In a classic battle for the Sengoku middleweight title, Jorge Santiago and Kazuo Misaki went toe-to-toe for 24 and a half minutes Sunday in Tokyo before Misaki's corner threw in the towel with just 30 seconds left in the fight, handing Santiago a victory in a bout he was on the verge of losing by decision."I proved to everybody here what a champ is made of," Santiago said afterward. "This is the way a champion fights. This is the way I always want to fight."Santiago went into the ring as the champion and the favorite, but Misaki took control of the bout early, getting the better of the action-packed stand-up exchanges and even having Santiago in serious trouble with a guillotine choke that appeared close to finishing the fight in the second round.Early in the third round Santiago turned the tide by leveling Misaki with a head kick and a straight right hand, then jumped on top of him and rained punches down. It looked like the fight was about to end, but Misaki managed to tie Santiago up and survive, getting out of the third round badly hurt but still winning two rounds to one on the judges' cards.Misaki got back to business in the fourth round, and after 20 minutes he seemed comfortably ahead on the scorecards, especially considering that Santiago had a point deducted for crawling under the ropes to escape. All Misaki had to do was survive the fifth round and he'd win the title.But Santiago came out in the fifth round like a bat out of hell, knocking Misaki down and absolutely destroying him on the ground with punch after punch after punch. Misaki showed the heart of a warrior and seemed willing to accept all the punishment Santiago could dish out, but eventually Misaki's corner decided it had seen enough and threw in the towel, handing Santiago the win.Misaki looked devastated as he walked out of the ring, his face bloodied and bruised. But neither man should be considered a loser in this one. It was a brilliant battle, and a pleasure to watch.In other Sengoku 14 action:Hatsu Hioki, the featherweight who is Sengoku's best pound-for-pound fighter, made short work of England's Jeff Lawson, forcing Lawson to tap to a triangle choke just 2:09 into the first round. The tall and skinny Hioki continues to show that he's one of the best small fighters in the world, and it would be nice to see him sign with the WEC and test himself against the best opposition he can find.In an absolutely shocking upset, a little-known Mongolian named Jadamba Narantungalag dominated Japanese star Akihiro Gono and won a unanimous decision. Narantungalag was thought to be nothing more than a pushover opponent designed to give Gono an easy victory, but it didn't turn out that way, as the 35-year-old Gono simply brought nothing into the ring.Nick Thompson, the American attorney who fights all over the world when he's not practicing law, was the victim of an ugly knockout at the hands of Japan's Taisuke Okuno. Okuno knocked Thompson cold with a left hand, and Thompson had to be taken out of the ring on a stretcher.The strangest result of the night came in the fight between Leonardo Santos and Sotaro Yamada. Yamada kneed Santos in the groin repeatedly, and after multiple warnings just kept doing it until the referee had no choice but to disqualify Yamada.