Incompetent judge ruins year end JEWELS show

Ayaka Hamasaki, Sugi Rock

So when you run a year end show, you're supposed to go out on a high note and look towards the future. Today's JEWELS show went out with an unfortunate finish to the main event and a string of matches ruined by what appears to be an incompetent and inexperienced judge. It looks like it was his first event ever. In the main event, Ayaka Hamasaki successfully defended her JEWELS Lightweight Championship over Ham Seo Hee. It appears that round one was fairly even with a slight edge to Hamasaki. But Ham was unable to get up at the end of the round. The fight was stopped and she was taken to the hospital with a possible sprained back. Very disappointing but these things happen sometimes. Hamasaki said she wants to defend against Yuka Tsuji. Tsuji is currently out recovering from minor surgery but will return in 2012. In the JEWELS Featherweight Championship tournament, Misaki Takimoto won over Yukiko Seki by unanimous decision. The other semi final match was the first indication that there was a problem with one of the judges. Though Japanese reports indicate that Sugi Rock should have won over Kikuyo Ishikawa by unanimous decision, judge Akira Yamazaki inexplicably scored it in Ishikawa's favour. Sugi Rock wins by split decision. In the final, Sugi Rock won over Takimoto by armbar at 4:09 of round one. Takimoto's corner threw in the towel. Congratulations to Sugi Rock. I'm not surprised. She is the class of this weight division. In a Featherweight tournament reserve match, SACHI won over Yasuko Tamada by split decision. But again reports indicate that SACHI should have won by unanimous decision but Yamazaki scored it in Tamada's favour. Then it happens again when Emi Tomimatsu wins over Rina Tomita by split decision and for the third time Yamazaki scored it in favour of the obvious loser. And then he did it for the fourth time. I saw plenty of Tweets from fans who believe Mika Nagano won a very close match over VV Mei. One judge scored it for Nagano. The second judge scored it for Mei. Yamazaki scored it for Mei. She wins by split decision. Of course the problem is that by this time Yamazaki has already messed up three times and can't be trusted to give a competent decision. Once is fine. Judges make mistakes. But after the third time, he should have been tossed out of the building. Fans and fighters deserve competent judges. He cost Mika Nagano a win and that kind of incompetence usually results in needless rematches. So who is Akira Yamazaki?. He's a boxer from Osaka. His record is 12-6-4 and he last boxed last year. So it appears this may have been his first job as a judge. He also lost his only MMA fight in 2006. Of course in Japan the promoter hires the judges. There is no athletic commission. JEWELS matchmaker Shigeru Saeki's lame response to Yamazaki's incompetence was that fighters shouldn't leave things to the judges. There's something fishy going on. In other matches, Emi Fujino won over Celine by unanimous decision, Shino VanHoose won over Asami Higa by unanimous decision and Yuka Okumura won over anna by heel hook at 4:41 of round one. Afterwards it was announced that former VALKYRIE matchmaker Yasuko Mogi has been hired as a producer for JEWELS. It's unknown what her role really is as she may butt heads with Saeki over his methods. And owner Yuichi Ozono is out to lunch. JEWELS' first 2012 show will be Mar. 9 at Shinjuku FACE. Mogi did say she wants to run a show in Osaka. But I don't know if she'll try to affect rule changes and I know they can't afford to run in a cage. We'll see how that goes.