Mitsuoka will be making his UFC debut with his precious action primarily occurring in Japan where he racked up a 18-7-2 in his career. Included in those wins are victories over the likes of Rodrigo Damm, Gleison Tibau, and Joachim Hansen. Gomi will be competing in his native country for the first time since 2009, and will be looking to end a two-fight losing skid. Gomi is 32-8 overall but just 1-3 in his four UFC fights.

It is unknown at this time what kind of injury Sotiropoulos suffered. MMAWeekly was the first to report the change to the card.

UFC 144 features a headlining fight pitting UFC lightweight champion Frankie Edgar against #1 contender Benson Henderson. The card goes down February 26 from the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.

PHOTO CREDIT – FEG/UFC

The pairing was announced at the press conference in Japan for the increasingly epic show, an event going down February 26 from the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan. UFC 155-pound champ Frankie Edgar will defend his belt in the main event against Ben Henderson.

Gomi entered the UFC with plenty of hype, having won 31 fights his career over in Japan. However, “The Fireball Kid” has struggled inside the Octagon against some of the elite lightweights in the world, falling by submission to Kenny Florian, Clay Guida, and Nate Diaz. The lone win for Gomi came by knockout over Tyson Griffin in the summer of 2010.

Sotiropoulos could also be fighting for his UFC career as well, having dropped two in a row after winning seven consecutive fights on the heels of his appearance on The Ultimate Fighter with defeats to Dennis Siver and Rafael dos Anjos.

UFC 144 is also full of match-ups featuring some of Gomi’s fellow Japanese stars including Hatsu Hioki vs. Bart Palaszewski, Yushin Okami vs. Tim Boetsch, and Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Jake Shields.

PHOTO CREDIT – UFC

The UFC announced the pairing late Monday night through their Twitter account.

Diaz has fallen in back-to-back bouts and is 5-5 in his last ten in-ring appearances meaning the importance of a victory over Gomi goes far beyond familial history. The 26-year old TUF 5 winner holds an overall record of 13-7 in his career including success against a number of notable opponents such as Kurt Pellegrino, Josh Neer, and Melvin Guillard.

The 32-7 Gomi is also in need of a win after being submitted in two of his three fights since signing on with the UFC after a storied run in the Land of the Rising Sun. Gomi first came to fans’ attention in PRIDE where he took out the likes of Jens Pulver, Hayato “Mach” Sakurai, Mitsuhiro Ishida, and Tatsuya Kawajiri. “The Fireball Kid” has finished eighteen of the thirty-two foes he’s beaten with twelve of the victories coming by way of TKO.

In addition to Gomi vs. Diaz, the UFC 135 lineup features Jon Jones’ putting his belt up against former 205-pound champion Quinton “Rampage” Jackson on the card, as well as a fight between Matt Hughes and Diego Sanchez plus action from Travis Browne, Mark Hunt, Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto, and others.

PHOTO CREDIT – UFC

Lightweight champ Frank Edgar will defend his strap against the only individual to beat him, Gray Maynard, in the evening’s main event. Edgar lost a unanimous decision to Maynard in April 2008 before going on to win six straight bouts including two consecutive wins over former title-holder BJ Penn. Comparably, Maynard has won five fights in a row over a list of opponents featuring Nate Diaz, Roger Huerta, and most recently Ken Florian.

Also scheduled to see action on January 1st, 2011 in Las Vegas, Shane Carwin and Roy Nelson will settle their personal differences in the cage and help sort out the heavyweight contendership picture in the process. “Big Country” recently poked fun at Carwin’s alleged involvement in a steroid distribution ring with Carwin responding by taking verbal jabs at Nelson’s physique.

In addition to Edgar vs. Maynard II and Nelson vs. Carwin, the other “UFC 125 – Resolution” match-ups confirmed by the company are as follows:

Clay Guida vs. Takanori Gomi
Nate Diaz vs. Dong Hyun Kim
Thiago Silva vs. Brandon Vera
Chris Leben vs. Brian Stann

There will be no warm-up fights for Gomi in the UFC unless the man many consider to be the second best lightweight in the world could be viewed as a tune-up by some stretch of the imagination.

ESPN’s MMALive has recently reported via Twitter that the show’s very own Kenny Florian will be the first roadblock standing in the way of Gomi in the knockout artist’s highly anticipated promotional debut.

No date has been set for the match-up between the two as of this writing , but 5 Oz. expects for the date of the bout to be sometime in Spring, with official word coming down shortly.

The bout with Florian would be a big step up in competition for Gomi as of late, who has gone 2-2 in his last four bouts; losing consecutive bouts at the hands of Sergey Golyaev and Satoru Kitaoka before rebounding with back to back wins over the likes of Takashi Nakakura and Tony Hervey.

Florian is coming off of a performance many have judged to be the most impressive of his career, slapping a rear-naked choke on Clay Guida for the submission victory after putting on an absolute boxing clinic for the bulk of the previous round and a half between the two at UFC 107.

The winner of the scrap could very likely get a title shot against UFC 155 pound title holder B.J. Penn; a man that holds a previous rear-naked choke victory over both fighters.

Takanori Gomi is coming back to America.

Affliction has recently added a lightweight bout between Gomi and Rafaello Oliveira as part of the “Affliction: Trilogy” main card.

The event is set to take place on August 1 at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.

The main event will air live on Pay-Per-View, and the undercard will air on HDNet.

Gomi took just over a year off following his last bout on American soil, a gogoplata submission loss to Nick Diaz that was later overturned due to Diaz testing positive for marijuana, and has put together a record of 3-2 since his return.

Oliveira is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt that has put together an impressive record of 8-1 during the course of his career. His sole defeat came at the hands of undefeated lightweight Lyle Beerbohm in October of 2008, but Oliveira has gone on to string together three consecutive victories since the loss.

At Sengoku 6 in November, Gomi dropped a split-decision to Sergey Golyaev in what was considered a huge upset. He then tried to get back on the winning side of things when he met Satoru Kitaoka for the Sengoku lightweight title at the promotion’s “No Ran 2009” show in January. However, the stars once again didn’t line up for Gomi as Kitaoka was able to submit him with an achilles lock just 1:41 seconds into their fight.

It didn’t appear as if Gomi was the same fighter he once was and perhaps he needed a change of scenery. That’s exactly what he got when it was announced that Gomi would return to the Shooto promotion for the first time in over six years. Gomi got his start in Shooto and was looking to get back on the winning track when he faced Takashi Nakakura at Shooto’s “Tradition Final” show which was held earlier today at the JCB Hall in Tokyo, Japan.

Gomi entered the ring looking more ripped than ever before and got back to his roots in the bout with Nakakura as he punished the challenger with vicious boxing combinations before ultimately bringing a conclusion to the bout late in the second round with a hail storm of five ounces of pain.

Rumina Sato dominated Takeshi Inoue for the bulk of the contest between the highly regarded 143 pounders by utilizing his distance and technical striking. Midway through the first period Sato dropped Inoue and rushed in to finish him but failed to capitalize as Inoue rose to his feet and battered Sato with a flurry of punches in the clinch that ultimately brought a conclusion to the electrifying brawl.

A full list of results from the show are listed below:

Megumi Fujii def. Won Bun Chu via submission – Round 1

Akiyo Nishiura def. Takumi Ota via unanimous decision

Kotetsu Boku def. Yutaka Ueda via TKO – Round 1

Kenichiro Togashi def. Tetsuji Kato via majority decision

Mizuto Hirota def. Mitsuhiro Ishida via KO – Round 1

Willamy Chiquerim def. Yusuke Endo via submission – Round 1

Takanori Gomi def. Takashi Nakakura via KO – Round 2

Takeshi Inoue def. Rumina Sato via TKO – Round 1

Despite having lost to Sergey Golyaev via split decision during Sengoku’s “Sixth Battle” in November, Gomi was given an opportunity to face the promotion’s lightweight Grand Prix winner, Satoru Kitaoka, in a bout to determine Sengoku’s first-ever lightweight champion.

Gomi’s fight vs. Kitaoka lasted all of one minute and 41 seconds after the former PRIDE lightweight champion was forced to submit to an Achilles lock. The result left him with just two victories in his last three fights, hardly credentials worthy of elite-level competitor status.

Gomi’s fall from grace began in February of 2007 at PRIDE 33 when he was submitted in the second round by Nick Diaz courtesy of a gogoplata. The result was later ruled a no contest by the Nevada State Athletic Commission after Diaz had tested for abnormally high levels of THC. However, millions of fight fans witnessed Gomi being dominated in the standup aspect of the fight after he had been pushed by PRIDE as the best lightweight striker in the world.

He rebounded with a first round TKO (due to cut) victory over Duane Ludwig during Sengoku’s first-ever event this past March but followed it up with an uninspiring unanimous decision victory over Seung Hwan Bang during Sengoku’s “Fourth Battle.” The performance sparked many pundits to question whether Gomi should still be regarded as a top rated lightweight. Gomi only provided his critics with additional ammunition following his consecutive losses to Golyaev and Kitaoka.

A former welterweight champion in Shooto, Gomi rose to prominence in PRIDE with notable victories over Charles “Krazy Horse” Bennett, former UFC lightweight champion Jens Pulver, Marcus Aurelio, Ralph Gracie, and current DREAM standouts Mitsuhiro Ishida and Tatsuya Kawajiri.

Gomi actually began his PRIDE career with a perfect 10-0 record before losing to Aurelio via first round submission in April of 2006 at Bushido 10. He would later avenge the loss to Aurelio and improved his PRIDE record to 13-1 before losing to Diaz at PRIDE 33.

With the win, Kitaoka improved his record to 24-8 and is now recognized as both Sengoku’s first-ever lightweight Grand Prix winner and lightweight champion. He presently holds notable wins over his career against Gomi, Paul Daley, Kurt Pellegrino, current WEC welterweight champion Carlos Condit, Eiji Mitsuoka, Clay French and Hidehiko Hasegawa.

Kitaoka is now 10-1 in his last eleven fights, which is quite a dramatic turnaround for a fighter who began his career with just one victory in his first six bouts.

Undercard:

• Valentijn Overeem def. Yoshihiki Takahashi via KO (flying knee) at 2:42 of round one
• Moise Rimbon def. Peter Graham via submission (rear naked choke) at :42 of round two
• Yang Dong Yi def. Pawel Nastula via TKO at 2:15 of round two

Lightweight Grand Prix Bouts:

• Mizuto Hirota def. Ryan Schultz via KO (superman punch) at 4:25 of round two
• Kazunori Yokata def. Bojan Kosednar via unanimous decision
• Eiji Mitsuoka def. Rodrigo Damm via submission (rear naked choke) at 3:13 of round one
• Satoru Kitaoka def. Clay French via submission (achilles lock) at :31 of round one

Co-Main Event:

• Frank Trigg def. Makoto Takimoto via unanimous decision

Main Event:

• Takanori Gomi def. Seung Hwan Bang via unanimous decision

The news comes from our good friends over at MMA Junkie.

Chonan had to pull out of the UFC 85 clash due to a rib injury, leaving Carneiro to take on a replacement fighter in the form of the unheralded Kevin Burns. In a surprising turn of events, the BJJ black belt was submitted by the lowly Burns. However, Carneiro finds himself in a rare position in which he could all but erase the result of the Burns’ fight by winning the fight he against the opponent he was originally set to face.

Chonan, on the other hand, is coming back from an injury to find everything is where he left it as the fight he had to cancel due to injury is still there, glaring back at him. It will be an important fight for “Piranha” as he failed to impress in his debut where he was on the wrong end of a Karo Decisyan.

UFC 88 is headlined by a light heavyweight showdown between Chuck Liddell and Rashad Evans.

Read more UFC 88 content on FiveOuncesOfPain.com.

Roan Carneiro and Ryo Chonan have signed to fight at UFC 85 on June 7 in London, sources close to both camps have told Sherdog.com.

The bout will be a rematch of a Feb. 12, 2005, meeting in Deep. Chonan (14-8) stopped the Brazilian on a cut in that first fight after landing a knee as Carneiro (12-6) tried for a takedown.

Chonan was recently saying that he had “no money,” according to a translation of his blog and was awaiting his next fight. Now he’s got it and it looks be a damn good one on paper. This Joe Silva character knows what he’s doing sometimes.

The UFC has elected to also cancel the Thiago Alves vs. Ryo Chonan match and will move Chonan up to the main card to fight Parisyan in Lombard’s place. Alves will remain on the preliminary card and fight Chris Lytle. So for now, talks of a possible move to the WEC for Lytle are on hold.

UFC has officially signed Ryo Chonan, a former Pride fighter

Ryo Chonan I guess is going to be another Jeremy Horn in the sense where they import a challenger who holds a previous win over one of their champions who has cleaned out his own division.

When there weren’t a lot of options for Chuck Liddell to fight, they signed Horn just to headline a PPV so that they could sell the past history between the two. If Anderson Silva gets past Rich Franklin again at UFC 77 then I get the feeling that Chonan could be pushed in a similar role.

TFN is also reporting that Karo Parisyan has confirmed that the UFC is in negotiations for him to fight either Hector Lombard or Hayato Sakurai at UFC 78.