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by Kendall Shields

A busy weekend for the MMA fan, to be sure. Aside from the much anticipated UFC 81 — which Jonathon Snowden will preview for you tomorrow on this site — there are a number of smaller shows of potential interest this weekend as well.

Let us adopt the most liberal of all possible definitions of “this weekend,” and begin with last night’s Pancrase Shining show held in Tokyo’s Karakuen Hall. Sherdog has the complete results, but really the two results of note here are Shoji’s upset of Artur Oumakhanov, and Katsuya Inoue’s decision win over Satoru Kitaoka in the main event.

Shoji — who can be seen here wrecking Yuji Miyazaki with a flying knee in a match that took less time, bell to bell, then Shoji’s largely regrettable post-fight dance; and here stomping the daylights out of poor Taku Aramaki, before unleashing an even worse dance, if you can believe it — stopped his Russian opponent early in the second round to become Pancrase’s first lightweight King. Tony Loiseleur reports that Oumakhanov kept atop Shoji for the duration of the first round after catching hold of a low kick and turning it into a takedown, and attempted the same technique to open the second, only to see Shoji escape and connect with a “picturesque” (as opposed to the beautiful or the sublime, I guess) right high kick that sent Oumakhanov to the mat. Loiseleur tells us of Shoji’s “emotional, teary-eyed” address to the crowd, but says nothing on the question foremost in our minds: did he dance?

MMA Man Japan doesn’t answer that question, but he does offer this shot of the high kick that ended the match:

There was nothing quite that decisive in Katsuya Inoue’s welterweight title win over Satoru Kitaoka, their third bout in four years. Kitaoka was looking to avenge his 2004 loss, and improve on his 2006 draw with Inoue, but came up short. Tony Loiseleur reports that Kitaoka controlled the largely uneventful rounds one and two, only to completely run out of steam by the end of third, a round in which Kitaoka was on the wrong end of “soccer kicks to the face that elicited strong reactions from the audience.” Although the fight was scored a draw by all three judges, under Pancrase rules a winner must be declared: the decision went to Inoue by a 2-1. MMA Man Japan notes that “Kitaoka had Shinya Aoki shouting advice, but it didn’t help. Towards the end of the fight Kitaoka became predictable in his attack and Inoue easily defended.” Hopefully video of these fights will start making the internet rounds soon.

We can be sure Antonio Rogerio Nogueira’s Friday, February 1st Hardcore Championship Fighting: Destiny bout against the plainly over-matched Todd Gouwenberg will see the light of day eventually, as HCF cards air (although in a weird format) on The Score, Canada’s (third most important!) cable sports network. This is clearly something of a comedown for Nogueira, whose career thus far has been played out almost exclusively on the biggest MMA stage of them all. Maybe the strangest of the many strange things that happened in the wake of Pride FC’s downfall — aside from the “Oh delicious!” manga, obviously — was Rogerio landing not with the UFC or K-1 or even, say, BoDog, but instead a Western Canadian regional promotion few had heard of at the time. I’m not knocking it, necessarily: if Rogerio feels his best interests are served by whatever arrangement his people came to with HCF, more power to him (and them). But any way you slice it, it’s a long way down from the Saitama Super Arena in Tokyo to the Stampede Corral in Calgary. While Rogerio is definitely the most prominent Pride alumnus on this card, he’s not the only one: Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos takes on Gegard Mousasi in what should be an entertaining semi-main event.

Also running Friday night is BodogFIGHT’s Nick Thompson vs. John Troyer event — well named, in that that is the only fight on the eight-fight Vegas card you’ll want to see, with the rising Hook ‘n Shoot star (if you’ll permit the phrase) Troyer taking a big step up in competition to face “The Goat,” who’ll apparently be defending his Bodog welterweight title. If you can name even one other BodogFIGHT champion, you’ve managed to follow this organization much more closely than I have. It’s remarkable, the changes in scale and scope that have followed Calvin Ayre’s decision to flush somewhat less money down the toilet on this strange promotion.

And that’s not all: Saturday brings us Cage Rage Contenders in London, K-1 World Max in Tokyo, and of course UFC 81 from Las Vegas. One night after Antonio Rogerio Nogueira fights at the Stampede Corral, his brother will fight for the (interim) UFC heavyweight championship against Tim Slyvia in a fight I look ahead to with equal measures of hope and dread: hope that Nogueira is able to pull off the spectacular submission victory that is his trademark, dread that this Tim Sylvia fight will turn out to be a Tim Sylvia fight. Jon Snowden will no doubt tell you which result to look for in his UFC 81 preview tomorrow.