Satoshi Ishii is to appeal against his decision defeat at EMC 5 in Germany last weekend. The Japanese fighter was beaten by Stuart Austin with all three judges awarding the fight to the Englishman.
The promotion confirmed that it would review the decision after Ishii and his team appealed. As a result the fight will be reviewed by an independent panel, and the Japanese fighter will be hoping the original result is overturned.
Ishii controlled the opening round despite not doing any real damage. Austin spent nearly the full five minutes either on his back or pressed up against the cage defending takedown attempts.
The second stanza followed a similar pattern with Ishii shooting for a takedown. A stalemate ensured with the Olympian unable to get the fight down despite having his opponent trapped against the cage for virtually the entire round.
The third round was virtually identical although the referee did finally separate then with seconds remaining. In the fourth Ishii finally completed a takedown but he couldn’t keep Austin down for long.
The referee seemed extremely reluctant to separate the fighters. So Ishii was able to spend several minutes working unsuccessfully for takedowns while Austin could only fire off punches to his opponent’s back.
It wasn’t exactly a fan friendly approach. But the referee seemed content to let Ishii press Austin up against the cage for as long as he wanted, and the Japanese fighter had no intention of giving up on his takedown attempts.
Austin (15-6) was ultimately awarded the decision rather than Ishii (23-12-1) with the scorecards all reading 48-47 in his favour. The Japanese veteran looked shocked when the outcome was announced.
Ishii, who is based in Croatia and had Mirko Crocop in his corner, now faces an anxious wait to see whether the decision is overturned.
EMC 5, Dusseldorf, September 5th
Stuart Austin def. Satoshi Ishii via unanimous decision (For EMC heavyweight title)
Ismail Naurdiev def. Tymoteusz Lopaczyk via unanimous decision
Damian Olszewski def. Erko Jun via KO (punch), round 1, 0:36
Amiran Gogoladze def. Pavel Kusch via TKO (knee and punches), round 1, 0:54
Kasim Aras def. Sasa Milinkovic via unanimous decision
Konrad Dyrschka def. Walter Pugliesi via unanimous decision
Sara Luzar Smajic def. Kaylee Vos via unanimous decision
Pascal Hintzen def. Said Eidi via submission (guillotine), round 1, 0:56
Tobias Eylitz def. Ibrahim Cholo via unanimous decision
