Pawel Nastula to end retirement at Sengoku 4
August 5, 2008 by Sam Caplan
World Victory Road’s Sengoku promotion has officially announced that former Judoka Olympic Gold Medalist Pawel Nastula is coming out of retirement to fight Korean wrestler Yang Dong Yi at Sengoku 4 on August 24.
Nastula, who won gold in the 1996 Olympics while representing his native Poland, is 1-3 lifetime in MMA in spite of his impressive Judo credentials. All four of his fights took place inside the rings of PRIDE, where he sustained losses against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Aleksander Emelianenko, and Josh Barnett.
His lone victory took place s during PRIDE’s “Critical Countdown Absolute” in July of 2006 when he executed a first round submission against Edson Draggo.
Nastula announced his retirement from MMA after the Nevada State Athletic Commission suspended him for testing positive for performance enhancing drugs following his submission loss to Barnett at PRIDE 32 in October of 2006.
He’ll be facing an opponent in Yi that is 14 years his junior. Yi trains out of CMA Korea and is 2-0 with both his wins coming via first round TKO in the DEEP promotion.
Sengoku 4 will be emanating from the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan and will feature the first round of Sengoku’s 2008 lightweight Grand Prix. First round matchups include IFL lightweight champion Ryan Schultz vs. Mizuto Hirota, Clay French vs. Satoru Kitaoka, Ejii Mitsuoka vs. Rodrigo Damm, and Kazunori Yokota vs. Bojan Kosednar.
Non-tournament bouts will include Takanori Gomi vs. Bang Seung, Makoto Takimoto vs. Frank Trigg, and Peter Graham vs. Moise Rimbon.
“Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Aleksander Emelianenko, and Josh Barnett.”
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damn, talk about throwing the sheep to the lions. —-Is that even a saying??