Hisaki Kato entered the Bellator cage last Friday night as essentially an unknown to the fans of mixed martial arts and was a five to one underdog against striking specialist Joe Schilling.
That would all change in the opening moments of the second round as he knocked out Schilling with a superman punch and Bellator play by play announcer Sean Wheelock said, “I think he is famous now.”
The victory for Kato was his fifth career victory and all of his wins have come by TKO/KO. In an interview that will air on Friday’s edition of The MMA Report Live, Kato explained that he had been working on the superman punch throughout his training camp.
“This is a technique that I had been training for a lot of times before the fight,” Kato told The MMA Report. “I knew I had good results with it during training, not kill like this. I knew I was really hitting guys hard with this technique. I knew that I could use it.”
Fighters get motivation from all kinds of places. Some fighters motivations come from money, their families, or national pride. A big motivation for Kato in this fight came from feeling disrespected by Schilling. He understands that fighters need to sell their fight in interviews, but he felt disrespected when Schilling would not shake his hand at the weigh-ins.
“I do not like to be underestimated. The way that Joe Schilling was talking in interviews, it was really not respectful towards me,” Kato explained. “I did not like that. I really wanted to do something big to make my point and even with my Japanese pride because Japanese fighters haven’t been so good — not like they use to be 10-15 years before. I had that feeling inside me making me wanting a big win in this fight.”
Prior to the highlight reel knockout, Kato was able to control the fight in the opening round by taking the fight to the ground. He admitted that part of the game plan for this fight was to mix up his striking and takedowns. In a very honest answer, Kato gave his feelings towards Schilling’s ground game.
“To tell the truth, I was surprised on the ground. He was worse than what I was expecting. I was expecting for a striker that is able to protect himself and mainly try to do some submissions. It was very easy to control him on the ground so my confidence was really good at that time. My mind was just about to make him tired to make the second and third round more easy for me.”
Be sure to check out everything Kato told The MMA Report on Friday’s edition of The MMA Report Live, which begins at 11 a.m. ET/8 a.m. PT.