Both Yoshihiro Akiyama and Jake Shields have come into the UFC with fairly lofty expectations and haven’t quite fulfilled them. Shields was the man who was supposed to take GSP to the brink and yet it’s his teammate, Nick Diaz, who has created more of a buzz about their fight than Shields/GSP ever did. Akiyama was brought in to be the next great challenger for Anderson Silva but never could quite gain any traction in the middleweight division.
After a test cut to 170 went succesfully, the two are slated for a welterweight fight on Sexyama’s home turf in Japan for UFC 144.
