Fujino set to make history with first defense -

This Monday, Emi Fujino will defend her title at Pancrase 326. Across the cage from her will be Karen, a fighter 23 years her junior. This event will be at a new venue and under the supervision of a new chief director, Hidetaka Fukui. What may be flying under the radar, is that this match will be the first time a Queen of Pancrase has ever defended her title. Below we take a look at the history of women in the promotion.

History of women in Pancrase

17 years ago, the power puncher Hisae Watanabe knocked out her opponent in the 2nd round at Pancrase 143. This was the first women’s bout in the promotion’s history. About six years later, in 2011, veterans V.V. Mei and Windy Tomomi became the first women to headline a Pancrase event. A year later, Rin Nakai became the fist Queen of Pancrase. Interestingly, despite fighting for the promotion five more times, she never defended the title and relinquished it in 2017. That same year, Pancrase crowned their first women’s Strawweight Champion, Syuri Kondo. However, she also never defended the belt, as she signed with the UFC. This led to Emi Fujino eventually facing Viviane Araujo for the vacant title, where Araujo opened up a cut and got a stoppage. However, like the champion before, she then went to the UFC without ever defending her belt.

The first women’s fight in Pancrase, Courtesy of Pancrase

Going to the UFC, has never been automatic grounds for a fighter to relinquish their title. Take Rin Nakai for example. She became the champion, eventually went to the UFC, and returned to Pancrase two years later without giving up the title. This is not exclusive to Pancrase either, as Mizuki just recently relinquished her Deep Jewels championship, despite not fighting for the promotion since 2016. This explains why Araujo didn’t relinquish the title when she signed to the UFC.

With the champion in the UFC, Fujino and Hyun Ji Jang fought for the interim title near the end of 2019. Fujino won the fight via RNC in the 3rd round and became the interim champion. She was then upgraded to the full-on champion in February of 2020, when Araujo did relinquish the title.

Outside of Strawweight, the Brazilian Sidy Rocha becamse the first Flyweight Champion when she defeated Takayo Hashi in April of 2019. However, because of the pandemic, she has not been able to return to Japan to defend her title and has since been fighting in her native Brazil. Because she hasn’t been able to enter the country, Pancrase set up an interim title match, which Takayo Hashi won. Hashi has not fought since.