THE CANADIAN PRESS
UFC president Dana White says Japanese fighter Yushin (Thunder) Okami has a chance to finally get his due at UFC 134 this month in Rio de Janeiro.
It won’t be an easy task.
Okami will face middleweight champion Anderson (The Spider) Silva at HSBC Arena on Aug. 27 in the UFC’s first show in Brazil since 1998. Okami enters with a 27-5 record while Silva — who will be fighting on his home turf — has a 28-4 mark.
White feels Okami is the best fighter to ever come out of Japan.
"This guy didn’t come up fighting cans and getting a built-up mythological record," White said Tuesday on a conference call. "This guy’s been fighting the absolute best for years. I’m sure he feels and a lot of people feel this guy hasn’t got the credit he deserves.
"Now he’s going in against the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world — probably the best fighter ever in mixed martial arts. If he wins this fight, not only will he get the credit that he finally deserves, he’ll have beat the best in the world."
Okami is the last man to beat Silva, winning by disqualification in January 2006. Silva has won 14 straight bouts since then.
Okami earned the title shot with a unanimous decision over Nate (The Great) Marquardt at UFC 122 last November. UFC 134 is a hot ticket — the show sold out in 74 minutes, according to the mixed martial arts organization.
In other matches, Mauricio (Shogun) Rua faces off against Forrest Griffin in a battle of former light-heavyweight champions and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira meets Brendan Schaub.
Also on the card, Montreal bantamweight Yves Jabouin takes on Ian Loveland.
NOTES: An autopsy Tuesday revealed that Canadian MMA coach Shawn Tompkins died of a heart attack. His brother-in-law — and one of his first fighters — Sam Stout revealed the cause of death to the London Free Press. A funeral service for the Tillsonburg, Ont., native will be held on Friday in London, Ont., where the 37-year-old first established his famous Team Tompkins gym.
He died in his sleep Sunday night while staying at a friend’s house in Hamilton and was found by a friend. A former Muay Thai fighter in his own right, Tompkins became a highly regarded MMA trainer and worked out of the TapouT Gym in Las Vegas. He was responsible for the development of some of Canada’s most prominent fighters, including Stout, Mark Hominick and Chris Horodecki.
