aoki « MMA Magazines

Japanese super star Shinya Aoki one of the worlds best pound for pound fighters, will make his U.S debut when he steps in the cage this, Saturday April, 17Th on the Strikeforce Nashville card when he faces off against current Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez.

Aoki unknown to most of the casual U.S mma fans, enters the fight with a out standing record of 23-4-1 with 14 of those wins coming via submission, with all of his fights in Japan Aoki looks to make his name in the U.S this Saturday night.

Aoki a submission specialist has won the majority of his wins via submission, a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu under Yuki Nakai, he is also a black belt in Judo.

Although in his U.S debut he will face a tough fighter, and the current Strikeforce Lightweight champion in Gilbert Melendez who enters the fight against Aoki with a record of 19-2 who specializes in wrestling he wrestled for his high school Santa Ana High School,

A quick preview of the fight of course Aoki will look to get the fight to the mat, where he will look to submit Melendez where Aoki has won 14 fights in his career via submission, but getting the fight to the mat could prove to be a tough task for the Japanese superstar.

Melendez has worked hard on this take down defense, as shown is his last 2 fights where he avenged both of his losses against Mitsuhiro Ishida, and Josh Thomson. Melendez will look to keep the fight standing where he holds a significant advantage his boxing is much sharper then Aoki also another interesting subject in the fight is Aoki lack of experience in fighting in a cage.

Now we can only wait and see who will come out on top in this bout which will take place at Saturdays Strikefroce Nashville event. But one can only think that the winner of this fight will be clearly on top on the Strikeforce lightweight division for along time to come.