Tatsuya Mizuno - Destiny of a Warrior

Tatsuya Mizuno - Destiny of a Warrior
mma-japan.com - Thursday, 14 June 2012 15:22
Written by Jacob M



It has been a long and often painful seven year road leading Tatsuya Mizuno to Kuala Lumpur for One FC 4 where he will face the legendary Renato Babalu Sobral but through adversity and some of the most vicious losses in MMA history. Like many growing up in Japan, Mizuno took to Judo and reached the level of 3ed dan black belt. These skills where used masterfully when he debuted as a Pancrase Neo Blood. Muzuno dispatching his first 3 opponents by submission.

But then like so many promising young fighters in Japan he hit the Battletoads, time to throw him to the wolfs stage, when he was matched up against then 8-0 Thiago Silva. Mizuno was brutally knocked out for the first time in his career. In his next match he would give MMA veteran Assuerio Silva a tougher fight but was once again KO'd. Mizuno got a slight reprieve in his next fight, as he scored a KO of his own over Pro Wrestler Masayuki Kono before getting the biggest fight of his career...

In front of almost 20,000 people at the inaugural DREAM event, Mizuno would step up to face one of the most feared fighters in history, Mirko Cro Cop. Mirko would annihilate the out sized and out matched Mizuno but Mizuno would once again rebound and pick up one of the most impressive wins of his career by flattening Yoshiyuki Nakanishi in one round. Tatsuya would spent the next two years fighting all over the world with M-1, going 4-2 before he would get another call from DREAM to take part in the 4-man Light Heavyweight Grand Prix.

Mizuno would face the mythological beast that mortal men call Melvin Manhoef. Mizuno was the considerable underdog but he had started training with the legendary Matt Hume at AMC Pankration and it showed in both his slimmed down appearance and his performance. Mizuno displayed his trademark toughness as he ate all of Melvin's bombs and lived to tell the tale. Tatsuya's plan of letting Manhoef wear himself out worked perfectly and he soon pinned Melvin to the corner and locked in a flawless Kimura to score a massive upset. In the final he would face top 10 LHW Gegard Mousasi and not many gave Mizuno much of a chance against such a top fighter and he did indeed lose but he gave Gegard a tougher fight then expected. Once again Mizuno would step way out of his proper weight class to fight Sergei Kharitonov. It was a brave but unhealthy because Sergei would deliver one of the most vicious KO's in recent years.

There is an old proverb, 七転八起 "Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight" and that is exactly what Tatsuya Mizuno does every time he his brutally knocked down by the likes of Kharitonov, he claws his way back up and goes on a two fight win streak. Now yet again Mizuno finds himself as the underdog in his match with Babalu. The question is, will it be Mizuno's turn to do the knocking down? Will the destiny of a true warrior come to fruition? We can only wait and see. But one thing is for certain; You beat Mizuno with fists, he comes back with a bat. You beat him with a knife, he comes back with a gun. And you beat him with a gun, you better kill him, because he’ll keep comin’ back and back until one of you is dead.