On August 2nd, World Victory Road will be presenting the Sengoku 9 event at the Saitama Super Arena at in Saitama, Japan. As part of the fight card, former UFC veteran Akirhiro Gono will go up against North American fighter Dan “The Handler” Hornbuckle.
Gono was recently released by the UFC after losing back to back decisions against Dan Hardy and then to Jon Fitch. As for Hornbuckle, he lost to former UFC fighter Mike Pyle at Sengoku 2 via a triangle choke submission. Since then, Hornbuckle has won two consecutive fights at small venues in North America.
Sengoku 9 will feature the final round of World Victory Road’s 2009 Featherweight Grand Prix. The featherweight championship will start out with semi-final bouts, which include Marlon Sandro vs. Michihiro Omigawa and Hatsu Hioki vs. Masanori Kanehara. The winers of each of the bouts will square off that same night.
Here are a few non-prix fights for Sengoku 9:
- Satoru Kitaoka vs. Mizuto Hirota
- Eiji Mitsuoka vs. Clay French
- Kazuhiro Nakamura vs. Kazuo Misaki
- Kazuyuki Fujita vs. Blagoi Ivanov
- Yoshihiro Nakao vs. Choi Mu Bae
