Yushin Okami May Have Edged Himself Into the Middleweight Title Hunt

No fight with Mark Munoz is easy. The man doesn't stop unless someone delivers a good enough shot to shut him down.

So far the only person who has done that is Matt Hamill, hence why Munoz is a UFC Middleweight now.

Since then he hadn't lost a fight by anything — not a left or a right, not a submission hold or a head kick, not even a decision or a doctor stoppage.

Kendall Grove didn't even get that stoppage he was looking for. He got TKOed, then thanked Munoz for kicking his ass.

Safe to say, Munoz was a bit tough to touch at middleweight.

Even safer to say: Yushin Okami changed all of that in San Diego when he got a split decision win over the "Filipino Wrecking Machine" in the co-headliner of the UFC's second ever card on Versus.

The fight was actually exciting enough to where the argument could be made that a split decision was justified. Depending on how you saw it, the argument could be made that the fight actually went back and forth for its duration.

The first round I felt belonged to Okami. Munoz looked to find his range and strike according to the openings he saw, but what he really wanted to do was work some ground-and-pound, a plan conspicuous by the takedowns attempted by Munoz which were defended by Okami.

While Okami made little to no attempt to get Munoz's back or strike Munoz into a TKO in round one, Munoz could do very little to garner an advantage by merely holding on to the leg of the man they call "Thunder".

I will grant him, though — at least Munoz didn't open himself up to a bunch of shots to his face.

In any event, Munoz did have himself a rough time in round one and needed to either make it count for the next two rounds, or he needed to knock Okami out.

A shot that Okami ate in the middle of round two almost did just that for Munoz, as did a successful takedown and a flying knee, but Okami would hold on for the round, though it was tough to see how Munoz could have lost that round.

As for round three. it could have been anybody's round, but it did seem like Okami may have landed the more significant shots and did the much more damaging work.

Again, as he had done for most of the fight, Okami did defend Munoz's takedowns in this round, but Munoz visibly seemed to stumble midway through round three, and this time, the defense of his takedown was met with a bit more painful response than did the previous stuffings.

As he held on to Munoz, he started to very strongly and fairly quickly pound away at the face of Munoz. He didn't get the stoppage because it did appear that he had hit the back od Munoz's head a few times, a sight on which I commend Big John McCarthy for noticing.

Yushin Okami ran out of time and wasn't able to put a concrete finish on Mark Munoz, but he had done just barely enough to get the victory over Munoz as two of the three judges saw the bout 29-28 for Okami.

Remember, this is a man who lost a decision to Chael Sonnen and a man who is responsible for the only DQ loss on Anderson Silva's record.

A lot has changed since that Silva fight.

That Okami was even able to garner a split-decision win over Mark Munoz does tell me something about the man. He's one hungry son-of-a-gun, about as hungry as a veteran can get for an opportunity at some gold (even if the fight had no title implications).

This makes you wonder... has Yushin Okami finally done it?

Did the decision he edged out against Munoz, a training partner of Silva, do enough to sneak him into the title hunt at middleweight in the UFC?

Well, MMA promoters sometimes like to assure the masses that a division is never truly cleaned out, and I'd like to say that a division is not cleaned out entirely until it is disintegrated by the promotion.

To put it another way, Okami may have just barely lined himself up for a shot at the upper echelon, and eventually Silva or Sonnen, but one thing's for certain.

Demian Maia, Alan Belcher, and everyone else in the UFC Midlleweight division better keep one good eye on Yushin "Thunder" Okami.

Why?

Because decision or not, Okami is lined up for the belt.

He edged Munoz, but he edged himself into the 185-lb title scene, which may make him a whole lot more dangerous for anyone he has to face on his way to the Middleweight belt.

Middleweights, be careful.

Whoever is next for Okami may get clapped by "Thunder".