On May 19 at the Korakuen Hall, DEEP will hold one of their more substantial fight cards in 2008.
Following Ryo Chonan’s signing with the UFC, a vacancy opened for the organization’s middleweight title. May 19 will play host to the semi-finals and the finals of the middleweight tournament which will crown DEEP’s newest champion. The quarter-finals, however, will be fought at DEEP 34.
In featherweight action, highly ranked Masakazu Imanari will defend his DEEP title against Dokonjonosuke Mishima. Imanari (14-5-1) last fought at Cage Rage 25 where he defeated the highly regarded Jean Silva by submission, extending his win streak to five. Mishima (17-6-2) on the other hand is on a two-fight losing streak, losing to Joe Stevenson and Kenny Florian in the UFC.
DEEP’s welterweight champion Hidehiko Hasegawa will fight in a non-title bout against Hiroki Nagaoka, while the promotion’s women’s flyweight champion Satoko Shinashi is expected to fight as well.
DEEP 35 Fight Card:
Masakazu Imanari (c) vs. Dokonjonosuke Mishima (DEEP featherweight championship)
Kazunori Yokota (c) vs. Pang Sung Hwan (DEEP lightweight championship)
Hidehiko Hasegawa vs. Hiroki Nagaoka
Koichiro Matsumoto vs. Yuki Ito
Katsunori Kikuno vs. Seigo Inoue
DEEP middleweight tournament:
Yuya Shirai
Riki Fukuda
Daijiro Matsui
Yuichi Nakanishi
Ryuta Sakurai vs. Young Choi (middleweight tournament reserve bout)
Additional fighters
Satoko Shinashi
Seichi Ikemoto
Jutaro Nakaro
