Tomorrow, Thursday, July 29th, Shoot Boxing will put on their Girl’s S-Cup 2021 – Road to Tournament event. Traditionally, the event itself was a tournament, however due to the pandemic, the promotion has decided to postpone the actual tournament until afterwards, when a full crowd can be in attendance and foreign fighters can be brought in to participate. So in a way, this event is a preview of the upcoming tournament, that will take place whenever the pandemic comes to an end. In the meantime, tomorrow’s event will take place at the Asakusa Hanayashiki Theatre, which is only a 9 minute walk from one of the main Shoot Boxing gyms.
While the event is smaller, there are five matches, there are some interesting matches. In the main event, Shoot Boxing’s lightweight champion will face King Reina, who is making a quick turn around from her Deep fight late last month. While this will not be Reina’s first Shoot Boxing match, it would be an understatement to state that Mina will likely have a striking advantage. However, Mina is not known for grappling or attempting throws and King Reina does come from a Judo background. If Reina is able to throw Mina and get a shoot point, she stands a good chance of winning. It is also worth noting that in her fight in June, Reina took a lot of punches and didn’t seem to have an answer for it, so it will be interesting to see what striking improvements she has made.
The other two fighters worth keeping an eye on are Misaki and Megumi Sugimoto. In her short career, Misaki has faced a who’s-who of Shoot Boxers and kickboxers, ranging from Hinata Terayama (3xs), Momi, and Mio. Last year, she fought and lost to Panchan Rina, but has since recovered with two straight wins. She has also made it clear that she wants to fight Rena. She commented that for her to fight Rena, would be like getting a chance to fight Tenshin. Interestingly, she also observed that she needs to do something like win a championship to get Rena’s attention. With that in mind, we can expect her to attempt to make some waves with this fight, knowing what her goal is. While this will be Sugimoto’s first Shoot Boxing match, that does not mean she will be at a disadvantage. She comes from a wrestling background and MMA fighters have done well under their rules before, notable Jessica Penne and Toby Imada, both of whom are grapplers. She has been a staple of Shooto recently, so it will be fun to see her in a different environment and under a different ruleset.
Here is a link to the PPV: https://l-tike.com/sports/mevent/?mid=591843
- 5th Match: Mina vs King Reina (Expert Class, Special Rules) (65kg)
- 4th Match: Misaki Morita vs Miyu Sakata (Expert Class, Special Rules) (45kg)
- 3rd Match: Yurika Jimbo vs Megumi Sugimoto (Expert Class, Special Rules) (52kg)
- 2nd Match: Kaori Takano vs Miyuki (Starting Rules) (52kg)
- 1st Match: Sakata Fuwa vs Minori Kikuchi (Semi-Pro Rules) (45kg)
The header photo is (c) of Shoot Boxing
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