Igor Vovchanchyn
Takada's next MMA event participation was in PRIDE 11, where he was pitted against feared striker Igor Vovchanchyn. Having trained especially for the match with his own trainee Kazushi Sakuraba and K-1 veteran Masaaki Satake, Takada was acknowledged to have improved his performance. Takada avoided Vovchanchyn's punches and scored a Sakuraba-inspired single leg takedown to the crowd's cheers, and even after returning to their feet, he landed effective low kicks, visibly bruising Vovchanchyn's leg. Eventually, the Ukrainian threw Takada to the ground and threatened with ground and pound, but Takada survived until the end of the round. Igor finally overpowered him at the second, when he caught the Japanese with a counterpunch and gained full mount after a restart. Takada worked again to avoid the punishmentm, but Vovchanchyn started landing hard strikes, making him tap out.