More than a year after his last bout, Craig Shintani is back behind the cage this weekend.
Edmonton, Alta.-born Shintani (9-4), who goes by the nickname The King of the North, is making his inaugural visit to Quebec province to square off with Maxime Poulin (5-1) at Samourai MMA 2 in a clash featuring two of the most seasoned competitors currently active on Canada's MMA scene.
This marks Shintani's first fight beyond Western Canada, and he noted that competing on home turf in Quebec as the visiting fighter brings an extra layer of thrill.
"Quebec has a rich history of MMA and it's finally exciting to get out there," Shintani told MMA Empire in an interview.
"I've heard the city is beautiful. It's going to be nice to visit Montreal, fighting in an exciting place, finally leaving Western Canada and I've always wanted to go travel. It seemed like a great opportunity and it's going to be fun going into his backyard and seeing how the fans like somebody from Alberta coming in."
The travel perks aside, this is still serious business for Shintani, age 30, who believes he's developed as a fighter and is prepared to go toe-to-toe with Poulin.
"He's a well-rounded fighter, he's a solid fighter, he's got good pace, he's got a solid jiu-jitsu game. It seems like in most fights he wants to take it there. His last fight was pretty quick and pretty dominant. I don't even know if he got hit, which is always impressive to do," Shintani remarked.
"But watching his fights in the past, I've noticed his opponents do things that I wouldn't recommend doing in the grappling sequence or scenarios. I think, technically, I will do things differently than the opponents he's been fighting. Not taking anything away from the guy, but I'm a different style. I'm a different matchup. My skill set is very different from what you've seen in the past from Maxime and his opponents will be different come Friday night."
