Forget Fedor: Two of Japan’s Best Ever are Set to Clash

After weeks of speculation, we now know not only where Fedor Emelianenko will be fighting when he makes his highly anticipated comeback, but who he’ll be fighting. “The Last Emperor” is expected to step through the ropes at Saitama Super Arena on New Years Eve, under a new promotion led by former PRIDE boss Nobuyuki Sakakibara. When he does so, the man across the canvas will be Jaideep Singh who, though experienced in kickboxing competition, has just one MMA bout to his name. At the press conference for the event yesterday, however, there was no word about Singh, and the bout is still considered unconfirmed.

Still, the announcement of Fedor’s potential opponent was met with a sigh of disappointment from just about every MMA fan on earth. A pairing of Fedor and some long-forgotten, UFC has-been would have been a letdown. But a pairing of Fedor and some kickboxing transplant that most fans have never even heard of? Well, all we can really do is scratch our heads and feel a little bit silly for believing the Russian’s comeback fight would unfold any more desirably.

Luckily though, it’s not all bad news from the burgeoning organization behind Fedor’s return. Rizin Fighting Federation is slowly revealing the details of it’s big, Fedor-helmed New Years Eve epic. And according to a report by Ariel Helwani of MMAFighting.com, the latest news is that the NYE show will be proceeded by two others on December 29th and 30th, both also at Saitama Super Arena. The planned headliner of the show on the 29th, however, has been announced: a clash between Japanese legends Shinya Aoki (38-6) and Kazushi Sakuraba (26-16).

We last saw Shinya Aoki on May 22 of this year, when he defended his ONE Championship lightweight belt against Koji Ando. He has also competed as a featherweight in recent years. Sakuraba, on the other hand, has spent the majority of his career at welterweight and above, and has not competed in MMA since September of 2011, when he experienced his fourth consecutive loss against Yan Cabral. All this to say; this rather bizarre clash of current lightweight champion and fading middleweight legend will occur at a to-be-determined catchweight somewhere between their two home divisions.

Yet while this matchup is somewhat strange in the way it pairs two differently sized fighters at starkly different stages of their respective careers, it’s actually a pretty cool one—and not simply because it marks Sakuraba’s return to competition. The larger appeal of this fight is that, with the arguable exception of Takanori Gomi, it represents a clash between the two best Japanese fighters ever.

Just take a quick look back at what the two fighters have accomplished.

In addition to being the reigning ONE lightweight champion (a title he’s defended twice) Aoki has also earned titles in DREAM and Shooto. His real claim to fame, however, has been his unorthodox approach to grappling in MMA competition. A black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Judo, the crafty Aoki is among the most revered submission specialists in the game. 25 of his 38 career victories have come via this method, including stoppages by gogoplata, heel hook, Americana, neck-crank, achilles lock, armbar, and even a flying triangle. Yes, with victories over the likes of Joachim Hansen, Eddie Alvarez, Tatsuya Kawajiri, and Caol Uno to name a very small few, Aoki is regarded as one of the best fighters ever out of Japan, and one of the best submission specialists in MMA—period.

Then there’s Sakuraba, whose accomplishments cast an even taller shadow. His legend was spawned in PRIDE, where he carved out a niche as one of the game’s most fearless fighters. He showed baffling amounts of heart in defeats to monsters like Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic and Wanderlei Silva (three times). He scored epic wins over fighters like Carlos Newton, Vitor Belfort, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Ken Shamrock and Kevin Randleman. And then, of course, there were his victories over Royler, Renzo, Ryan, and Royce Gracie—the latter of whom he fought for an hour and a half straight in a special rules bout—which combined to earn him the nickname “The Gracie Hunter.”

Yes, over the course of their long and storied careers, Aoki and Sakuraba have emerged as two of the greatest fighters, if not the greatest fighters out of Japan. And now, though they’ve spent the majority of their careers separated by at least one division, they’re scheduled to mix it up with one another in a bout that is significant not just to Japan’s MMA history, but to that of the larger MMA world.

So, while Fedor’s recently announced opponent may be a bit of a head-scratcher, at least the shadowy promotion behind his comeback has done something right. A late-career comeback, a clash of legends, and a collision of amazing grapplers all wrapped into one, Aoki vs. Sakuraba should be a lot of fun. Better still, it might just mark the beginning of new MMA heyday in Japan.