THE SAVAGE SCIENCE is always happy to give props to up and coming fighters that might be somewhat below the radar–at least for now. Darren “BC” Uyenoyama’s fight with Hideo Tokoro at DREAM.4 was the fight of the night, and the first round is neck and neck with the 2nd round of the McCullough/Torres WEC fight for ’round of the year’. Considering that at the time we compared that round with the 9th round of Gatti/Ward 1 that’s a pretty impressive accomplishment. For that matter, this fight is on a short list for ‘fight of the year’ so far…

Uyenoyama and Tokoro after their epic fight

He’s one of those fighters who’s 4-2 record might not jump out at you, but has so much upside its scary. Based on his DREAM.4 fight he could be a short haired Clay Guida–a tough, highly conditioned guy with a well rounded skill set who just brings it. If you didn’t see his fight against Tokoro by all means take the time to watch it below. As noted above, the first round is just insane. Uyenoyama shakes off a couple of knee strikes that would have KO’d an elephant and keeps on coming….

Here’s what we said about round 1 on our live coverage:

If you’re not watching this live make sure to catch a replay or otherwise track down this fight as the first round is on par with the 2nd round of the McCullough/Torres WEC fight from a couple of weeks back.

And here’s what we wrote as the fight drew to a close:

Uyenoyama lands a roundhouse that hurts Tokoro and the Japanese fighter responds with another hard knee strike. Back to the ground and Tokoro tries for an omoplata. 13 minutes in and both fighters are going at it like crazed weasels, which is our highest level of praise. No matter who wins this is a fight of the year caliber bout. Uyenoyama scoring with the ground and pound, Tokoro looking for upkicks. Tokoro’s record is 19-13-1 and that does nothing to suggest what a talented fighter he is. None of his losses–with the exception of Caol Uno–are to superstar level opponents. Tokoro wins on our card and the judges concur. Tokoro wins by unanimous decision and that’s hard to argue with. Fight of the year candidate fight. Uyenoyama deserves a lot of credit for the fight he put up despite the unanimous decision loss. Make sure to catch this on replay if you’re not watching it live…

The ‘crazed weasel’ comment may sound funny, but if you’ll look back over our round by round coverage both here at at ProphetFighting you’ll see that its some of the highest praise we can give a fighter. Some of the fighters that have earned the ‘crazed weasel’ sobriquet over the years are the aforementioned Clay Guida, Don Frye, Wanderlei Silva, Forrest Griffin and over in the boxing realm Arturo Gatti, Fernando Vargas and Manny Pacquaio. Not bad company to be in…

Uyenoyama also seems like a real cool guy–he’s married with kids and has a day job as a sales director. As least he does for now, because if he keeps fighting like he did at DREAM.4 he’s going to become a big name in MMA. We’re fortunate here at SavSci since we get to watch fights and get paid for it, but even if that wasn’t the case Uyenoyama is a fighter that we’d be seeking out and willing to expend our own green to watch.

THE SAVAGE SCIENCE wishes Uyenoyama the best of luck in his fighting career, and you can be sure that we’ll let you know about his next fight. We moved him to our ‘top friends’ list on the SavSci MySpace profile today, making him one of only 3 MMA fighters so designated–the others being Josh Barnett and Clay Guida so our high standards in this regard should be apparent.

Our live coverage of the DREAM.4 fight between Uyenoyama and Hideo Tokoro here

Darren Uyenoyama’s MySpace Profile

And here’s the DREAM.4 fight itself: