Ronnie Mann Targeted for Sengoku's "Sounl of Fight"

By John Morgan

Featherweight prospect and three-time Sengoku veteran Ronnie Mann (18-2-1 MMA, 2-1 SRC) is likely to appear at World Victory Road/Sengoku's year-end "Soul of Fight" event.

MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) has learned from sources close to the promotion that Mann has verbally agreed to appear at the event, though his opponent has not yet been determined.

"Soul of Fight" takes place Dec. 30 at Ariake Coliseum in Tokyo, and the night's MMA lineup concludes an all-day martial-arts festival.

The event is expected to air in North America on HDNet.

Just 24 years old, the English-born Mann has thus far fought the majority of his career in England and, more recently, Japan.

Mann participated in Sengoku's 2009 featherweight grand prix and earned a unanimous-decision win over Tetsuya Yamada. Mann was then defeated in the tournament's semifinals by Japanese favorite Hatsu Hioki.

Mann bounced back with a non-tournament win over Shigeki Osawa in November 2009 before making his U.S. debut this past September with a five-round split-decision victory over Doug Evans at Shark Fights 13. The bout saw Mann claim the Shark Fights featherweight title.

With the likely addition, the latest lineup for "Soul of Fight" includes:
Yasubey Enomoto vs. Keita Nakamura*
Manabu Inoue vs. Shunichi Shimizu+
Taiyo Nakahara vs. Akitoshi Tamura+
Dave "Pee Wee" Herman vs. Yoshihiro Nakao
Akihiro Gono vs. TBA
Kazuo Misaki vs. TBA
Maximo Blanco vs. TBA
Hiroshi Izumi vs. TBA
Masanori Kanehara vs. TBA
Kazunori Yokota vs. TBA
Ronnie Mann vs. TBA^
* - Welterweight grand-prix finale
+ - Asian bantamweight grand-prix semifinals
^ - Not officially announced