FanHouse TakanoriGomi

If Vale Tudo Japan '09 was indeed Takanori Gomi's send-off event from Japan, and while his performance put forth wasn't ideal, the former PRIDE champion can take solace in the fact that he will leave on back-to-back wins.

Gomi defeated King of the Cage lightweight titleholder Tony Hervey Friday in Tokyo in the main event of the rebirth of the venerable Vale Tudo Japan series, which returned after a 10-year absence.

In what could be his last fight in Japan for the near future, former PRIDE lightweight champion Takanori Gomi has been booked to take on King of the Cage lightweight titleholder Tony Hervey at Vale Tudo Japan 2009 on Oct. 30 at the JCB Hall in Tokyo, Japan.

The Vale Tudo Japan series will return after 10 years on Oct. 30 in Tokyo and the first four participants set for the event are Takanori Gomi, Rumina Sato, Takeshi "Lion" Inoue and Alexandre Franca "Pequeno" Nogueira.

The Vale Tudo Japan series were annual events connected to Shooto from 1994 to 1999 and featured early pro fights from RIckson Gracie, Randy Couture and Hayato "Mach" Sakurai.

Three of the four so far confirmed for Vale Tudo Japan 2009, Sato, Gomi and Nogueira, fought 10 years earlier on the same card at the then-final Vale Tudo event. At Vale Tudo Japan 2009, Shooto champion "Lion" Inoue will take on former champ Nogueira, while Sato and Gomi will face opponents to be announced.

Takanori Gomi, one of Japan's biggest MMA stars, will fight in the United States for the second time in his career on August 1 when he takes on Rafaello Oliveira at Affliction Trilogy.

We've been handing out our half-year MMA awards, so here's my take on the biggest upset of the last six months.

As is often the case in MMA, there were plenty of upsets to choose from. But at the end of the day, I had to go with Joe Warren defeating Kid Yamamoto via split decision at Dream.9 on May 26 (part one of the fight is above; part two is here.)

Update: Affliction Vice President, Tom Atencio, just informed FanHouse that he received an unexpected call from a member of Takanori Gomi's management team about reaching an agreement on a new contract that benefits both parties. Stay tuned.

Takanori Gomi won't be competing at "Affliction: Trilogy" after all. FanHouse has learned that Affliction Entertainment could not reach an agreement with the Japanese MMA star to fight on their upcoming show on August 1 in Anaheim, Calif. Affliction Entertainment Vice President, Tom Atencio, told FanHouse on Friday that after weeks of negotiation, the two sides couldn't agree on a contract. Gomi was offered a fight against Rafael Rivera.

(Round 1 video above, Round 2 video below.)
Less than a year ago, the Japanese lightweight Takanori Gomi was considered to be among the Top 10 pound-for-pound fighters in mixed martial arts. But Gomi has fallen so far since then that he won a fight on Saturday, and I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of American MMA fans couldn't care less.

Takanori Gomi, the lightweight who was once considered among the best MMA fighters in the world, was beaten by Satoru Kitaoka with an Achilles lock submission less than two minutes into their fight at World Victory Road's Sengoku 7 event today in Japan.

As Steve Cofield writes, this is another blow to the Gomi myth. The 30-year-old Gomi has now lost three of his last five fights, and he no longer deserves to be considered among the top 10 lightweights in the sport.

In another Sengoku 7 fight, the last EliteXC heavyweight champion, Antonio Silva, defeated Yoshihiro Nakao by first-round TKO when Nakao planted his foot awkwardly and injured himself. Silva is suspended in the United States for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs, and after ignoring that suspension to fight in Japan, he may never be allowed to fight in the U.S. again.

UPDATE: A Gomi-Kitaoka video, as well as the full Sengoku 7 results, are below.

One of the best things ESPN.com does is post a lot of videos related to mixed martial arts. That's particularly surprising because ESPN doesn't televise MMA, and fans of other sports, especially hockey, have complained that ESPN simply ignores the sports it doesn't televise. But here it is, the latest ESPN MMA video, a rundown of the world's Top 10 pound-for-pound MMA fighters, according to Sherdog:

I think we've reached the point where it's obvious to anyone who follows the sport who the No. 1 fighter on the list is going to be, but what about positions 2-10? For those who don't feel like watching the video to find out, the list is after the jump.