata this was only his second fight.
Akiyama is also the aggressor in there, pushing the action while his opponent is very apprehensive and cautious.
After landing a spin kick Akiyama really starts to tee off. Nagata tries for another desperate shot but can’t get it. The end finally comes after a brutal spinning back kick lands hard from the judoka which crumples his foe to the canvas, awarding Akiyama the KO victory.
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ABOUT YOSHIHIRO AKIYAMA:
Yoshihiro Akiyama (秋山 成勲 Akiyama Yoshihiro?)(born July 29, 1975), also known as Choo Sung-hoon (Hangul: 추성훈, Hanja: 秋成勳) is a Japanese mixed martial artist and judoka. Akiyama won the gold medal at the 2001 Asian Championships for South Korea, and for Japan at the 2002 Asian Games. A fourth-generation Japanese of Korean descent, he acquired Japanese nationality in 2001. He is the former K-1 HERO’s Light Heavyweight Grand Prix Tournament Champion. [Source: Wiki]
