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Bellator 135: Davis vs. Tokoro
By: Freddy Wander - StatFox
Published: 3/17/2015  at  4:36:00 AM
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Bellator 135: Davis vs. Tokoro

Friday, Mar. 27th – 9:00 p.m. ET
Thackerville, OK

L.C. Davis (22-6-0) vs. Hideo Tokoro (32-27-2)

Bantamweight Feature Fight
Line: N/A

Hideo Tokoro will make his Bellator debut at the age of 37 when he goes up against L.C. Davis, winner of his first two Bellator fights, at Bellator 135.

L.C. Davis made his way through the WEC ranks to make it to Bellator earlier last year and he has impressed thus far, winning each of his first two matches. First he was able to take down Tory Bogguess late in the first round with a guillotine choke and then lasted the full 15 minutes when facing Zeilton Rodrigues in September. He will be going up against Hideo Tokoro who is a veteran of the fighting world with his 61 career MMA fights over in Asia where he has won 32 times. A majority of his victories have come via submission as he has 18 such wins in his career. Unfortunately, Tokoro hasn’t been fighting at his top level of late and has taken losses in four of his past six matches, getting knocked out twice in that time; including in his last matchup when he lost by punches in the second round against Victor Henry at the Grandslam MMA 1. Both fighters are experienced in their craft and it should be a tremendous matchup of wits to watch come fight night.

Davis hasn’t been the best of fighters in terms of his strikes, and has landed a mere 26% of his significant hits over his career but is aggressive as he gets nearly two of those strikes per minute. Where he really earns his bread is in his defense as he is able to deflect 58% of strikes attempted on him and parlays that into 2.64 takedowns landed per 15 minutes. He has done so at a 47% accuracy rate and has gone from that into either a submission or unanimous decision in each of his last three wins. Before that, he was landing some powerful blows and earned a knockout punch in each of his previous three victories in either the first or second round. While Davis obviously does possess the ability to knockout his opponent, it is unlikely that he will be able to do so against the quick Tokoro in this fight and will instead need to go the full length of rounds to get the victory.

Tokoro has had quite a long career and is just now making his way to the states to fight in the Bellator series after competing since the year 2000. He will not blow anyone away with his striking skills as he land just 36% of his significant strike attempts while landing 1.75 strikes per minute. His real go-to move is submission and he averaged 2.2 submissions per 15 minutes in the octagon and his last win came by a heel hook in the middle of the second round against Taylor McCorriston. His defense is solid as he is able to deflect 66% of significant strikes and 41% of takedown attempts by his opponents. There is not much to work off of with Tokoro with all of his fights coming in Asia, but he has a tremendous amount of experience under his belt and should not be underestimated in his Bellator debut.


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