(Peter Graham, doing his best Vanilla Ice at the “Sengoku” press conference.)

World Victory Road’s debut event, “Sengoku”, is slated for tomorrow at 2:30 in the morning (ET). Fight vids will start being available shortly after the show because they know we’re all too lazy to stay up – or get up – at 2:30 a.m. to tune in. The card is a solid start to WVR and as expected, Takanori Gomi and Josh Barnett are big favorites, as is Nick “The Goat” Thompson. Kazuyuki Fujita is also favored big over kickboxer Peter Graham, who is making his MMA debut. Graham, known in kickboxing for his “rolling thunder” cartwheel kick, said some shit about Fujita back at a December press conference for DYNAMITE!! 2007:

One minor surprise took place at the DYNAMITE!! press conference held at a hotel in Osaka. When the MC began taking questions from the reporters, all of sudden a man wearing a red T-shirt stood up. His name is Peter Graham, a K-1 fighter who was there as Nicolas Petas’ teammate. While all the reporters were stunned by this abrupt interruption Graham yelled, “Where is my opponent who was supposed to fight me tomorrow! Chicken!” The MC didn’t know what to do but the interpreter softened a bit and translated what this big man from Australia had just said. Then no one knew how to react to this sudden speech by Graham, so it was basically ignored for then the press conference continued.

Graham revealed after his outburst that Fujita was supposed to fight him at the DYNAMITE!! show, but refused the fight. The Vanilla Ice-doubling big man then decided to publicly embarrass Fujita. This all came out at the “Sengoku” press conference (go here for more pics) and the two fighters had to be separated. Word is Fujita wasn’t so much upset about the remarks Graham had made about him as he was for the kickboxer’s human race-embarrassing sense of fashion.

Video of cartwheel kick attempts by Graham is after the jump. Notice I said “attempts”.

For the “rolling thunder”, start at the 8:40 mark. Wonder if he’ll try it tomorrow…

And for you gamblers, here are Bodog’s betting odds for the event. Spend wisely.

Takanori Gomi -600
Duane Ludwig +400

Kazuo Misaki -260
Siyar Bahadurzada +200

Josh Barnett -800
Hidehiko Yoshida +500

Nick Thompson -350
Fabricio Monteiro +275

Makoto Takimoto -145
Evangelista Santos +115

Antonio Braga Neto -130
Ryo Kawamura EVEN

Kazuyuki Fujita -500
Peter Graham +300

And here are weigh-in results, which I converted from kilos and rounded for you – thanks to my magical metric calculator:

Fabricio Monteiro – 166 lbs.
Nick Thompson – 167 lbs.

Ryo Kawamura – 204.5 lbs.
Antonio Braga Neto – 204.5 lbs.

Makoto Takimoto – 180.5 lbs.
Evangelista Cyborg – 183 lbs.

Kazuyuki Fujita – 255.5 lbs.
Peter Graham – 248.5 lbs.

Kazuo Misaki – 181 lbs.
Siyar Bahadurzada – 183 lbs.

Takanori Gomi – 153.5 lbs.
Duane Ludwig – 153 lbs.

Hidehiko Yoshida – 239.5 lbs.
Josh Barnett – 249.5 lbs.

(Big props to Nightmare of Battle)