The first big Pancrase event of 2012 will take place on January 28th at Differ Ariake in Tokyo and two King Of Pancrase titles will be on the line.
In the co main event Kiyotaka Shimizu will defend his Super Flyweight KOP title against Seiji Ozuka. Shimizu will look to get back on track after a 6-fight unbeaten streak came to an end at the hands of Shinichi “BJ” Kojima at Shooto The Shoot 2011. Ozuka is a solid fighter who has done really good lately going 4-0-1 with 3 TKO wins. His record isn’t the best at 12-9-6 but he has really only been stopped in one of his losses.
The other KOP title fight will be in the Middleweight division as the card will host a 4-man one-night Middleweight tournament with the main event final deciding the 11th Middleweight KOP.
The original fight cosplayer Hikaru Sato will take on Yoshihiro Akiyama teammate Ikkei (Nagamura) in one semifinal and Yuji Hisamatsu will face tournament favorite Ryo Kawamura in the other.
KEI Yamamiya will battle Hibiki Tamura in a Welterweight fight. Yamamiya is 3-0 in his last 3 while Tamura has had a really rough time as of late.
A Super Flyweight fight between Yuki Yasunaga and Isao Hirose will take place. Yasunaga started his career going 0-4 but is now 7-1 in his last 8 fights. The winner of this fight should be close to a shot at the Super Flyweight KOP title.
Tatsuya So had a good 2011 and he will look to have a similar 2012 campaign. He will take on Pancrase regular JTaro Takita in a Bantamweight fight.
In another Bantamweight fight the legendary Masahiro Oishii will face Yuta Nakamura who went 3-0 in 2011.
Sengoku Bantamweight Asia Tournament participant Shoko Sato had quite a bad 2011 but will try to turn things around against Takada Dojo’s Masaomi Saito in another Bantamweight fight.
The legendary Yuki Kondo will continue his Welterweight campaign as he is scheduled to take on wrestler Kenji Nagaki.
In some of the lower-down-on-the-card-bouts Yoshihiro Matsunaga and Tiger Ishii meet in a Flyweight fight, females Mizuho Sato and Kyoko Kimura will fight in a 64kg Athena Rules fight, the exciting Takuya Eizumi will face Masakazu Utsugi in a Flyweight fight, and Shinya Irei will clash with Naoking (Naoki Tajima) in a Featherweight bout.
