JEWELS had their latest show at the sold out Shinjuku FACE yesterday. The main event had HIROKO looking to avenge her only loss against Hitomi Akano. The match was contracted for 65kg and it's the first time HIROKO has ever had to cut weight. She could have fought at Open Weight but she wants to go to the US and fight Cris Cyborg. She made weight but she looked very thin. HIROKO was able to use her reach to keep Akano away and she hit her with some good shots. If you've seen Akano fight before, you know that when she gets into trouble she goes for crazy submission holds. Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't work. And the usual limited ground and pound rules tend to work in her favour. But this match had unlimited gnp So while Akano was trying to take HIROKO down, HIROKO continued to hammer her. HIROKO had to be very careful with her because Akano has the ability to pull a submission out of nowhere. Akano took her down with time running out but it wasn't enough and HIROKO won by split decision. Afterwards, HIROKO repeated her desire to fight Cyborg. She wants to knock her out. JEWELS matchmaker Shigeru Saeki said he might be able to work that out through DREAM's working agreement with Strikeforce but he wants to see how much money is offered. Keep in mind that there are no opponents in Japan for HIROKO. I would not be surprised to see her in Strikeforce's tournament but I don't think she can beat Cyborg.
The semi-main had Mika Nagano against Mai Ichii at 52kg. Ichii works as a pro wrestler for Ice Ribbon. She quit wrestling in 2007. She's done a bit of MMA but mostly has done well with the kickboxing company M-1. She returned to pro wrestling last year. Of course Nagano is the grappling whiz from Chukyo University. She actually did a bit of pro wrestling for Ice Ribbon last year. The story here was Ichii was upset with Nagano for not doing more in Ice Ribbon. She planned to knock Nagano out. Nagano's response was she was doing that for fun and MMA is her main priority. So Nagano didn't bite on this nonsense. Megumi Fujii is in Ichii's corner. Nagano didn't waste any time going to the ground. And though Ichii went the distance, Nagano won easily with various submissioon attempts. She almost had her with a rear naked choke at the end of round one but Ichii was saved by the bell. Ichii tried to keep it standing in round two. But Nagano is too quick for her and she takes her down again. She wins by unanimous decision. Ichii immediately asks for a rematch. She's known to be a little crazy. Nagano says she wants to fight Saori Ishioka and Megumi Fujii.
Shizuka Sugiyama faced Miki Morifuji in a match contracted for 58kg. Morifuji is a veteran so she's a good test for Sugiyama. Though Sugiyama has potential, she has shown a lack of concentration and maturity in some of her matches. And that weakness showed itself again as Morifuji kept her cool and scored with several punches. She won by unanimous decision. Back to the drawing board for Sugiyama. There was also a Shoot Boxing match with Ai Takahashi beating ASAKO. There was a Shoot Boxing exhibition with RENA and Ham Seo Hee. Ham was supposed to face Saori Ishioka but Ishioka is injured. Ham said she will return to JEWELS in July for a 52kg title tournament. MIKU and Megumi Fujii talked about their exhibition match at MIKU's retirement show. Hiroko Kitamura remained undefeated by defeating the winless Norwegian Celine with an armbar at 2:04 of round one. Celine was outclassed but it appears the ref may have stopped the match prematurely. Roxanne Madafferi was in her corner. Celine's problem is fighters in Europe are a lot bigger than her. But when she comes to Japan, Saeki gives her opponents that are way too experienced for her. Of course she wants to fight but maybe she should wait for the right fight. In other matches, MIYOKO won over Kikuyo Ishikawa by split decision and Sakura Nomura won her debut over Yuko Kagoshima by armbar at 4:35 of round two. Nomura's teammate MIKU was in her corner. The next JEWELS show will be May 23 at Shinjuku FACE.
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