After arguably the biggest win of his career, when the spotlight was on him the brightest, Goiti Yamauchi says he’s ready for a Bellator title shot.
Yamauchi (28-5 MMA, 14-4 BMMA) became the first person to finish Neiman Gracie (11-4 MMA, 9-4 BMMA) when he knocked him out in the second round of their Bellator 284 main event in Sioux Falls, S.D. The win was Yamauchi’s third straight, all by finish, and second straight since he moved up to welterweight from lightweight earlier this year.
“It feels amazing,” Yamauchi said at his post-fight news conference. “It’s a product of hard work, courage and a lot of dedication – not just for this camp, but for my entire life, I’ve been working to have this moment. This moment, I consider the beginning of an era – my era, the best time of my life.”
Yamauchi is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu standout, just like Gracie. In his 28 career wins, a whopping 75 percent of them – 21 in total – have been by submission. He holds the Bellator record for most career submission wins.
So for him to put Gracie out with a punch the way he did might have even come as a surprise to him. When he shut down Chris Gonzalez with his hands in July 2021, hit was his first knockout in nearly eight years. Now he has KOs in two of his past three fights.
“”I don’t know what happened. I went beast mode,” Yamauchi said. “I just wanted to take some shots and make the fight dramatic – big drama show. I went for it in this fight, and it worked.”
“I watched (Gracie’s) fight (with champ Logan Storley) and saw I could make Neiman make some mistakes, and I exploited them. … We go to autopilot mode when we’re fighting – we just want to finish the fight as fast as possible. In the first round, I got him with the good left hand, but it was just a knockdown and I couldn’t finish. But when I threw the uppercut (in the second), I knew he was done. His body just dropped too fast, and I knew that was the end of the fight.”
Yamauchi has only been at welterweight for two fights now, but after a high-profile win over Gracie in his first Bellator main event in nearly eight years with the company, he’s shooting his shot for a booking with interim welterweight champ Storley, who beat Michael Page in May for that belt.
In his 18 Bellator fights, Yamauchi never has lost two straight and now is on his fourth three-fight winning streak. He’s also put together streaks at featherweight, lightweight and now welterweight.
“That’s one of the most important days of my life. It’s very meaningful beating such a hell of a fighter,” Yamauchi said. “… I’ve moved up twice here in my Bellator career, from 145 to 155, and now to welterweight. They’re both good and exciting weight classes. There’s a lot of top fighters. I think the best fighters are probably at lightweight and welterweight. I’m excited.
“This is my real weight class. I feel strong, powerful, and with a lot of energy. Hopefully, I fight all of the top fighters in front of me. … It would be amazing to fight with Storley. I love his style – he’s a hell of a grappler, and it looks like he has a gas tank, so it would be a war. It would be an honor for me to fight the champ, Storley.”
