Jorge Santiago, Maximo Blanco confirmed for upcoming Sengoku Raiden Championship fight card

World Victory Road (WVR) has unveiled some of the fight cards for its March event for the newly christened Sengoku Raiden Championship (formerly known as Sengoku). The first SRC event of 2010 will take place on March 7th at Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo, Japan.

The SRC website has confirmed the appearance of the Sengoku middleweight champion, Jorge Santiago (21-8), and current Lightweight King of Pancrase, Maximo Blanco (3-2-1).

Last week, Polish MMA organization, KSW confirmed that its middleweight standout, Mamed Khalidov (20-3-1) will face Joe Doerksen (43-12) in a title eliminator match-up. Though it awaits confirmation from SRC, it is one of the noteworthy bouts on the card. Also, rumor has been circulating that Santiago will collide with Kazuo Misaki in a rematch of their January 4th, 2009 showdown in which they vied for the inaugural Sengoku middleweight championship.

Should Santiago best Misaki once again -- no easy task -- he likely will have the chance to avenge the loss against Mamed Khalidov: Khalidov routed Santiago last November at Sengoku 11 via first-round TKO in a non-title bout.

Maximo Blanco, a current fighter under Sengoku's Fighter Development program, earned a second-round TKO victory over Tetsuya Yamada at Sengoku 10. Prior to the bout, he experienced the first breakthrough of his nascent career when he became the Lightweight King of Pancrase: In the title bout, he defeated Katsuya Inoue -- a veteran fighter who has defeated the former Sengoku lightweight champion, Satoru Kitaoka, twice and fought the current champ, Mizuto Hirota, to a draw -- in the second round via TKO.

Blanco, along with the Fighter Development colleague, Shigeki Osawa, has been fighting out of Yoshida dojo. The contract between WVR and the dojo has all but expired, and WVR director, Sumio Inamoto, stated during a recent press conference that Osawa will change his affiliation and continue to fight for SRC. Since Blanco now finds himself in the same situation as Osawa, it will be interesting where he will now call home in order to maintain his tie to SRC.

Stay tuned to MMAmania for more information regarding the upcoming SRC fight card as they become available.