Toby Imada Deserves A Break

Photo courtesy of Sherdog

This Saturday night, Bellator Fighting Championships brings us the quarterfinal fights in their season four lightweight tournament.  Eight fighters will face off for a chance at the lightweight belt.  Some of them have been here before, others are new to Bellator.  But I'll be focused on one fighter only this weekend:  Toby Imada.

Toby Imada doesn't have an impressive record: he is 26-14 in his MMA career.  His first pro fight was in 1998, so he's been in the game for awhile, and the majority of his losses came between 1999 and 2005.  But he has only two MMA losses since 2008, one to Eddie Alvarez and one to Pat Curran.  He is a tough and determined fighter who has been with Bellator since Bellator 1 back in 2009, and who garnered national attention for Bellator with his Submission of the Year inverted triangle on Jorge Masvidal.  Too bad the promotion let him down in 2010.

Now, first of all, I want to say this:  I love Bellator.  Bjorn Rebney is doing great things with the promotion, and the tournament format is a great proving ground for fighters coming in early in their careers wanting to be tested.  Time and again Rebney has made good decisions and the fighters benefit from them.  However, like we see on a bigger scale with the UFC, sometimes decisions are made for the business and the fighters lose out.

This was the case after Pat Curran fought Imada in the lightweight tourney final.  Through some thoroughly detestable judging, Curran won a split decision.  I've aired my views on that and I won't go into it again here.  However, when the time came for Curran to face champ Eddie Alvarez for the title, Curran was injured and couldn't fight.  And here is where Bellator failed Imada.  Instead of saying, "Hey Toby, since Curran can't fight, and you were just one judge away from a title shot anyway, come fight Alvarez in a superfight", they went with the money fight.  Roger Huerta was offered the fight with Alvarez despite Huerta being knocked out of the tournament by Curran in the semifinals.  Of course, Rebney had a lot invested in Huerta, and had been counting on him fighting for the title anyway (in my opinion, of course, and no disrespect to Huerta is intended here at all).  So when the chance came to book the Huerta-Alvarez fight, even if it wasn't for the belt, Rebney grabbed it and ran. 

At the time I could at least agree with that fight from a money standpoint.  In retrospect, I think it was a bad decision all the way around.  And I have a feeling Rebney would agree.  Alvarez beat Huerta so badly that it was uncomfortable to watch.  If we see Roger back in the cage anytime in the near future, I'll be amazed.  So Bellator lost a fighter they were counting on to make them some money, the fans saw a beloved fighter absolutely destoyed, and Toby Imada was just left hovering in the shadows.

So, what did Imada do?  Instead of sitting on his hands waiting for the next lightweight tournament to start, he went to Japan.  He fought in the Shoot Boxing S-Cup, another tournament style event with a similar ruleset to the MMA we're familiar with (nothing on the ground is allowed, though).  He then quietly shocked everyone watching when he beat K-1 champ Andy Souwer in the semifinal round.  Seriously, that was a HUGE deal.  The fighter with 17 submission wins to his credit beat a kickboxing champion on his feet.  Imada moved on to the final, but was beaten by Buakaw Por. Pramuk (there's no shame in that.  Buakaw is to kickboxing what Anderson Silva is to MMA, only more). 

 Imada will be fighting Saturday night at Bellator 36.  He'll be facing Ferrid Kheder in a lightweight quarterfinal bout.  I hope he wins, and eventually makes it to the final - again.  And I hope that this time he either finishes the fight, or the judges actually pay attention to what goes on.  Toby Imada deserves a break, and he deserves respect from both the fans and Bellator, and he deserves the fame that a title shot would bring him.  He is completely underestimated and overlooked, and I would love to see that change in the coming months - starting this Saturday.