Satoshi Ishii is a well recognized Japanese judoka and mixed martial artist. Ishii was born on December 19, 1986 in Ibaraki, Osaka, Japan. His fame comes from his judo grappling success. Ishii began his training in judo in the fifth grade. In 2004 Ishii won his first major judo title as he earned a gold medal in the Junior World Championships in Budapest, Hungary. 2 years later, he won the All Japan Judo Championship in Tokyo, Japan. A year after, Ishii along with the Japanese judo team won the World Judo team competition in Beijing, China. In 2008 Ishii again won the All Japan Judo Championship in Tokyo, Japan. However his biggest success as a judoka was winning the gold medal in the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in the +100 kg category in Beijing, China. In 2011 Ishii returned to judo competition as he won the gold medal in the United States Championship in the open division.

Ishii decided to test his talents in another combat sport and he began MMA training. Ishii before even making his debut received offers from the UFC, FEG and WVR. Ishii reportedly turned all of the offers, except for the UFC’s offer and he went to Florida to train with American Top Team and Xtreme Couture. Later it was then revealed that Ishii had signed with WVR.

Ishii made his MMA debut against fellow Japanese Olympic judoka and PRIDE veteran Hidehiko Yoshida in Yoshida’s retirement fight at the annual Japanese MMA NYE Dynamite!! event. Ishii went on to put an underwhelming performance against Yoshida and he lost his debut by unanimous  decision at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.

Ishii then began fighting around the world racking  a solid set of wins defeating fighter such as Ikuhisa “Minowaman” Minowa, Katsuyori Shibata and Jerome Le Banner. Ishii’s win streak however came to an end when he fought decorated Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter Paulo Filho. Ishii couldn’t finish Filho and the fight went to the judges decision and was ruled a draw.

He was originally scheduled to make his US MMA debut at Strikeforce Challenger 15 opposing Scott Lighty. However the fight was cancelled and didn’t take place when Ishii had visa issues due to the earthquake Japan has suffered. Ishii then fought one of mixed martial arts great heavyweight fighters of all time in Fedor Emelianenko at the Saitama Super Arena on another Japanese NYE event. Again Ishii’s NYE bad luck continued as he lost again on NYE this time being knocked out by Fedor in the first round.

With DREAM closing, FEG transferred Ishii to Antonio Inoki’s IGF pro-wrestling organization. Despite being a pro-wrestling organization, Ishii has strictly competed in MMA fights. In IGF, Ishii has fought and defeated nothing but UFC veterans such as former UFC heavyweight titleholder Tim Sylvia and Sean McCorkle.

Ishii was scheduled to fight Jeff Monson at IGF GENOME 24 on February 24, 2013, but Monson was forced to pull out of the fight with a back injury and Ishii instead fought Sean McCorkle on a short notice. Ishii made short work of McCorkle submitting with a kimura in 2:41 of the first round.