Yuka Tsuji returns triumphantly on July 9 JEWELS show

Yuka Tsuji pounds Saori Ishioka

Yesterday JEWELS had a pretty good show in front of a sold out Shinjuku FACE. The show was pretty stacked but I continue to see fan complaints on Twitter. The complaints are too many pointless filler kickboxing matches, matches should be three rounds instead of two rounds and knock it off with limited ground and pound. There may have been some progress. But it's obviously not enough as a couple of matches were tainted by these issues. The main event featured the triumphant return of Yuka Tsuji winning over Saori Ishioka by unanimous decision. Tsuji admitted afterwards that she's a little stale and needs some more matches. Ishioka did OK but didn't do enough and Tsuji won easily. Korean kickboxer Ham Seo Hee won over VV Mei by unanimous decision. Mei tried to take Ham to the ground but wasn't all that successful and Ham got her rhythm and won fairly easily. I don't think it's an upset because Mei has admitted poor performances against Kyoko Takabayashi and WINDY Tomomi. Maybe she's getting into a rut. So if JEWELS matchmaker Shigeru Saeki has such a hard on for Mika Nagano, why would he have her face Megumi Fujii? Fujii beat Nagano in 2007. So they tried to sell that Nagano wanted revenge and she's angry and blah blah blah. I've seen her in interviews. She doesn't seem like the kind of person who gets angry. Saeki made the match limited GNP mainly to stick it to Fujii. It didn't matter. Fujii just adjusted her strategy accordingly and pounded out a dominant unanimous decision. Maybe she doesn't respect Nagano as a fighter or maybe she was pretending to punch Saeki. She hammered Nagano mercilessly. Roxanne Modafferi was supposed to fight Hitomi Akano a few months ago but got sick. Their match on this show emphasizes the problem with two rounds instead of three. Roxanne seemed to win round one with pounding on the ground and Akano came back in the second round with submission attempts and judo throws. So it could have been scored a draw. But Japanese judges are known to give higher scores for judo and submission attempts. So they gave the win to Akano. Seems a little bogus. HIROKO beat Esui with an armbar at 1:20 of round two. HIROKO can have problems if she is overconfident and has a bad attitude. But she dominated Esui and finished her. Other matches were Kyoko Takabayashi over Celine Haga by unanimous decision, Kikuyo Ishikawa over SACHI by unanimous decision and Miyoko over Yuka Okumura by unanimous decision. JEWELS announced a 48kg tournament will begin on Sept. 10 and will conclude in Dec. Fighters will include the return of Yuka Tsuji teammate Ayumi "Edge" Saito who last fought in 2008, VALKYRIE Flyweight Champ Yasuko Tamada, 2010 ROUGH STONE Champ Kikuyo Ishikawa, SACHI, Sugi Rock who beat Tamada in a non title match in Nov., Yukiko Seki, Misaki Takimoto and Miyoko. My favourite to win is Sugi Rock. She's a very slick fighter.