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| Rin Nakai & V Hajime |
VALKYRIE's show today at Differ Ariake was one of the most memorable in their two year history. They crowned a new Open Weight Champion. The Featherweight Championship match ended in controversy. The Flyweight Champion was upset in a non title match. And another Featherweight contender made a major statement. The main event of the show had VALKYRIE Featherweight Champion V Hajime defend against Kyoko Takabayashi. The question about these two is would either of them be championship contenders if Yuka Tsuji was healthy. Takabayashi trained at the famed Chukyo Women's University wrestling program but has been criticized for lack of aggression in the past. She does well in this match. V Hajime starts out with strikes but gets pushed into the fence. Takabayashi attempts a choke. The ref breaks it up and they exchange kicks. V1 pushes Takabayashi into the fence. But Takabayashi stuffs her takedown attempt and lands punches in her face. V1 begins round two by pushing Takabayashi into the fence. But another takedown is stuffed and Takabayashi takes her down. They stand up and V1 staggers Takabayashi with strikes. They exchange strikes against the fence and Takabayashi defends another takedown. They continued to exchange strikes in round three. The key to the match was that Takabayashi defended very well and showed more offense than usual. One judge gave the match to Takabayshi and the other two called it a draw. The match was declared a majority draw. V1 retains the title but I think she was disappointed with herself. Obviously a rematch will be in order on the February VALKYRIE show. And don't forget Yuka Tsuji will return from injury in 2011. And earlier in this show, Emi Fujino choked out Anna in 28 secs. so Fujino is in the mix too. Apparently it looked like Anna ran from her.
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| Rin Nakai (in black) pounds Mizuho Sato |
In the final of the VALKYRIE Open Weight Championship tournament, undefeated pint size powerhouse Rin Nakai face Mizuho Sato, a fighter Rin beat last February. Sato begins with a couple of strikes but Nakai pushes her into the fence and hits knees to the thigh and body. She then grabs Sato by the neck and delivers more knees. Sato turns it around and Nakai stuffs a takedown. But she does land some good strikes. Nakai reverses and pushes Sato into the fence towards the end of the round. It was fairly even but Sato's left eye was badly swollen. Apparently one of Nakai's knees landed squarely to her eye. The doctor checked on her and diagnosed that she had a broken orbital bone and would be unable to continue. Sato protested but they weren't going to let her continue. Rin Nakai is your new VALKYRIE Open Weight Champion. She put on the belt and proceeded to do her trademark backflip across the cage. Because of the ending, I expect a rematch as soon as Sato recovers from her injury.
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| Sugi Rock pounds Yasuko Tamada |
In a non title match, VALKYRIE Flyweight Champion Yasuko Tamada faced Sugi Rock. Obviously the champ will be favoured because of her experience edge. But But if you saw Sugi Rock's last match which I posted on the blog, you'll know that she's a very good fighter with potential. Sugi Rock started by pushing Tamada into the fence, taking her down and pounding her. Tamada tries to take her down but Sugi Rock stuffs her attempts and pounds on her. This was the basic pattern through all three rounds. Sugi Rock looked much stronger than Tamada and won by unanimious decision. It's an upset but I wasn't surprised by it. I guess she gets a title shot now. In other matches, IRIS beat Super Benkei by unanimous decision. Emi Fujino beat Anna by rear naked choke at 28 secs. of round one. Chisa Yonezawa beat HARI by TKO (strikes) at 2:44 of round three. And Megumi Morioka beat sakura by unanimous decision. Looks like there could be plenty of great matches coming up for VALKYRIE in 2011.
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