Real Fight Championship announced today the card for their debut show Dec. 23 at Differ Ariake. Among other things, they announced that Kron Gracie will make his MMA debut against an opponent to be announced. But the fight of interest to readers of this blog will have Brazilian Jiu Jitsu champ Gabi Garcia making her MMA debut against women's MMA pioneer Megumi Yabushita. If you're familiar with these two, you'll know why I call it a freak show match. Last year, Gabi said she was tired of BJJ and wanted to try MMA. The problem is she weighs over 200lbs and there aren't any fighters in that weight class and there haven't been any for several years. So the solution is to have her fight in Open Weight which only exists in Japan because it's not regulated. A fight like this would never get approved in the US or anywhere else. Yabushita normally fights at 135lb. But she's done this kind of thing before. Long time fans will recall that she beat the 300lb Russian Svetlana Goundarenko on the 2000 REMIX tournament. But more recently she lost to 200lb Lana Stefanac on the Dec. 26, 2007 Smackgirl show. Stefanac was a very good fighter but was forced to retire because there was no competition for her. Not to mention that Yabushita is now 43 years old and should retire from MMA but won't. She hasn't won a fight in over four years. That these promoters were forced to make a freak show match like this proves that there is no fighters for Gabi Garcia. It reminds me of when pro wrestler Kia "Amazing Kong" Stevens (280lbs) wanted to try MMA and promoters were forced to find a female sumo wrestler with no MMA experience for her to fight. That match was a joke. And this one will be a joke too. And the promoters didn't even put Gabi on the poster.
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