A veteran of the local scene, Tony Bonello made his return to competitive fighting last night but went down as the former King of the Cage heavyweight champion was defeated by highly regarded Guram Gugenishvili.
The two fought on the Inoki Genome Federation 1 event held at Ryogoku Kokugikan in Toyko, Japan on Saturday.
Now based in Texas, USA, 42 year-old Bonello was eager to get back on track with a win however it took former M-1 World Champion Guram Gugenishvili only 3:34 to get the TKO stoppage in the opening round. It was a second consecutive loss for Bonello, after being defeated by Rolles Gracie back at One FC 5 in August, 2012. His last win came against Mike Bourke back in February 2010.
With the win, Guram Gugenishvili moved his record to 12-2 after previously suffering back to back losses in the M-1 organisation.
The event was headlined by 2008 Olympic gold medalist Satoshi Ishii who took on former UFC fighter Philip De Fries. De Fries put up a game effort but ultimately loss the unanimous decision, while veteran fighter Ikuhisa Minowa submitted little known Goran Jettingstad with a Achilles lock submission in the first round. Former Strikeforce heavyweight, Brett Rogers also got a quick victory, knocking out Yusuke Kawaguchi with punches 28-seconds into the contest.
Full results (via Sherdog.com):
- Satoshi Ishii def Philip De Fries via Decision (Unanimous)
- Ikuhisa Minowa def Goran Jettingstad via Submission (Heel-Hook), Rd 1, 2:26
- Guram Gugenishvili def Tony Bonello via TKO (Punches), Rd 1, 3:34
- Brett Rogers def Yusuke Kawaguchi via KO (Punches), Rd 1, 0:28
- Yuki Yamamoto DRAW Ramazan Esenbaev
- Amaramend Boldo def Atsushi Sawada via DecisioN (Unanimous)
- Bob Armstrong def Shinichi Suzukawa via KO (Punch), Rd 1, 2:00
- Tsuyoshi Kurihara def Kyoshira Kawada via Submission (Armbar), Rd 1, 3:38
- Yusuke Masuda def Kazuki Nojiri via Decision (Unanimous)
