Erika Kamimura vs Ham Seo Hee set for June 2 RISE show

Erika Kamimura, Ham Seo Hee

Last week the RISE kickboxing company announced a big show at Tokyo Dome City Hall on June 2. And they announced that 19 year old kickboxing phenom Erika Kamimura will appear on the show. Today RISE announced that the veteran Korean Ham Seo Hee will be Erika's opponent. They are billing this as a RISE QUEEN Championship contender's match contracted for 48kg and scheduled for three three minute rounds with extensions if there is a tie. RENA is the current RISE QUEEN Champion and obviously the rematch against Erika was scheduled for this show. But RENA has had surgery for a broken foot and is not likely to return until 2013. RISE could have stripped her of the title. But instead they give us a match with two of the top female kickboxers in the world. Though Ham has done MMA in Japan, at home in Korea she only does kickboxing and is currently the CMA Lightweight Champion. In fact, she has never worked for a Japanese kickboxing company. Her kickboxing matches in Japan have been for Gladiator which is co-owned by CMA Korea and is not a kickboxing company. Erika is the WBC and WPMF World Women's Flyweight Champion. She lost the RISE QUEEN Championship match to RENA in November. The match should have been a draw and then gone to an extension round. But an overly intrusive ref gave unnecessary penalties that affected the result. Recently Erika won over a Chinese kickboxer in 30 seconds. Erika beat Ham in the SHOOT BOXING S-Girls Cup final last August. When I was watching that match, I was thinking that I would prefer to see them fight straight kickboxing. Well, now we get to see that. Both have knockout power so I don't expect it to go the distance. Expect fireworks.