(Bro grabs!)

There was a time during 2009 when Satoshi Ishii was one of the more sought-after free agents in mixed martial arts, but after a spate of failed contract negotiations and inactivity stalled his momentum the Olympic Judo gold medalist’s MMA career has so far been typified more by taking pictures with the sport’s biggest stars rather than actually fighting them.

With just two bouts under his belt to date (one of them a decision loss to Hidehiko Yoshida), Ishii’s career hit another speed bump this weekend  when he was disqualified during an exhibition match at something called X-1 World Events “Nations Collide” in Hawaii after he failed to heed the referee’s instructions to stop punching opponent Myles Tynanes.

According to a report from Sherdog, Ishii floored Tynanes just before the bell to end the first round and refused to cease his onslaught of strikes to the downed opponent as referee Steve Miyamoto tried to wave him off. Miyamoto later told the Dog:

“What happened was the knockdown occurred, the buzzer went off, I jumped in to stop the match and, basically, (Ishii) kept going, throwing the punches. He probably got maybe six or seven more punches in, and I’m basically standing in the middle of that. I couldn’t get (Ishii) off; he was pushing me over to get into it.”

Miyamoto DQed Ishii for the infraction and awarded Tynanes, who came into the fight with a professional record of 3-1-1, the victory. It was just another odd outcome in the career of Tynanes, whose most recent previous bout resulted in him somehow taking Ruben “Warpath” Villareal to a draw. His first pro fight was a loss to Wesley “Cabbage” Correira by what the Dog’s Fight Finder deemed a TKO via “retirement.”

We have no idea what a prospect the caliber of Ishii was even doing fighting in an “exhibition bout” in an independent promotion, but the outcome can’t be viewed as a positive step for his MMA career … though it seems like he’s been working on his striking, so that’s good. We’re still a couple of stumbles away from officially dubbing him the “Japanese Bobby Lashley,” but we’re starting to question how serious he actually is about his whole mixed fighting thing.

If nothing else, at least the guy got some quality UFC swag out of the deal.