Here's a promo video courtesy of Ultimate Warrior Challenge promoting a womens's bout between Iman Achhal and Sumie Sakai Oct. 3 at the GMU Patriot Center in Fairfax, VA. You may be familiar with Iman Achhal story of coming to the US as a Moroccan refugee. Her debut MMA match was last fall against veteran kickboxer Felice Herrig. You may have watched the fight on this blog. Iman was the underdog but she did great and won the match. The one thing they don't talk about in this video and on their website is Sumie Sakai's MMA record. The problem is that Sumie is really a pro wrestler who has dabbled unsuccessfully in MMA. Her record is 0-2 with one no contest. Like her best friend and long time tag team partner Megumi Yabushita, Sumie competed in judo competitions in Japan before Jaguar Yokota recruited and trained them for pro wrestling in 1997. While Megumi continued to compete in MMA in Japan, Sumie did not. She moved to the US in 2003 and actually decided to try MMA after watching Megumi get her arm broken by Laura D'Auguste in Atlantic City in 2006. So though Sumie's MMA qualifications are questionable at best, she knows how to put on a show. Check out the video.
Achhal has a nice story, but her fight against Herrig was very boring and consisted mostly of her controlling Felice against the fence, as I recall.
ReplyDeleteShe did what she had to do to win the fight. Considering Herrig's punching power, it was very good strategy.
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