A couple of recent Japanese MMA matches

Just wanted to follow up an a couple of recent MMA matches in Japan. Only one of the fighters involved is known and she's a little suspect. The others appear to be newcomers. A company called DEEP GLOVE had a show at Shinjuku FACE on June 15. They have MMA, kickboxing & boxing on their shows. This appears to be their second show. They had two womens MMA matches on this show. The first one featured veteran fighter Hikaru Shinohara. Her record going into this match was 4-6. She is a trained MMA fighter but she's also done pro wrestling, acting & modelling. I guess she's more idol than fighter these days. Her opponent was Kirran and Shinohara won with a sleeper hold after round one. Apparently Kirran was unable to answer the bell for round two. The second bout had flyweight Yoko Yamada KO Nanachanchin at 1 minute of round one. Yamada's MMA record going into the fight was 4-1. She's an arm wrestling champ currently wrestling for Mariko Yoshida's Ibuki. Nanachanchin is a Smackgirl veteran who hadn't fought for over three years. her record going into this fight was 0-9.





The other match was a couple of weeks ago from a company called SMOKER'S. Their whole thing appears to be an attempt to put on underground style MMA fights in nightclubs. I think they're a new company. The show was May 23 at Cantina Ebisu in Tokyo. They also do MMA & kickboxing. The womens match was with two women I've never heard of. Megumi Murata does train at AACC with Megumi Fujii & Hitomi Akano. Her opponent Mayu trains at Zen Road. It was scheduled for two five minute rounds and Murata won at 3:14 of round one with a cross arm breaker. Not much detail on most of these fighters or the fights but I think I got the name translations OK. Unknown fighters are always very difficult.