Shinya Aoki v. Mizuto Hirota Added To ‘Dynamite!! 2009’

The biggest Japanese MMA event of the year will have a lightweight showdown between the champions of the two biggest Japanese promotions. From MMA Junkie:

The organizations announced two additional MMA-rules contests for the Dec. 31 event, as Shinya Aoki meets Mizuto Hirota and Tatsuya Kawajiri faces Kazunori Yokota.
The HDNet-televised event features both MMA and K-1 bouts and takes place at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.
The current DREAM lightweight champion, Aoki (22-4) enters the contest having won five of his past six bouts. “Tobikan Judan’s” lone loss in the stretch came in a welterweight grand prix contest to Hayato “Mach” Sakurai. The 26-year-old is quickly becoming a New Year’s Eve staple, as “Dynamite!! 2009” will mark Aoki’s fourth-straight Dec. 31 appearance.
Meanwhile, Hirota (12-3-1) fights for the first time since claiming World Victory Road’s Sengoku lightweight title with an August TKO win over former champion Satoru Kitaoka. Hirota enters the bout having gone 6-1-1 in his past eight outings.

It is a very big fight in the Japanese MMA scene and it carries a lot of meaning beyond this single fight. Aoki is rumored to be coming to America to fight Gilbert Melendez as a part of Strikeforce’s next CBS event which will also feature Fedor and Dan Henderson. A loss for Aoki will likely drop him out of the top five in the weight class and take away some of the meaning of that fight as Gilbert attempts to prove that he is a top ten level talent.

If Aoki should win and carry his #2 world ranking into the CBS show then we’d be looking at a Strikeforce event featuring Fedor (#1 Heavyweight) v. Werdum (#11 Heavyweight), Aoki (#2 Lightweight) v. Melendez (#13 Lightweight) and Henderson (#3 Middleweight) v. Shields (#7 Middleweight).