Ariel Helwani reported on last night's episode of UFC Tonight that Miesha Tate vs Rin Nakai is "targeted" for UFC Fight Night Japan Sept. 27 at Saitama Super Arena. Considering that UFC Tonight is produced by the UFC, "targeted" means the fight has been verbally agreed to but fight agreements are yet to be signed. If they weren't sure about this fight, they wouldn't announce it. Of course the big deal here is that the undefeated Rin Nakai will be in the UFC. Regular readers of this blog should recall that I wrote about the possibility of Rin Nakai in the UFC last November. It came to my attention that they were interested in having Rin replace Aleksandra Albu and fight Julie Kedzie in December. At the time, I didn't think there was enough time to buy Rin's contract from PANCRASE owner Masakazu Sakai and they ended up signing Bethe Correia for that fight. But I thought that if the UFC backed up an armoured car to the PANCRASE office, Sakai would sell her contract. So when the rumours started up again a couple of weeks ago, I guess Sakai got his price. She's a draw but there are no local fighters for her to fight so Sakai was going to continue to bring over gaijin fighters. There wasn't much he could do with her except sell her to the UFC. This fight will be a big draw in Japan because no matter what anyone tries to tell you, sex appeal is important when Japanese MMA fans look at women's MMA. And though Miesha and Rin are both great fighters, both have plenty of sex appeal. The only thing I have seen about Rin since this fight was announced referenced those silly videos for the PANCRASE Youtube channel. Did you know she hasn't done any of those videos for several months? Check the PANCRASE Youtube channel if you don't believe me. The problem with that sexy stuff is some idiots fixate on it negatively and forget that both women are great athletes. So you want to know if Rin Nakai can beat Miesha Tate. Of course she can. For the last couple of years, I have been critical of Rin's passivity early in fights. She was more aggressive in her latest fight vs Sarah D'Alelio so someone wised her up. Other than Ronda Rousey, Rin probably has the best judo of any female in the UFC. Remember she has been a judoka since she was a kid. Because Rin is short and very muscular, she has a low center of gravity and is tough to take down. And she has explosive takedown power. So if Miesha comes out in a fog like she did against Liz Carmouche and Rin is aggressive like she was against Sarah, it could be trouble for Miesha. But if Rin is tentative, that's a different story. A lot depends on Miesha's attitude towards Rin. I doubt she knows much about her. But she's gonna find out. I hope the UFC lets Rin do "air dancing" if she wins.
No comments:
Post a Comment