Saori Ishioka to retire from MMA?

There's no question that Saori Ishioka was very disappointed by her loss to Sakura Nomura at last week's JEWELS show. I was not surprised that she lost as in pre-match interviews, she seemed to be looking past Nomura and talked about fighting Ham Seo Hee. That was a big mistake. Today she posted on her blog that at the very least she is taking a break from MMA and may retire. She's only 23 years old. She's going to leave her job at a Tokyo convenience store and return home to Hiroshima and her mom. Right now she's calling it a vacation but she is acknowledging that she may not return to Tokyo and could retire from MMA. She feels she let a lot of people down. She thanked her trainers at Zendokai and thanked Yasuko Mogi, Naoko Omuro and WINDY Tomomi for helping her when she first arrived in Tokyo three years ago. Saori says she is a big fan of Shinya Aoki and Takanori Gomi and would like to fight overseas as they have. But for now, she has lost the desire to compete in MMA and she doesn't know if she can get that desire back. She's a young kid with talent and it would be very sad if she doesn't return to MMA.