Hamasaki vs Fujino II: 8 Years in the Making

36 fights across 8 promotions, 4 countries, ,and three championships, that is what Ayaka Hamasaki and Emi Fujino have accomplished since they last fought in December of 2012. Individual accolades aside, it is also worth looking at how much MMA has changed since the two last fought. For perspective, in the same month as their fight, Dream held their last event and within 6 months, Jewels, the predecessor to Deep Jewels, would cease to exist. In many ways, the MMA scene in Japan appeared to be taking a downward turn. But that was not the case in the U.S., especially for women. Earlier that same year, Invicta FC held their first event and within 2 months of their fight, Ronda Rousey made her UFC debut. Fast forward to 8 years later and Ayaka Hamasaki and Emi Fujino are preparing to meet each other again. However, this time the fight will be for a large promotion at Saitama Super Arena and will likely be watched by thousands of fans and be on TV. To say the overall MMA landscape has changed drastically since they last fought, would be an understatement. (The above photo is courtesy of LadyGo!)

The First Fight

Jewels 22 was held on December 15th, 2012 at the now-gone Differ Ariake in Tokyo, Japan. Going into the fight, Ayaka had been fighting professionally for about 3 years, had won the Jewels 52kg Championship 2 years prior, and was undefeated with 8 wins, including 4 by stoppage. In addition, in her preceding fight, she had made her stateside debut and defeated Lacey Schuckman at Invicta FC 2. Emi on the other hand was starting to recover from a string of losses. While she had started her career going 8-0, she had fallen to 11-5 after a step-up in competition that included fighters like Megumi Fujii, V.V. Mei, and Windy Tomomi. However, going into the fight, she had won two in a row and looked strong in both performances.

In a fight where both fighters had their moments, Ayaka and Emi exchanged hard punches on the feet, with Ayaka getting the fight to the ground several times. Ayaka wasn’t able to lock on a submission but she was able to land some good ground and pound. Yet, Emi was always able to get back to her feet and start the striking exchanges again. In the end, likely due to her takedowns and the damage done there, Ayaka won via Unanimous Decision.

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Ayaka’s Journey

Following her win over Emi, Ayaka made her second appearance for Invicta FC, where she fought and lost to Claudia Gadelha by TKO. This fight was the catalyst for two important changes in Ayaka’s career. First, she underwent knee surgery. Up to this point, she had fought with heavily taped knees, yet the athletic commission would not allow her to tape her knees for the fight with Claudia. Second, she moved down to Atomweight. These changes kept her off the shelf for a little over a year.

Upon her return, Ayaka looked stronger than ever. In her first fight in the new division, she fought former Jewels Atomweight Champion and fellow Invicta FC veteran, Naho Sugiyama. She won by TKO, something she had never done before, in the first round. She then fought and defeated V.V. Mei at Deep Dream Impact, a large NYE show put on by the promotion at Saitama Super Arena. This was her first fight at the famed venue. Upon this win, she returned to the U.S. and Invicta FC, where she challenged Herica Tiburcio for the Atomweight Championship. She used her Judo effectively and won the title via Split-Decision. In doing so, she became the first Japanese MMA fighter to win a championship in a North American promotion. As a result, the fight received a lot of media attention in Japan and helped elevate her status within the Japanese MMA community.

After defending her title twice, Ayaka once again moved up to Strawweight in an attempt to get into the UFC. Much like her previous loss to Claudia, this loss also served as a catalyst for change. In her time at Invicta, she had been training with Rena, who had quickly become one of the faces of Rizin, a new promotion at the time, and had ushered in their Super Atomweight division. Perhaps due to this influence, she decided to return to Japan and join Rizin. When asked why, she commented that having won a world championship and defended it twice, she felt that she had done her part in representing Japan abroad and as the only Japanese fighter to win a North American world championship she wanted to return to Rizin and help the women’s divisions to continue to grow. She also commented that she saw joining Rizin as the culmination of her career.

Despite beating Alyssa Garcia in her promotional debut, Ayaka was not happy with her performance, preferring to have finished her opponent. This happened in her next two fights, where she finished both Mina Kurobe and Kanna Asakura, both former champions. In doing so she won the Rizin Super Atomweight Championship and fought in front of 27,000 and 29,000 people, more than she had ever fought in front of before. Her title fight with Kanna also aired on Fuji TV, ensuring much more eyes on her fight than ever before.

Despite a close decision loss to Ham Seo Hee, Hamasaki has defeated all comers in Rizin and won back the Super Atomweight Championship after Ham left for One Championship. The pandemic has made it difficult to find opponents for her, as Rizin historically has relied on foreign talent, especially for their women’s divisions, but even then she had an exciting back and forth fight with Kanna Asakura and looked dominant in her quick victory over Miyuu Yamamoto.

Emi’s Journey

While Emi’s career has taken a different path than Ayaka’s, it would be foolish to think that because she only fought in the U.S. once, she has faced lower level talent. In reality, an argument can be made that she has faced stiffer competition. Every opponent she has lost to since the fight with Ayaka went on to the UFC and one even became a champion.

Following the fight with Ayaka, Emi fought and defeated Amber Brown and Hyo Kyung Song. While relatively minor at the time, these two fights were important. Her fight with Amber Brown was her first fight with Pancrase, a promotion that has more recently become her home-turf, and her fight with Song would eventually lead to her fighting in South Korea and China. However, before those opportunities would arise, she had her first fight abroad. In 2014, she traveled to the U.S. and challenged Jessica Aguilar for the WSOF title. This was an interesting fight for Japanese fans as they were well aware who Jessica was. Jessica had defeated Megumi Fujii and was actually scheduled to fight Ayaka Hamasaki some years before, but the fight was canceled due to the earthquake on March 11th. In what was her first and only 5 round fight to date, Fujino lost via decision. One fight later, Jessica signed to the UFC.

After her first fight in the U.S., Emi returned to Japan and rattled off 2 wins for Deep, over a young Ayaka Miura and fellow veteran Emi Tomimatsu. The Tomimatsu fight took place at the same event as Ayaka vs V.V. Mei, when Deep held a NYE at Saitama Super Arena. After this, an opportunity presented itself as a result of her earlier fight with Song. A couple years prior, Road FC started having women fight on their shows and naturally Song had started making appearances for them. Just as Japanese promotions rely on foreign talent, Road FC started bringing in Japanese fighters and they eventually put together a rematch between Emi and Song. For some reason, Song fell out and never returned to the promotion. However, Emi stayed on the card and won. As a result, she was brought back and fought for the promotion 5 times, including several of their shows in China.

Speaking of China, after her Road FC debut, she faced two of China’s top fighters in a row. First she faced now former UFC champion Weili Zhang, when Kunlun Fighting decided to have an event in Tokyo. Immediately afterwards she faced current UFC fighter Xiaonan Yan. As you may be aware, Emi has had a propensity to cut during her career and this played a large role in both of these fights, as she lost the first due to a cut and the latter was declared a no-contest after she was cut from an accidental head clash. Despite the unfortunate manner in which these fights were stopped, she was getting to fight the top women in her division, while remaining relatively close to Japan. Like Ayaka she had become an international fighter, but instead of fighting in the U.S., she was fighting in Korea and China.

Also like Ayaka, Emi returned to Japan for the culmination of her career. In 2018, she returned to Pancrase, where she had fought Amber Brown 5 years before. Not counting another doctor’s stoppage due to an injury. she has gone undefeated in the promotion and in 2019, she won their Strawweight Championship. This was her first championship and it was an emotional moment for herself and her friends. Before the fight, some of her friends who had won championships made promotional videos wishing her good luck, one of which was Ayaka. After the fight, she was joined in the cage by friends, all of whom seemed equally happy to see their friend win.

The Stage is Set

With the pandemic making it difficult for foreign athletes to enter Japan, Rizin has been struggling to put together high-level women’s fights on a consistent basis. As a result, the number of fights has dropped considerably. However, now that vaccinations are underway, we are hopeful that the division will pick up. In the meantime, the fight between Ayaka and Emi is an interesting fight. So much has happened since their first fight to make it almost irrelevant when trying to predict the outcome of this upcoming fight. Ayaka has been fighting at 48/49 kg since their last fight and this will be Emi’s first MMA fight at a lower weight. They have both become champions, won big fights, lost a couple and are both nearing the ends of their careers. Ayaka turned 39 this year and Emi will turn 41. Emi hasn’t fought since she won the Pancrase championship in December of 2019 and appeared to have some medical issues with her knee in 2020. However, despite their age and the toll the sport has taken on their bodies, both fighters are more popular now than ever before. Both are seen as veterans who have endured long careers and are worthy of respect. In a final note, it is also worth noting that the two are friends. However, they have both made it clear that it will not play a role in their fight. One Japanese fan commented on Twitter that he would like to see a VTR similar to when Aoki fought Kitaoka.

The fight will take place on September 19th at the Saitama Super Arena in Tokyo, Japan.