In a recent Rizin Confession video, Emi Fujino and her trainer/husband commented on the difficulties women faced in MMA and how much this Rizin opportunity means to them. Specifically, Emi reminisced, “[In] the early days, women’s MMA was joke, guys would refuse to fight before our fights. We weren’t even allowed to fight on the same card. It was considered a different sport. What we were doing wasn’t even looked at as MMA.” When speaking specifically about this upcoming fight, her husband added, “When they fought 9 years ago, it was at an empty Differ Ariake, now they are fighting on a Rizin card at the Saitama Super Arena. Most people won’t understand what this means to us. Women’s MMA was once held in the dark, not it is held at the Saitama Super Arena, and it’s all because they kept going.” This Sunday, Emi will face Ayaka Hamasaki at Rizin 30, both of whom are veterans, who have seen a lot of change regarding women in MMA. (Photo courtesy of LadyGo!)
“We weren’t allowed to fight on the same card…what we were doing wasn’t looked at as MMA”
When Emi made her debut in 2004, it was under the Smackgirl banner. For those that are unaware, Smackgirl was a women’s only promotion that was the first to prominently feature women in Japan. Fighters like Megumi Fujii, Yuka Tsuji, Miku, V.V. Mei, and Ham Seo Hee all fought for the promotion. While the promotion did feature women, it was not under equal conditions as men in other promotions. The fighters were required to wear bigger gloves, punches to the head were not allowed on the ground, and ground fighting was limited to 30 seconds, then the referee would stand them up. Despite holding a lot of events with rising attendance numbers, Smackgirl folded in 2008, amidst rumors that a major sponsor had pulled out leading to unresolvable financial problems.
After Smackgirl, two promotions emerged, Valkyrie and Jewels. Valkyrie was associated with Cage Force and Jewels was the successor of Smackgirl. Jewels got rid of the 30 second ground fighting rule, but it wasn’t until 2015 that the promotion adopted the unified rules, with elbows only allowed in certain matches. Valkyrie, on the other hand, fought using the unified rules, minus elbows to the head, from its inception in 2008. This might explain why fighters like Emi, V.V. Mei, Rin Nakai, and Megumi Yabushita chose to fight for Valkyrie. In fact, Emi didn’t fight for Jewels until their 17th event, when Valkyrie had already gone out of business. From Ayaka’s perspective, she fought for Jewels from an earlier date, but was eventually able to compete under “special rules.”
“Women’s MMA was once held in the dark”
When Emi made her pro-debut, it was in front of 303 people at a Gold’s Gym in Tokyo and when Ayaka made her debut, it was at an event hall in Nagoya that could seat 299. Throughout its run, Smackgirl had been able to achieve decent attendance numbers due to MMA’s popularity at that time, peaking with their first event, where there were 6,500 people in attendance. While they never got near these numbers again, they repeatedly had attendance’s near and over 1,000, with the final three events all having well over that. However, when the MMA boom died down in Japan, attendance numbers dropped for nearly all the promotions. This can be seen with Jewels, where taking into consideration that they didn’t always report their numbers, the highest numbers we do have are from Jewels 11, where 1,216 people were in attendance. This is the only event in the promotion’s history that we know of that had over 1,000. Not counting Jewels 11, the average attendance, of those that we know, was 550 people.
Eventually, Emi and Ayaka got the opportunity to fight for bigger promotions but even then, the attendance numbers were quite low. When Emi fought for Sengoku it was in front of 2,700 people and when she fought for WSOF in Las Vegas, it was in front of 600 people. In the Rizin Confession video we mentioned above, Emi’s husband even commented that the first time she fought Ayaka, it was in an empty hall, to which Emi laughed and agreed. However, with women fighting in Rizin, women in Japan now have the opportunity to fight in front of larger audiences on national TV than before.
While Rizin 30’s attendance will be significantly impacted by the pandemic, where it is likely that only 5,000 will be allowed, this will still be the largest event that Emi has fought on. Not only that, the event will also be aired on Fuji TV. Taking these numbers and how long she has been fighting into consideration, it makes sense when her husband commented, “Most people won’t understand what this means to us.”
RIZIN 30
Rizin 30 will take place on September 19h at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan. The event will be available on Fuji TV, PPV, and on LiveNow for international audiences.
Full Card
- Kai Asakura vs Alan Yamaniha
- Naoki Inoue vs Kintaro
- Hiromasa Ougikubo vs Takafumi Otsuka
- Yuki Motoya vs Kenta Takizawa
- Ayaka Hamasaki vs Emi Fujino
- Koji Takeda vs Yusuke Yachi
- Ulka Sasaki vs Yoshinori Horie
- Shinobu Ota vs Yuta Kubo
- Shoji vs Chihiro Suzuki
- Panchan Rina vs Momoka
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