Ishida returns Shooto belt

Ishida Mitsuhiro, one of the breakout stars in MMA in 2006, returned his Shooto Pacific Rim Welterweight champion belt today. The rules prevent Ishida from fighting for 60 days following his KO loss at Otoko Matsuri, so Ishida cannot fight on the February 17 supercard at Pacifico Yokohama.

This was already reported at fightopinion.com, but they made a mistake by writing that Ishida returned the Shooto Welterweight belt, not the Pacific Rim one. Of course, Ishida never had the Welterweight belt. That belt belongs to his teammate, Kawajiri Tatsuya.



Speaking of Kawajiri, now that it is past I can say that Shooto had raised the possibility of a super-fight between him and Aoki Shinya last year. This discussion was preliminary only and discussed behind closed doors. It would have been scheduled for the huge Champion Carnival event held at the same Pacifico in October. At the time, there was some concern that the fight might endanger the star power of Aoki if Kawajiri won. Style against style, Kawajiri is very tough against people like Aoki type. But after seeing the tough fight between Kawajiri and Melendez (which I still think Kawajiri won by a little bit, but maybe I am thinking too much Shooto scoring) and how much Aoki has improved so quickly, maybe the people were worried too much about the wrong fighter.