Taiga Iwasaki

Taiga Iwasaki is a 29-year-old middleweight out of Daidojuku and Paraestra Tokyo, born July 7, 1997, in Niigata City. He started kudo (空道) — the full-contact hybrid style out of Daidojuku — in his first year of elementary school, and by his mid-twenties was the biggest name in its heaviest bracket: back-to-back Hokuto-ki All-Japan weight-open (260kg+ combined) championships in 2017 and 2018, followed by the Hokuto-ki World Championship in the 270kg+ class in 2023. He didn't start MMA training until September 2019 and turned pro in June 2020 — a late start he has more than made up for.

Iwasaki has gone 11-2 as a professional, finishing 8 of his 11 wins — 4 by KO/TKO, 4 by submission, mostly the rear-naked choke. Both losses have come against higher-profile opposition outside Shooto: a first-round kimura to Rafael Lovato Jr. at INOKI BOM-BA-YE x Ganryujima in December 2022, and a third-round TKO to Yousri Belgaroui on Dana White's Contender Series Season 8 in September 2024. He answered that Contender Series loss by reeling off wins over Eun Soo Kim by decision in September 2023 and Bum Seok Jang by rear-naked choke in September 2025, then submitted U.S.-based fighter Wycolt Henry ("Henry") in a March 2026 title-tournament semifinal.

That semifinal put Iwasaki into the final of a four-man tournament for the Shooto World Middleweight Championship, left vacant when Yoshinobu Okami relinquished it. On July 20, 2026, at PROFESSIONAL SHOOTO 2026 Vol.5 in Korakuen Hall — a card the promotion itself billed as the semifinal, one rung below Ayaka Watanabe's title defense — Iwasaki met Pancrase veteran Yuji Arai, a fighter trained under former Pan-Pacific welterweight champion Akihiro Murayama. Iwasaki finished it fast: a right straight that opened the door to ground strikes stopped Arai at 0:28 of round two, making Iwasaki the new Shooto World Middleweight Champion.