On Thursday, the kickboxing promotion Rise held a press conference and made a number of announcements related to their upcoming event in September, Rise Girls Power 5. One of those announcements was that Rise Atomweight Champion Koyuki Miyazaki will be facing Saya Ito. This announcement may be a surprise to those that follow Saya, since she recently stated that she wanted to focus on Muay Thai. However, something appears to have changed her mind, and despite not being able to attend the press conference, she did write a post on instagram that explains her decision to return to Rise and kickboxing. (Photo courtesy of LadyGo!)
In her post, Saya, who seemed more fired up than usual, wrote the following:
“There was a time when I had decided to no longer fight outside of Muay Thai rules, but I decided that it would be shameful and feel like I was making excuses and running away, so I decided to take another fight. I thought to myself, what have I been doing all these years, I’ve fought boys and I’ve fought a lot of foreign fighters. However, the first belt I won was for New Japan Kickboxing. I’m going back to my roots!! I’m going to show them what a Muay Thai champion is made of.” (This is just an excerpt)
Despite only being 22 years old, the now fired up Saya Ito has been a staple of the Japanese combat scene for years. She made her professional debut nearly 10 years ago to the day, had over 100 amateur fights, and has been training since she was 4. This includes 2 matches against the now superstar, Tenshin Nasukawa. Despite her success in Muay Thai, Saya has had some difficulty making the transition to kickboxing. While kickboxing and Muay Thai may look similar, they have different rules, a different number of rounds, the rounds are different lengths, and the scoring is different. This contrast can be seen clearly in her two matches with Ayaka. (Fight 1, Fight 2)
In the first fight, which was also Saya’s Rise debut, Saya had a hard time controlling the pace and distance. While she normally prefers to keep her opponents at range with kicks, she was not able to do that effectively under kickboxing rules. Rather, Ayaka was able to charge forward with looping punches and maintain an aggressive pace. While, Ayaka’s charges did lessen in intensity as the fight went on, going into the final round, Saya appeared to be breathing heavily. This may have been partly caused by the longer rounds. Nonetheless, in the final round, Ayaka was able to land some body shots and then stunned Saya against the ropes who was then counted out. This is the only KO loss of Saya’s career.
Their rematch, less than a year later, was contested under Muay Thai rules. Confident that Saya would win, the promotion even offered Ayaka an additional $10,000 if she won. Whether or not Ayaka was motivated by the additional money, we will never know as Saya won the match fairly dominantly. She used kicks, knees, and the clinch to control the pace of the fight, keep it at distance, and cruised to a decision victory. During the match, one of the commentators, Rizin fighter and Muay Thai champion, Nadaka Yoshinari even commented about how the change of rules was frustrating Ayaka and played into Saya’s strengths.
Seeing how the different rulesets impacted the outcome, the fights with Ayaka are significant for another reason. Between her first and second match with Saya, Ayaka defeated now champion Koyuki Miyazaki, who is Saya’s next opponent. Knowing that the upcoming match is going to be contested under kickboxing rules, it will be interesting to see what adjustments Saya has made.
Rise Girls Power 5 will air on Abema TV and Fite TV.
Full Card
- 49kg Champion Hinata Terayama vs 52kg Champion Manazo Kobayashi (49.5kg, 109lbs)
- Koyuki Miyazaki vs Saya Ito (46.5kg, 102.5lbs)
- Koto Hiraoka vs Nana Okuwaki (46kg, 101.5lbs)
- Yaya Weerasakreck vs Akari (52kg, 115lbs)
- Haruka Asai vs Yuka Murakami (57.5kg, 127lbs)
- Misaki Shimada vs Ayaka Nishihara (43kg, 95lbs)
- Tomomi Yamamoto vs Wakana Tsuji (52kg, 115lbs)
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