Belcher was in the ring for the first televised fight of the night on PPV against Yoshihiro Akiyama, whom we will give the MMA’s best nickname award to for the original and creative “Sexy-yama”.  Right from the get-go, myself and some friends who were watching the fight with me noticed the odd looking figure on Belcher’s arm.  We found ourselves taking guesses at just who the tatto was of.

Kim Jong Il?  Nah.  Fat Albert?  Maybe, but who would put Fat Albert on their arm, unless they lost a bet.  Mao?  Not likely.

Then we noticed the guitar.  Hmm…

Was it Elvis?  That seemed like a very real possibility.  It was as if the tattoo completely distracted us from the fight, which was won by Akiyama even thought the crowd disagreed.  Finally, Mike Goldberg, UFC commentator, uncovered the mystery stating that the tattoo was of none other than Johnny Cash.

Johnny Cash?  Are you kidding me?  Belcher may want to consider finding a new tattoo artist.  He’ll just want to make sure it’s not Chad Ocho Cinco’s.

Akiyama is a decorated Judoka with strong striking, a freakish judo game, and the ability to finish via submission. His lone loss coming at the hands of a pro heavyweight kickboxer, Jerome Le Banner.

“The Ultimate Fighting Championship today announced that it has signed top-ten middleweight contender Yoshihiro Akiyama to an exclusive promotional contract that will see him step into the UFC Octagon for the first time this summer.”

“I’m excited to bring Akiyama into the UFC and I can see him making an immediate impact in the middleweight division,” said UFC President Dana White. “Besides his great judo and submission game, he’s a finisher, and UFC fans are going to love watching him because he always shows up to fight.”

It seems as though the UFC is moving forward with the plans of globalizing their product. MMA is big business in Japan, and by signing Japan’s most famous fighter, this will be much more plausible. Lots of exciting fights for Akiyama in the middlewieght division including Rich Franklin, Yushin Okami, Nate Marquardt, and hopefully Anderson Silva some day.

Many of Akiyama’s fights have included him wearing a full Gi, this is not permitted in the UFC and should be interesting how he deals with it. As a huge Akiyama fan, this is great news.

UFC Inks Akiyama – [UFC]