Enter ASTRA. Credit Sportsnavi.

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Only in Japan would a Mixed Martial Artist decide after being one of the feature attractions in one of the most watched fight cards in the past few years that it was not only time to retire, but to form their own promotion to promote said retirement bout. That is exactly what Hidehiko Yoshida has announced. 

The newly-formed promotion, ASTRA, will promote Hidehiko Yoshida's retirement fight on April 25th at the Nippon Budokan, an arena that has been known to hold up to 15,000 fans. Yoshida, of course, knows how to go out in style in the great arena built for Judo. Over the course of the weekend there have been rumblings of J-ROCK starting their own Mixed Martial Arts promotion, so ASTRA comes with little shock value. Of course leading up to Dynamite!! 2009 Yoshida was quite outspoken with how displeased he was with Sengoku's compromising of their values and working with FEG's DREAM promotion. Of course the management changes in SRC and change of sponsor with less money on the table didn't help, either. This at least confirms that Yoshida Dojo fighters will no longer be working with SRC or DREAM for the time being.

That means that Makoto Takimoto, Kazuhiro Nakamura, Takashi Nakakura and Michihiro Omigawa will all be competing on the ASTRA event as well, with no further announcements made at this time as to who will be participating. Yoshida did not rule out potentially fighting a foreigner as well, as he mentioned an interest in retiring in a bout with Wanderlei Silva. Of course, Silva is still under contract to Zuffa and is a pet favorite of Dana White's, so do not expect to see him competing for a rival in Japan any time soon.

The event website can be viewed at http://www.astra-official.com/