RIZIN held a press conference this morning to announce that RENA and Shinju Auclair will return on the Dec. 31 Saitama Super Arena show. So after RENA lost the Kanna Asakura rematch, she hinted at retirement. She has done that every time she has lost a big match. But I am not surprised she is not retiring. However, it seems to me that MMA is one big dead end for her. And Shoot Boxing isn't something she can build a career around. RENA said on her blog that she went home to Osaka to spend time with her family. And she decided that she missed being in the gym. Her loss to Kanna showed that RENA lacks the kind of quickness needed to be a good fighter. That is not easy to fix. Her opponent in this fight is Samantha Jean-Francois. She is 31 years old from Marseille, France with a 3-5-1NC record. She is pretty though. So because at this point RENA's main attribute is sex appeal, her MMA future will be fighting other mediocre fighters with sex appeal. She also said at the press conference that if Ayaka Hamasaki beats Kanna, she won't fight Ayaka because she's her coach. See what I mean about MMA being a dead end for RENA. Shinju Auclair will return to RIZIN after a year off to face Justyna Haba. This fight will be at Strawweight. Shinju is an American of Japanese descent. Her mother is a famous comedian in Japan. Shinju is from Michigan but she has moved to San Francisco to train at Scrap Pack. She also had elbow surgery which is why we haven't seen her. She is 25 years old with a 2-0 record. But both of her RIZIN wins were over Michigan tomato cans. So she's unproven. Eventually RIZIN will want Shinju to face Kanako Murata who they have loaned to Invicta. Justyna is a Polish kickboxer making her MMA debut. She is in the military and her experience has mostly been in military kickboxing tournaments. She seems uniquely unqualified even for a RIZIN squash match. So I don't expect this to tell us much about Shinju. But she's a celebrity because of her mom. I guess that's what is important to RIZIN.
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