Three additional fights have been added to the all-day Sengoku Raiden Championship “Soul of Fight” event on December 30th. Among them is an SRC Featherweight Championship bout between reigning champion Marlon Sandro and talented submission specialist Hatsu Hioki.

Also on the card, former middleweight contender Kazuo “The Hitman” Misaki will return to action to welcome journeyman Mike “Crazy Boy” Seal to SRC, while Valkyrie Open-Weight Champion Rin Nakai faces Mika “Hari” Harigai in a women’s match. Nakai captured the Valkyrie title in late November.

Once known as a decision king, Featherweight King of Pancrase Sandro (17-1-0) has shed that label in emphatic fashion in recent fights. His last four wins have all ended by way of devastating knockouts, with only one of those bouts lasting longer than 38 seconds. Aside from a highly controversial loss to Michihiro Omigawa last August, Sandro has emerged victorious in all of his fights and he captured the Sengoku Featherweight Championship by knocking out Masanori Kanehara in June of this year. While Sandro is skilled on the ground, he will no doubt look to add another stunning knockout to his highlight reel on December 30th.

The challenger in the fight, Hioki (22-4-2), has long been regarded as one of the most talented fighters in the featherweight division. A wizard on the ground, Hioki has earned 11 wins by submission and has already held championship gold in TKO and Shooto. He remains the latter’s 143-pound champion. Like Sandro, Hioki’s lone recent loss came by way of a contentious Split Decision to Omigawa in 2009, but he has won seven of his last eight fights. Among those victories were decision wins over future champ Kanehara and top Shooto star “Lion” Takeshi Inoue. His crafty submissions could threaten Sandro on the ground, but Hioki will need to avoid Sandro’s punching power.

After suffering a second fifth-round stoppage defeat to Sengoku Middleweight Champion Jorge Santiago, Misaki (22-11-2, 1 NC) will now take a step down in competition to face Seal (13-13-1, 1 NC) in Seal’s SRC debut. Misaki sports a modest 4-3 record in his last seven fights, but two of those defeats came in five-round wars with Santiago where Misaki came perilously close to becoming a Sengoku champion on both occasions. The 2006 PRIDE Welterweight Grand Prix Champion is otherwise unbeaten in SRC. Seal has fought just one time in the last three and a half years in a losing effort this past May. He has only gone to a decision once in 28 career fights.

In an open-weight women’s bout, first reported by Nightmare of Battle, Valkyrie champ Nakai (9-0-0) will face Harigai (6-22-1) in a bout that should allow Nakai to showcase her skills in SRC with little danger of suffering a defeat. Nakai was a fast-rising prospect at 125 pounds before opting to move up in weight to participate in open-weight bouts.

Known as much for her biceps as for her judo skills, Nakai has racked up nine wins against respectable opposition, with her biggest victories coming against “Windy” Tomomi Sunaba and Megumi Yabushita. Harigai, meanwhile, has struggled to put together wins throughout her career, but enters the seemingly lopsided fight with three victories in her last nine bouts.

Sengoku Raiden Championship: “Soul of Fight” takes place on December 30th at Ariake Coliseum in Tokyo, Japan. The all-day event features mixed martial arts bouts, Muay Thai and kickboxing matches.

Sengoku Raiden Championship: “Soul of Fight” Card (to date; subject to change):

– Marlon Sandro vs Hatsu Hioki (SRC Featherweight Championship)
– Kazuo “The Hitman” Misaki vs Mike “Crazy Boy” Seal
– Kazunori Yokota vs Jadamba Narantungalag
– Yasubey Enomoto vs Keita “K-Taro” Nakamura (SRC Welterweight Grand Prix Final)
– Manabu Inoue vs Shunichi Shimizu (SRC Asia Bantamweight Grand Prix Semi-Final)
– Akitoshi “Ironman” Tamura vs Taiyo Nakahara (SRC Asia Bantamweight Grand Prix Semi-Final)
– Yoshihiro “Kiss” Nakao vs Dave “Pee-Wee” Herman
– Rin Nakai vs Mika “Hari” Harigai

– Buakaw Por. Pramuk vs Hiroki Nakajima (Kickboxing Bout)
– Yutaro Yamauchi vs Go Yokoyama (Kickboxing Bout)
– Shintaro Matsukura vs Yusuke Ikei (Kickboxing Bout)
– Yuji Tanaka vs Hironobu Ikegami (Kickboxing Bout)

– Fabiano “Cyclone” Aoki vs Ryuta Noji (Muay Thai Bout)
– Arashi Fujihara vs Mutsuki Ebata (Muay Thai Bout)
– Kanongsuk Weerasakreck vs Genki Yamamoto (Muay Thai Bout)
– Musashi Miyamoto vs Hiroki Komata (Muay Thai Bout)
– Erika Kamimura vs Chiharu (Women’s Muay Thai Bout)

– Yukio Sakaguchi vs Jin Suk Jung (SRC Jacket Rules [1×5])
– Sotaro Yamada vs Lee Sak Kim (SRC Jacket Rules [1×5])
– Kiyotaka Shimizu vs Ichiro Sugita (SRC Jacket Rules [1×5])

(Photo Credit: Sherdog.com)