[12/22/2005] TOKYO, Dec. 22 — Japanese judoka Yoshiro Akiyama suffered a bad back injury during training and has had to withdraw from his fight against
Royce Gracie (
Pictures) on the upcoming New Year's Eve K-1 Dynamite show, it was announced on Thursday.
Akiyama's replacement against Gracie will be ZST star
Hideo Tokoro (
Pictures), who was scheduled to fight Olympic medalist wrestler Katsuhiko Nagata the same night. Nagata now faces ZST Grand Prix champion
Remigijus Morkevicius (
Pictures).
The weight limit for Gracie-Tokoro, according to K-1, will be 180 pounds. This leaves the Japanese star with the difficult task to put weight on his usual 155-pound frame to meet the limit. Also this match will be played under "special rules" with two 10-minute rounds. While asked about the weight limit by the Japanese press, Tokoro announced his intentions to fight Gracie at 178 pounds.
(copied from Sherdog.com.. for I am lazy)
This is very depressing news for me, being a diehard Akiyama fan, and very secure in the fact that he would have shocked the world in defeating Gracie.