Satoshi Ishii's Disappointing MMA Debut

This time last year the UFC was courting one of the most sought after free-agents in MMA, the Olympic gold medalist in Judo, Satoshi Ishii.

While Ishii eventually signed with Sengoku --after signing then backing out of a potential UFC deal-- it still took over six months for Ishii to make his highly anticipated MMA debut. Last night, or early morning depending on where you live, Ishii fought for the first time as the favorite, no less; against the Pride and Sengoku veteran Hidehiko Yoshida (9-7-1).

Sadly, the fight was not a coming out party for the Judo Olympian who was soundly defeated by Yoshida.

While Ishii is still extremely young --he is only 23 years old-- and certainly needs more to time to adapt to MMA; to be defeated by a .500 fighter certainly hurts his stock, a lot.  

Hopefully Satoshi will be able to rebound from this loss but if the rumors of his training camp bear any truth Ishii has a long way to go before he will be considered a legitimate MMA fighter.

SBN coverage of Dynamite!! 2009

Updated with fight video.