JEWELS Lightweight Tournament first round matches set

Saori Ishioka, Sakura Nomura

JEWELS held a press conference today to announce the first round matches for the JEWELS Lightweight Tournament on July 31 at Shinjuku FACE. There is also one other change due to injury. The matchups are as follows. Saori Ishioka will face Sakura Nomura. Ishioka is the favourite but remember Nomura is a protege of former DEEP Lightweight Champ MIKU who will be in her corner. The most interesting match in this first round has a rematch between Mika Nagano and Celine. There's not much question that Nagano is looking for retribution so it should be very interesting. Ham Seo Hee will face Mai Ichii. Both are strikers but Ham is probably more accomplished though Ichii is a hard puncher. And the other match has Ayaka Hamazaki facing Han Sol Lee. Hamazaki is a protege of Megumi Fujii who will be in her corner. Remember that the semi finals and final of this tournament will be at the big Korakuen Hall show in December. The change due to injury is Shizuka Sugiyama suffered a seperated shoulder and broken collarbone in practice. She was scheduled to face the Mongolian former pro wrestler Esui in a Shoot Boxing match. This will be replaced by an MMA match contracted for 63kg and scheduled for two five minute rounds and Esui's new opponent will be Mayumi "Super Benkei" Aoki. Super Benkei trains at Gamurannac. Her record is 4-6 and her last match was a win over Mizuho Sato on the July 12, 2009 CAGE FORCE/VALKYRIE show. This one could be interesting as Super Benkei is a good size matchup for Esui.