That's still a decent amount of fights and not all low level.
Its shit.
I don't mean its shit competition compared to top thai guys. Or even shit competition compared to top Japanese kickboxers like Noiri and Urabe. Its shit compared to other Japanese kickboxers of his generation (i.e. around 16-22).
- Takei Yoshiki (21)
- Hiramoto Ren (19)
- Fukuda Kaito (i.e. Wor.Wanchai) (19)
- Saikyo Haruma (19)
- Ogasawara Eisaku (21)
- Anpo Riku
- Anpo Rukiya
- Gunji Taito
Off the top of my head those guys have accomplished more this year in kickboxing that Tenshin has. Tenshin has fought who? Retired thai, Retired thai, a spat of amateurs. Capllonch was the only guy even resembling a live body.
Have you seen Tenshin in mma? Cuz i think he does take it somewhat serious as he already has a sub and gutted out a real tough armbar even though he didn't know the proper way out. Of course he is fighting low level guys but he just now has 4 mma fights, everyone with that few fights fights low level guys. I hope he ups the competition again in kickboxing though like you guys are saying.
He doesn't train MMA full time so far as I know. He had a 2-3 week training camp before his MMA debut since it was just off the heels of the Wanchalong fight. Since then he does some celebrity public workouts with Sakuraba and such, but nothing consistent. He's getting subs off of amateur kickboxers, yeah not impressed.
He's been very vocal about wanting to do kickboxing at RIZIN instead of MMA. He finally got his wish and I doubt he's transitioning. After all if he gets to be on TV on RIZIN while partaking in this sham of a kickboxing tournament, why would he risk doing MMA for real?
I don't care that he's fighting cans in MMA. I care that because he's fighting cans in MMA (without fully committing to MMA transition), he's also not really fighting anyone significant in kickboxing.
Whats even the end goal for him at this point? Sakakibara said he's fine with Tenshin going off to the UFC, but is he actually prepping for MMA full time and preparing to have a serious career? Nope.
Is he going to finally sign with K-1 and open himself up to competing more regularly with top domestic kickboxers like Takeru, Takei, Saikyo? Nope.
Ok, well if he's gonna flutter around KNOCK OUT, Rizin and RISE taking on random fights, is he at least going to face guys who have a track record there and have been building up steam to challenge him? Ogasawara has been asking for that fight forever. Lol no.
Unpopular opinion, but time to stop treating Tenshin as a prospect and as what he really is. A guy who's so hyped up for his highlight that his management is just shopping him around doing random can-crushing without ever taking the risk of stepping up the competition. I.e. Asian Michael Venom Page
The real test is the next KNOCK OUT event. If Knock Out gets him signed vs. a legit competitor then I'd be glad as that signals his career is back on track. Ebata Rui is the clear challenger here and if that gets signed Tenshin is actually at risk of losing. If not, time to write him off as a waste of potential.