Finally, after a delay caused by the pandemic, Deep Jewels 33 went down on Sunday at the New Pier Hall in Tokyo, Japan. It was an exciting event, with upsets, finishes, and two new champions. The two biggest winners at the event are clearly Seika Izawa and Saori Oshima. Seika defeated Miki Motono to become the new 52kg (115lb) Champion and Saori defeated both Si Wo Park and Hikaru Aono en route to winning the 48kg (105lb) tournament and title. Interestingly, both fighters made their pro-debuts in 2020 and now both have already become champions and started to set themselves apart. Deep Jewels has been working hard to develop new talent and it appears that these efforts have been rewarded. In this article we will break down most of the fights, talk about the event in general, and discuss the future.
Breakdown of the Event:
Before the main card, there were two amateur fights, where Okutomi and Komatsuzaki both picked up submission victories. Afterwards, the opening ceremony began and all the fighters came to the cage. Seiza Izawa was given a mic and she addressed the crowd, thanking them for coming and thanking the sponsors for their support. It is worth keeping a note on who Deep Jewels chooses to address the crowd, because that is normally a fighter they are investing in and looking to turn in to one of the faces of the organization. This is clearly the case with Seika.
In the first fight and semi-final of the night, we picked up where we left off last December with a rematch between Saori Oshima and Si Woo Park. Going into this tournament, Si Woo Park was widely considered to be the favorite and that only makes sense. Si Woo Park had fought and defeated every other fighter in the semi-finals. However, in their fight last December, Saori was able to take Park down and give her some trouble on the ground. The problem for Saori was that Park was athletic and strong enough to escape and get back to her feet. It is worth noting that at 4″11. Saori was the smallest person in the Atomweight tournament, and it especially showed against the physical Park.
This time around, Oshima came out aggressive, throwing punches and going for takedowns. This seemed fine to Park who was content to land hard counters, low kicks and punish Oshima with hammer fists when she stuffed her takedown attempts. However, the fight came to its dramatic conclusion about halfway through the first round. Park absolutely blasted Oshima with a hard punch that dropped her, and, in her excitement, Park followed her to the ground to try to end the fight. However, it was not to be and the ever-wily Oshima was able to lock on an armbar from the bottom and force Park to submit. With this win, Oshima avenged her defeat to Park late last year and advanced to the finals of the Atomweight Tournament where she would face the winner of Aono and Nisse.
In the other semi-final, Aono faced tournament replacement, Nisse. Nisse had been defeated by Park in the opening round but stepped in to replace Aya Murakami who is still recovering from an illness. Aono made not attempts to hide her strategy when the fight started. She wanted to get the fight to the mat and she was willing to eat a punch to do it. This almost got her in trouble when Nisse took her back against the cage and looked to lock in a choke, but Aono was able to avoid danger and get the fight to the mat where she wanted it. Once the fight hit the mat, the end came pretty quickly when Aono forced Nisse to submit to an armbar. Aono was now set to face Oshima in the finals for the vacant Atomweight title. Between the two, it seemed that Aono had taken less damage as Oshima had been dropped in her semi-final match. However, both bouts ended in the 1st round.
In a battle of prospects, Eru Takebayashi rebounded from her no-contest at Rizin with a UD over Otoha. The two 18 year olds didn’t disappoint as they engaged in a fast-paced action-packed fight. What made the difference for Eru, was that she set a high pace and seemed to be always throwing strikes. She threw punches in combinations, hard low kicks, knees in the clinch, and ripped punches to the body. That is not to say that Otoha was ineffective, as she bloodied Eru’s nose in the fight, but Eru just threw more. In an interview a couple of months ago, Otoha stated that she was hoping to go to the ground in her next fight and show off her developing grappling skills. Well, she had her chance in this fight and she showed off some marked improvement. At one point in the match, she locked on an armbar, that looked to have Eru in trouble, but Eru was able to stack her and escape. Near the end of the fight, Otoha went for a head and arm throw and Eru was able to take her back and spent the remainder of the fight trying to lock in a choke. The fight was at 51kg, so it is nice to see some development in the Strawweight division. If both of these fighters continue to evolve, they should develop into quality fighters for the division. Eru’s last fight was for Rizin and with an exciting win on Sunday, it will be interesting to see if Deep Jewels gives her a push.
In some heavier action, Yukari Nabe defeated Arami by unanimous decision. The match was a back-and-forth grinding affair. The smaller Arami made Yukari work for her victory. Nabe was clearly stronger in the match and she was able to muscle Arami to the ground several times throughout the bout, but she had a hard time keeping her there. Whenever she got Arami to the mat, she popped back up pretty quickly. Arami also went for submissions, including rolling for a knee bar and going for a guillotine choke. The match probably left Nabe frustrated but she got the win and continues on her journey to get a fight abroad.
In a rematch from December, Seika Izawa defeated Miki Motono again, this time earning the 52kg title in the process. Both Miki and Seika come from high level sporting backgrounds. Miki was a high-level judoka and Seika was a high-level judoka and wrestler. After the fight, in the post-fight press interview, Seika stated that she has started to put together everything she has learned and is fighting like an MMA fighter now, not just a wrestler or a judoka. That is a perfect description of what happened. A seemingly much improved Seika, kicked Miki’s heavily taped leg and then she was all over her, trying to get the fight to the ground. She was also continually punching Miki no matter what position they were in. Once Seika got her down, they temporarily got stuck in a weird position in the middle of the cage, where Seika trying to wrench Miki’s arm out and Miki was defending with everything she had. Seika was eventually able to get the arm out and forced Miki to tap. It looks like some damage might have been done as Miki was clutching her arm afterwards as her coach put ice on it.
In the main event, Saori Oshima defeated Hikaru Aono by UD to win the Atomweight tournament and become the new Atomweight Champion. At the start of the fight, Aono landed a big punch and transitioned to a takedown attempt. What followed was what seemed likek a never-ending stream of reversals and scrambles between the two. Oshima repeatedly used a kimura to either roll Aono or go for the submission. At the end of the first round, in an apparent homage to Ken Shamrock and Don Frye, Oshima rolled for a knee bar while Aono went for a heel hook. As the 2nd and last rouind went on, Oshima started to take over the momentum of the fight, getting side-control and throwing punches from there for the remainder of the fight. With this win, Oshima becomes both the Deep Microweight Champion and the Deep Jewels Atomweight Champion and pockets a $10,000 bonus. Aono pocketed a $3,000 bonus for getting runner-up in the tournament.
Other Thoughts:
This event was originally slated to be at Korakuen Hall but had to be moved when the event was canceled due to the pandemic. As a result, Deep and Deep Jewels held a combined 4 events over Saturday and Sunday at the New Pier Hall. New Pier Hall is a nice venue that looks like it was recently constructed or renovated. It can probably seat between 500-600 people but due to COVID-19 restrictions, it looked like a little over 200 were in attendance. There were also a lot of people standing in the back and on the sides, so the venue felt pretty full. Afterwards, a lot of fans and fighters were talking about the event in the front so it felt like a success for the promotion. People were excited and the energy was contagious.
Deep Jewels has been looking to develop a new pool of talent and it looks like they have succeeded. Just a couple of years ago, their events were comprised mainly of veterans and older fighters. Now their cards are filled with a nice mixture of young up-and-comers and veterans. More young up-and-comers than veterans these days. During this transition, they have established Seika Izawa, Miki Motono, Saori Oshima, Hikaru Aono, and Si Wu Park as high-level talent and top-prospects. In addition, they are giving fighters like Eru Takeyabashi and Otoha an opportunity to get valuable experience and develop. Otoha, for example, showed marked improvement on the ground despite losing. Speaking of young talent, I was able to speak to Aya Murakami at the event, who had to pull out of the tournament due to an illness. She is almost completely recovered and wants to fight again soon, so we should expect to see her on a card in the near future.
Speaking of Seika Izawa and Saori Oshima, they are both clearly the new top talent in Deep Jewels. Sakakibara was in attendance for the event and left before the Deep show started, possibly meaning that he was there to look at female talent. With the current inability to reliably bring in foreign fighters, it seems likely that he was looking for people to fight Ayaka. However, Izawa was so dominant in her victory that it seems possible that he might bring her over and have some 52kg fights in Rizin. Rin Nakai recently tweeted about wanting to fight at the UFC at 52kg, so maybe Rizin could have her fight Seika. In her post-fight interview, Seika mentioned that she wants to represent Deep Jewels in the big promotions, so it is clear that she is already thinking about moving up to the big leagues. At 52kg, there are a lot of possibilities on where she could fight, including the UFC’s Asian Contender Series, Invicta FC, Rizin, and One. Saori is now a two division champion and is the type of fighter that Rizin would be interested in promoting. By that, I mean that she is a life-long judoka, who married a judoka, and has twins. Rizin has shown that they like promoting the mother angle before and that seems like an option here. It is also worth noting that there were numerous people in the crowd wearing her T-shirt and she got a lot of attention when she came to the cage. Despite both turning pro in 2020, they both have already made a big impact on the MMA scene in Japan. I have also seen both working at Deep shows so they are both clearly in good with the promotion.
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Great read as always!