List of Shooto champions

The following is a list of Shooto World champions at each weight class. Note that the weight classes in Shooto are different from the Association of Boxing Commissions recognised weight classes.

Title Histories

Flyweight Championship

Weight limit: 52 kg (114.6 lb)

NOTE: Shooto weight classes are different than the United States Association of Boxing Commissions, which is used by most MMA promotions. This is closer to the ABC-recognised Strawweight class.

Name:	Date:	Defenses:
Rambaa Somdet (def. Noboru Tahara)	November 23, 2009	def. Hiroyuki Abe on July 19, 2010
Somdet vacated the title on April 16, 2011 due to a partially torn left biceps.[1]
Junji Ikoma (def. Junji Ito)	April 29, 2011
Mikihito Yamagami	November 5, 2011	def. Junji Ito on September 30, 2012
Yamagami vacated the title in December 2013 when he moved up in weight.
Shinya Murofushi (def. Junji Ito)	January 13, 2014
Yoshitaka Naito	September 27, 2014	def. Ryuta Sawada on July 26, 2015 def. Junji Ito on November 29, 2015
Naito vacated the title on April 7, 2016 when he signed with ONE Championship.
Ryohei Kurosawa (def. Ryuto Sawada)	July 17, 2016
Kurosawa vacated the title on 2017.
Yosuke Saruta (def. Ryuto Sawada)	October 15, 2017	def. Itchaku Murata on May 13, 2018
Saruta vacated the title when he signed with ONE Championship.
Hiroshi Minowa (def. Yohei Komaki)	January 26, 2020
Ryuya Fukuda (def. Yoshiro Maeda for the interim title)	July 12, 2020

Bantamweight Championship

Weight limit: 56 kg (123.4 lb)

NOTE: Shooto weight classes are different than the United States Association of Boxing Commissions, which is used by most MMA promotions. This is closer to the ABC-recognised Flyweight class.

Name:	Date:	Defenses:
Mamoru Yamaguchi (def. Yasuhiro Urushitani)	December 14, 2003	drew with Robson Moura on September 26, 2004 drew with Shinichi Kojima on March 24, 2006
Shinichi Kojima	October 14, 2006	drew with Yasuhiro Urushitani on March 16, 2007 def. Mamoru Yamaguchi on July 18, 2008 def. Yuki Shoujou on March 20, 2009
Kojima vacated the title on March 1, 2010 after suffering an ACL injury in his right knee which prevented him from defending his title in the mandatory time period per Shooto regulations.
Yasuhiro Urushitani (def. Ryuichi Miki)	May 30, 2010	def. Yuki Shoujou on July 18, 2011
Urushitani vacated the title on December 10, 2011 to compete in the UFC.
Ryuichi Miki drew with Yosuke Saruta for the vacant title on July 27, 2013.
Ryuichi Miki (def. Yosuke Saruta)	November 9, 2013
Masaaki Sugawara (def. Ryuichi Miki)	May 3, 2015
Hiromasa Ogikubo (def. Masaaki Sugawara)	April 23, 2016	def. Tadaaki Yamamoto on October 15, 2017 def. Kiyotaka Shimizu on May 6, 2019

Featherweight Championship

Weight limit: 60 kg (132.3 lb)

NOTE: Shooto weight classes are different than the United States Association of Boxing Commissions, which is used by most MMA promotions. This is closer to the ABC-recognised Bantamweight class.

Name:	Date:	Defenses:
Mamoru Yamaguchi (def. Jin Akimoto)	December 17, 2000
Masahiro Oishi	November 25, 2001	drew w. Hisao Ikeda on September 16, 2002
Ryota Matsune	August 10, 2003	def. Kentaro Imaizumi on November 12, 2004
Matsune vacated the title in February 2006 after suffering a knee injury which prevented him from defending his title in the mandatory time period per Shooto regulations.
Akitoshi Hokazono (def. Kenji Osawa)	July 21, 2006
Hokazono announced his retirement on January 26, 2008 and thus relinquished the title.
Masakatsu Ueda (def. Koetsu Okazaki)	March 28, 2008	drew w. Marcos Galvao on September 28, 2008 def. So Tazawa on March 20, 2009 def. Eduardo Dantas on July 19, 2009
Shuichiro Katsumura	March 22, 2010
Koetsu Okazaki	April 29, 2011
Hiromasa Ogikubo	May 18, 2012
Kyoji Horiguchi	March 16, 2013	def. Shintaro Ishiwatari on June 22, 2013
Horiguchi vacated the title in December 2015 to compete in the UFC.
Shoko Sato (def. Keita Ishibashi)	November 15, 2017	def. Tristan Grimsley on July 15, 2018 def. Yo Saito on November 17, 2018
Ryo Okada (def. Kazuma Kuramoto) for interim title.	May 31, 2020

Lightweight Championship

Weight limit: 65 kg (143.3 lb)

NOTE: Shooto weight classes are different than the United States Association of Boxing Commissions, which is used by most MMA promotions. This is closer to the ABC-recognised Featherweight class.

Name:	Date:	Defenses:
Kenichi Tanaka (def. Kazuhiro Sakamoto)	September 8, 1990
Kazuhiro Sakamoto	May 31, 1991	def. Hiroyuki Kanno on October 17, 1991
Noboru Asahi	March 27, 1992	draw. Kenichi Tanaka on July 23, 1992 draw. Uchu Tatsumi on March 28, 1999
Alexandre Franca Nogueira	September 5, 1999	def. Uchu Tatsumi on August 27, 2000 def. Tetsuo Katsuta on September 2, 2001 def. Katsuya Toida on December 16, 2001 def. Hiroyuki Abe on December 14, 2002 draw. Stephen Palling on August 10, 2003 def. Joao Roque on March 11, 2005
Nogueira vacated the title on May 7, 2006 after suffering a knee injury which prevented him from defending his title in the mandatory time period per Shooto regulations.
Takeshi Inoue (def. Antonio Carvalho)	May 12, 2006
Akitoshi Tamura	May 18, 2007
Hideki Kadowaki	March 28, 2008
Takeshi Inoue (2)	November 29, 2008	def. Rumina Sato on May 10, 2009
Hatsu Hioki	May 30, 2010
Hioki vacated the title on May 31, 2011 to compete in the UFC.
Yutaka Saito (def. Yoshifumi Nakamura)	January 11, 2016	def. Caol Uno on April 23, 2017
Yuki Kawana (def. Shutaro Debana)	July 12, 2020

Welterweight Championship

Weight limit: 70 kg (154.3 lb)

NOTE: Shooto weight classes are different than the United States Association of Boxing Commissions, which is used by most MMA promotions. This is closer to the ABC-recognised Lightweight class.

Name:	Date:	Defenses:
Yuichi Watanabe (def. Kazuhiro Kusayanagi)	March 29, 1991
Watanabe vacated the title in 1991 for unknown reasons.
Tomonori Ohara (def. Yoshimasa Ishikawa)	October 17, 1991	def. Yomohiro Tanaka on September 25, 1992
Ohara announced his retirement in November 1992 and thus relinquished the title.
Yuki Nakai (def. Kazuhiro Kusayanagi)	November 7, 1994
Nakai suffered an eye injury which forced him into retirement in April 1995.
Caol Uno (def. Rumina Sato)	May 29, 1999	def. Rumina Sato on December 17, 2000
Uno vacated the title on December 17, 2000 to compete in the UFC.
Takanori Gomi (def. Rumina Sato)	December 16, 2001	def. Dokonjonosuke Mishima on December 14, 2002
Joachim Hansen	August 10, 2003
Vítor Ribeiro	December 14, 2003
Tatsuya Kawajiri	December 14, 2004	def. Joachim Hansen on February 17, 2006
Kawajiri relinquished the title on January 23, 2007 after suffering a knee injury which prevented him from defending his title in the mandatory time period per Shooto regulations.
Takashi Nakakura (def. Ganjo Tentsuku)	May 3, 2008
Nakakura relinquished the title on September 21, 2009, declaring that he wasn't ready to properly defend it after losing a non-title fight to Takanori Gomi.
Willamy Freire (def. Kenichiro Togashi)	October 30, 2009	def. Yusuke Endo on May 30, 2010
Freire vacated the title on May 30, 2010 to compete in the UFC.[2]
Kuniyoshi Hironaka (def. Kotetsu Boku)	July 18, 2011	def. Giovani Diniz on May 18, 2012 def. Yoshihiro Koyama on September 29, 2013
Hironaka vacated the title in December 2015 for unknown reasons.
Koshi Matsumoto (def. Yuki Kawana)	April 23, 2016	def. Yuki Okano on March 25, 2018 def. Naoyuki Kotani on May 6, 2019
Matsumoto vacated the title when he signed with ONE Championship.

Middleweight Championship

Weight limit: 77 kg (169.8 lb)

NOTE: Shooto weight classes are different than the United States Association of Boxing Commissions, which is used by most MMA promotions. This is closer to the ABC-recognised Welterweight class.

Name:	Date:	Defenses:
Yasuto Sekishima (def. Yoshimasa Ishikawa)	May 12, 1990	draw. Naoki Sakurada on November 28, 1990
Yoshimasa Ishikawa	August 3, 1991
Ishikawa vacated the title in 1991 to compete as a lightweight.
Naoki Sakurada (def. Yasuto Sekishima)	October 17, 1991	def. Kazuhiro Kusayanagi on September 25, 1992
Sakurada announced his retirement on January 18, 1997 thus relinquishing the title.
Hayato Sakurai	May 13, 1998	def. Tetsuji Kato on March 17, 2000
Anderson Silva	August 26, 2001
Silva vacated the title on January 9, 2002 after signing with PRIDE.
Jake Shields (def. Ray Cooper)	July 9, 2004
Akira Kikuchi	December 14, 2004
Shinya Aoki	February 17, 2006	def. Akira Kikuchi on February 17, 2007
Aoki vacated the title on May 21, 2010 after years of not defending it, fighting for other promotions, and fighting primarily as a lightweight.
Luis Ramos (def. Igor Fernandes)	August 6, 2010
Ramos vacated the title on August 9, 2011 after signing with the UFC.
Hernani Perpetuo (def. Tommy Depret)	August 25, 2013

Light Heavyweight Championship

NOTE: Shooto weight classes are different than the United States Association of Boxing Commissions, which is used by most MMA promotions. This is closer to the ABC-recognised Middleweight class.

Weight limit: 84 kg (185.2 lb)

Name:	Date:	Defenses:
Kenji Kawaguchi (def. Manabu Yamada)	May 31, 1991	def. Manabu Yamada on May 31, 1991 def. Satoshi Honma on October 17, 1991 def. Manabu Yamada on July 23, 1992 draw. Satoshi Honma on November 27, 1992
Erik Paulson	May 7, 1996	def. Masanori Suda on August 29, 1998
Paulson retires, title vacant for 4 years.
Masanori Suda (def. Lance Gibson)	January 12, 2002	def. Egan Inoue on May 9, 2003 draw. Dustin Denes on July 9, 2004
Suda announced his retirement on February 26, 2006 thus relinquishing the title.
Shiko Yamashita (def. Dustin Denes)	April 22, 2006
Siyar Bahadurzada	July 15, 2007	def. Leandro Silva on August 27, 2009 def. Carlos Alexandre Pereira on August 6, 2010
Bahadurzada vacated the title on April 14, 2012 after signing with the UFC.

Heavyweight Championship

Weight limit: Unlimited

Name:	Date:	Defenses:
Enson Inoue (def. Joe Estes)	October 12, 1997

Women's Super Atomeweight Championship

Weight limit: 50 kg (110 lbs)

Name:	Date:	Defenses:
Mina Kurobe (def. Megumi Sugimoto)	August 1, 2020

By nationality

The following include championship title holders by nationality.

Country	Titles
Japan	40
Brazil	6
United States	3
Afghanistan	1
Thailand	1
Norway	1

See also

• List of Shooto Pacific Rim champions
• List of Strikeforce champions
• List of Pride champions
• List of UFC champions
• List of Dream champions
• List of Pancrase champions
• List of WEC champions

References

1. Nelson, Chris (2011-04-16). "Hioki Joins April 29 Shooto Card; 'M-16' Vacates Title". Sherdog.com. Retrieved 2011-04-16.
2. Butterfield, Jon (2011-01-14). "411 Fighter Profile 01.14.11: Willamy Freire". 411Mania.com. Archived from the original on 2012-10-07. Retrieved 2011-05-17.

• Chan, Sam. The Japanese Pro-Wrestling: Reality Based Martial Art Connection. bjj.org. URL last accessed January 7, 2006.
• Shootoamericas. SHOOTO: History and Overview. www.shootoamericas.com. URL last accessed January 7, 2006.

External links

• Australia Shooto Commission official website
• shootoresult.versus.jp
• Shooto Japan official website(Japanese)
• First Documented Introduction and Presence of Shooto in the Philippines
• Bulgarian Shooto federation Official Site