Deep Jewels 41 Results & Reaction -

This Sunday, Deep Jewels 41 went down at the New Pier Hall in Tokyo, Japan. With not a single fighter on the card over the age of 30 and an average age of 23, this card highlighted Deep Jewels’ roster of young fighters. It also showed how far things have come since the pandemic, with fighters from Korea and Thailand being flown in.

In the main event, Izawa returned to face fellow DJ champion and Rizin veteran Amp the Rocket, while elsewhere on the card, Moeri Suda took on Park, Machi took on Kim, Kate Lotus took on Breaking Down’s Saki Kitamura, and Shoko Fujita retired. For those not in attendance, the event was live streamed on Deep Jewels’ Youtube page, for members, and U-Next, with Shizuka Sugiyama doing the color commentary.

Kate Lotus earns UD against Breaking Down’s Saki

Now fighting at Super Atomweight, Kate Lotus has quickly become one of the faces of DJ. She’s also earned the respect of the fans through her toughness. Unlike Saori Oshima, Seika Izawa, Miki Motono, and Hikaru Aono, who’ve been involved in Judo or wrestling since they were small children, Kate doesn’t come from a martial arts background. This means she’s had to train hard just to catch up to the grappling skills of her counterparts. To do this, she moved to Tokyo and started training with Izawa and the results have been noticeable. Her physique has completely changed as she’s gotten into fighting shape and her grappling skills have also noticeably improved, especially when compared with her earlier fights, when she was more of a brawler.

Across the cage from Kate was Saki, who’s won in Breaking Down, Mikuru Asakura’s incredibly popular Youtube based fight series. The episode where she auditioned, has close to 13.5 million views. To say that Breaking Down is popular, would be a massive understatement. While this fight was Saki’s pro-debut, she does train in Thailand. However, despite Saki coming from a striking background, Kate looked to be her equal on the feet, giving as good as she took. The real difference was in the grappling, as Kate really took charge during the grappling exchanges, getting to full mount, and landing hard GNP throughout the fight. She almost got into some trouble when she got a little over zealous with her GNP and Saki tried to lock on a submission, but Kate was able to survive. With this win, Kate returns to the win column and it’ll be interesting to see who she faces next in Deep’s crowded Atomweight/Super Atomweight division.

Machi stops Kim in opening round

Armed with Sakuraba-esque orange hair and with Mina Kurobe in her corner, 19 year old Machi took on Yoo Jung Kim in what was her first scheduled 3 round bout. However, the talented grappler didn’t need three rounds to dispatch her first non-Japanese opponent, transitioning from a key-lock to a hammer-lock in the first round, which forced the ref to step in. Before the finish, Machi also showed some of her developing striking skills, landing some good kicks before securing the takedown.

Afterwards, when addressing the crowd, Machi said she was happy to beat her first international opponent in her last match as a teenager and that’d she like to fight for the title as part of her coming of age ceremony (20 years old in Japan).

At 19 years old, Machi has a lot of potential. She’s fighting tough fighters, she’s getting sponsors, and the fans seem to like her. Before the fight, she received some sponsorship money in the cage and afterwards, according to Oshima, she was swarmed by people, making it impossible for her to congratulate her on the win.

The only roadblock facing Machi at the moment is the current state of DJ’s Strawweight division. With the division being so close to Super Atomweight and Rizin not having a Strawweight division, most of Japan’s Strawweights dropped down, including former champion Motono and current champion Izawa. In its current state, the division currently boasts Machi, Mika Nagano, and Arisa Matsuda. However, now that DJ can bring in foreign competition, they can supplement the division with outside talent. Whatever happens, it will be interesting to see who Machi faces next.

Park drops and finishes Suda

Ahead of Sunday’s match with Park, both Suda and her father had been talking about the improvements she’s made to her striking recently and the first part of this fight backed that up. Suda worked a nice quick jab, threw a variety of kicks, and even landed a high kick that she followed up with some nice punches.

However, near the end of the first round she threw a knee and Park timed it, nailing her with a giant overhand right as she was throwing it. The punch knocked Suda onto her back, where Park didn’t give the young fighter any time to recover, throwing big punches to the head until the ref jumped in, marking the first time that Suda’s ever been stopped with strikes.

It will be interesting to see how this match effects Suda, who has been one of the most active fighters on DJ’s roster since making her pro-debut. While her striking has clearly improved, she did mention a lack of confidence with her striking ahead of this bout and this loss may exacerbate those feelings, yet it is worth mentioning that after losing to Oshima, Suda came back even stronger, so maybe she can use this loss as a positive-learning experience. At just 18 years old, the young Suda still has a bright future ahead of her in the sport.

Park for her part, returned to action for the first time in about a year and returned to Japan for the first time since 2019. She’s always been a journeyman fighter, fighting for a number of promotions across Asia, but it is worth noting that she had a DJ logo on her fight top and shorts.

In the past, Deep/DJ has signed Korean fighters like Si Woo Park to contracts, so perhaps the promotion has signed Jeong to a similar deal. Either way, Deep has a long history of bringing Korean fighters over and Jeong is clearly one of the fighters we’d like to see brought back, especially considering that most of DJ’s Atomweights tend to be grapplers, so she adds some nice striking skills to the division.

Izawa makes it look easy

Dressed in fight-wear that matches her husband’s, Izawa returned to Deep/DJ for the first time since 2021 in order to face one of Thailand’s top grapplers, Amp the Rocket, who, due to the pandemic, hadn’t fought since before Izawa made her pro-debut. As you may recall, Amp actually had Hamasaki in some trouble during their bout when she tried to get a RNC early on, but Izawa didn’t give her such an opportunity.

Early on, Izawa masterfully tripped Amp while she was throwing a kick and went for a guillotine choke almost immediately. She then transitioned to an armbar, before going for another guillotine choke and another armbar. Eventually, she was able to lock on a triangle choke, land some elbows, and get the tap when she pulled down on the head. All-in-all, it was a flawless victory for the young champion.

Afterwards, Izawa addressed the crowd and told them that while she and Coro had already gotten married, they are going to have their wedding ceremony this June. She also talked about how her personal-life and fighting-life are both at pique happiness, adding that she’d like the fans to continue to support her, Deep Jewels, and Rizin.

Later on, her husband tweeted that she doesn’t feel like she really fought and she want’s to fight again, to which she replied she isn’t injured, so she’s ready. As you may recall, originally she was slated to face Miyuu Yamamoto in Rizin for Miyuu’s retirement bout, but Miyuu injured her knee and the match was postponed to December. With Izawa already itching to fight, it seems possible that she may fight again before then.

As for Amp the Rocket, she is still the Deep Jewels Microweight champion, so it might be nice to see her return to that division where she can face Oshima in a title-unification bout, something that Oshima has expressed interest in before.