. . .
On May 20, 12-year-old Momo Shimizu will make her amateur debut against Momoko Yamazaki in Tokyo during a card promoted by Japanese organization Deep Jewels.
When it became clear the fight would actually happen, the second wave of reaction came: concern, outrage, repulsion.
Yet in Shimizu's home country, this story is barely registering a blip on the radar screen.
. . .
Shimizu—who is most often referred to only as "Momo" in Japan—first started training at the age of three. She told Bleacher Report that she simply wanted to follow along with her older brother, Res, when he began karate lessons.
She quickly fell in love and has been training three hours a day, six days a week since kindergarten. While she'll be making her amateur MMA debut, she's had over 100 matches in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, kickboxing and karate combined, she estimates.
. . .
The duo, who will compete at the 95-pound minimumweight limit (Momo is 4'11"), will wear protective head gear, shin guards and large gloves with extra padding to both blunt impact and create more difficulty in passing through a defensive guard. There will also be no elbow strikes allowed, and no striking at all on the ground. The fight itself will only consist of two three-minute rounds.
It will essentially be kickboxing in the standup and jiu-jitsu on the ground.
. . .
She trains at Hakuhinkai Karate, a small but well-respected gym in Toyohashi that has only eight total students including three professional fighters: 19-year-old Naoki Inoue, who is 10-0 and recently signed with the UFC; 22-year-old Mizuki Inoue, who made her pro debut at 16 and holds a 12-4 record; and 18-year-old Yukari Yamaguchi, who is 1-0.
It is a gym that prizes defensive skill and head movement. Within it, Momo is considered a prodigy.
While Momo's opponent has five fights on her resume (2-3), Hirata said the bouts came as amateur ones in an organization that routinely squares off untrained people, and that Yamazaki is believed to have little experience or training aside from those bouts.
"I think Momo is going to smash Yamazaki," Hirata said.
. . .
In Japan, there is precedent both for this kind of fight and its expected result.
Yukari Yamaguchi was 13 at the time she made her amateur MMA debut in 2011, easily defeating 33-year-old Nana Ichikawa via armbar submission in just 80 seconds. Last year in Deep Jewels, 12-year-old Karen Date defeated 28-year-old Ayumi Misaka via hammerlock submission.
Facebook
Twitter