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By: Alex Williams, MMATorch Contributor K-1 announced that the 6'11'' Semmy Schilt will fight Mighty Mo under MMA rules at the December 31 Dynamite!! 2008 card. This marks Schilt's first MMA bout since a gimme fight he had in January, and only his third MMA fight in the last four-and-a-half years.
From MMAJunkie.com, here is the card in its current entirety:
Semmy Schilt vs. Siala "Mighty Mo" Siliga
Daisuke Nakamura vs. Hideo Tokoro
Artur Kyshenko vs. Yoshihiro Sato*
Mark Hunt vs. Jerome Le Banner
Eddie Alvarez vs. Shin'ya Aoki
Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Kozo Takeda*
Gegard Mousasi vs. Musashi*
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Kiyoshi Tamura
Gesias "JZ" Calvancante vs. Joachim Hansen
Hiroya vs. Shimada Shota*
Kusakabe Ryuya vs. Urabe Koya*
* = Fight will be conducted under K-1 (kickboxing) rules
Though it is not going to happen unless he leaves K-1, I wish Schilt would make a permanent return to MMA. Before he was a three time K-1 World Grand Prix kickboxing champion, Schilt had a lengthy MMA career, fighting in the UFC and Pride. In his last few MMA bouts before he started full-time with K-1, he had began to show some improvement in his ground game (albeit not enough to fend off Sergei Kharitonov's ground and pound or a Josh Barnett armbar). He always had very good striking for a MMA fighter, but now that he has honed it to the point that he is one of the best kickboxers in the world, he could be devastating.
Schilt should beat Mo (a fellow kickboxer) easily if he takes the bout to the ground. While Mark Hunt is no ground wizard, I think the same applies to his match that evening with Jerome Le Banner. The best fights on the card for true MMA fans, though, are the two clashes featuring top lightweights: Eddie Alvarez vs Shinya Aoki and Joachim Hansen vs Gesias "JZ" Calvancante. Also, while both Kazushi Sakuraba and Kiyoshi Tamura are significantly past their primes, their match has great historic value. For one, Sakuraba is a MMA legend, and to a lesser extent, so is Tamura. But also, a fight between them has been talked about for years, with Tamura always refusing it until now. The story goes that when Sakuraba was first training, Tamura (who was already a big star) used to beat him up in the gym. Over a decade later, we will see if Sakuraba can obtain a measure of revenge.
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