Shinya Aoki managed to finish zero of his eighteen takedown attempts in his fight against Strikeforce Lightweight Champion Gilbert Melendez. In addition to not being effective at all in terms of takedowns, Aoki was ineffective on his feet and at the times where he did get the fight to the ground by pulling guard he was unable to ever present any real danger.
Strikeforce: Nashville Results - Gilbert Melendez Dominates Shinya Aoki, Retains Lightweight Title
Melendez spent the fight establishing distance and landing plenty of punches while picking apart Aoki and bloodying his nose. All five rounds were basically carbon copies of each other as Aoki couldn’t get anything done while getting blasted by Melendez.
The reffing was not as favorable to Aoki as it is when Aoki fights in his home country of Japan as he was not allowed to simply butt scoot around the ring and hope that Melendez would fall into his guard. With no way to get the fight into his world reliably it was simply a matter of if Aoki could survive to the decision, which he did.
All three judges had it a 50-45 shutout for Gilbert Melendez.
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