List of Shooto champions
Welterweight Championship

List of Shooto champions

Section Title: Welterweight Championship
Table Section Text: None

Name:	Date:	Defenses:

Japan Yuichi Watanabe (def. Kazuhiro Kusayanagi)	March 29, 1991

Watanabe vacated the title in 1991 for unknown reasons.

Japan Tomonori Ohara (def. Yoshimasa Ishikawa)	October 17, 1991	def. Yomohiro Tanaka on September 25, 1992

Ohara announced his retirement in November 1992 and thus relinquished the title.

Japan Yuki Nakai (def. Kazuhiro Kusayanagi)	November 7, 1994

Nakai suffered an eye injury which forced him into retirement in April 1995.

Japan Caol Uno (def. Rumina Sato)	May 29, 1999	def. Rumina Sato on December 17, 2000

Uno vacated the title on December 17, 2000 to compete in the UFC.

Japan Takanori Gomi (def. Rumina Sato)	December 16, 2001	def. Dokonjonosuke Mishima on December 14, 2002

Norway Joachim Hansen	August 10, 2003

Brazil Vitor Ribeiro	December 14, 2003

Japan Tatsuya Kawajiri	December 14, 2004	def. Joachim Hansen on February 17, 2006

Kawajiri relinquished the title on January 23, 2007 after suffering a knee injury which prevented him from defending his title in the mandatory time period per Shooto regulations.

Japan Takashi Nakakura (def. Ganjo Tentsuku)	May 3, 2008

Nakakura relinquished the title on September 21, 2009, declaring that he wasn't ready to properly defend it after losing a non-title fight to Takanori Gomi.

Brazil Willamy Freire (def. Kenichiro Togashi)	October 30, 2009	def. Yusuke Endo on May 30, 2010

Freire vacated the title on May 30, 2010 to compete in the UFC.

Japan Kuniyoshi Hironaka (def. Kotetsu Boku)	July 18, 2011	def. Giovani Diniz on May 18, 2012 def. Yoshihiro Koyama on September 29, 2013

Hironaka vacated the title in December 2015 for unknown reasons.

Japan Koshi Matsumoto (def. Yuki Kawana)	April 23, 2016	def. Yuki Okano on March 25, 2018

Sentence(s)

Gomi became the Shooto Champion in 2001 after defeating Rumina Sato on December 16.

final_sentence: Gomi became the Shooto Champion in 2001 after defeating Rumina Sato on December 16.