In the opening fight this Sunday, two women will fight under kickboxing rules for the first time in Rizin. In many ways, this match is serving as a marketing test, to determine whether or not the promotion should add a women’s kickboxing division. This is evidenced by a statement made by the promotion’s CEO, Sakakibara. Specifically, when asked whether or not Rizin was going to add a women’s kickboxing division, he replied that, “It’s up to the fans to decide whether there is a demand or not for women’s kickboxing…In any case, I’d like to try it as a new challenge, see what the response it, and think about it again in the future.” In order to gauge fan reaction, Rizin has selected the social media savvy Panchan Rina and the veteran Momoka. Standing at 150cm (4″9) and walking around at 46kg (101.5lbs), Momoka will likely be the smallest fighter to fight for the promotion, yet despite her small stature, she has been working to make kickboxing more popular for more than a decade.
Wanting to get strong
Despite only being a year older than her opponent, Momoka will have a clear edge when it comes to experience. This can be illustrated by simply looking at their respective records. When Panchan made her pro-debut in 2019, Momoka had already been fighting for close to a decade, having put together a record of 17-11-2. Now, two years later, she has fought 40 times, close to four times as many as Panchan. During the course of this already long career, she has won several championships and fought some of the top-talent in the region.
Momoka was first introduced to kickboxing when she was in junior high school. She went to watch her cousin and now fellow Rizin fighter, Jin Mandokoro, train and immediately became interested. Motivated by a desire to get stronger, she joined the gym and made her pro-debut while she was still in high school. Two years later, she fought at Jewels 19, and won the Jewels 47kg kickboxing tournament. Coincidentally, Ayaka Hamasaki also fought at that event, defeating the highly respected, Yuka Tsuji. Now, 9 years later, the two are no longer fighting at the 300 seat Azalea Taisho Hall, instead fighting at the 37,000 seat Saitama Super Arena on Fuji TV.
After winning the Jewels tournament, Momoka got more attention and more high profile bookings. As a result, she has gone on to fight some of the best fighters available. For example, she fought and handed Riri Nasukawa, Tenshin’s younger sister, her first defeat and defeated Lommanee W.Santai, the former WMC champion from Thailand. She also went on to win the NJKF Minerva championship in 2017 and held it until 2020.
Fighting on the big stage
On August 11th, Rizin held a press conference to announce some additional fights for the Rizin 30 card. Included in this was Momoka, who had received and accepted an offer to fight just the day before. With no history of women’s kickboxing, it makes sense that she was caught off guard and surprised by the offer. Despite her surprise and the unexpectedness of the offer, she has been to Rizin shows before in the past, to corner some of her teammates. In fact, when she went to corner Yuya at Rizin 16, she mentioned that she was jealous of the MMA fighters, Ayaka Hamasaki vs Jinh Yu Frey and Miyuu Yamamoto vs Kanna Asakura, for getting to fight on such a stage, even going so far as to call it a dream stage.
Alongside their experience, the size disparity between Panchan and Momoka stands out as one of the obvious differences between the two. Panchan is 164cm (5″4) and cuts down to 46kg (101.5lbs). Momoka, in contrast, is 14cm (7 inches) shorter and walks around at 46kg. When asked about this, Momoka replied, “She’s tall and has long-limbs and she uses those to her advantage. I’m sure she will try to keep me from stepping forward, so this is going to be a battle of distance!” This will not be her first time facing a taller fighter, notably having defeated the 165cm (5″4) C-Zuka in 2017 to with the NFJK Minerva title. In preparation for Panchan, she has been working on getting to the inside and getting good angles, even more than usual.
While Rizin plays host to kickboxing, Shoot Boxing, and grappling, it is predominantly known as an MMA promotion. Naturally this has led to some fan speculation whether Panchan or Momoka are interested in potentially competing in MMA. This is made more interesting, when you consider that Momoka trains with Jienotsu, who famously fought in some mixed-rules matches for Dream, where he famously knocked out Shinya Aoki with a flying knee. When asked if she would be interested in an MMA match or a mixed rules match, Momoka indicated that she was interested, opening up some interesting possibilities for the future.
Getting to know “Osaka’s Queen of kicking ass”
Momoka’s nickname, or catch phrase as she calls it, pays homage to her native Osaka. Naniwa was the capital of Japan roughly 1,700 years ago, and is located where Osaka is now. “Itemae”, a phrase in Osaka’s regional dialect, is tough to translate. However its means something like “let’s do it”, “get him/her”, “beat the shit out of them”, or “kick their ass.” It is actually one of the terms used in the translation of Michael Jackson’s song Beat It. So roughly speaking, her nickname is “Osaka’s Queen of kicking ass.”
Despite having such a tough nickname, Momoka doesn’t like the sight of blood and gets nervous before her fights. She has elaborated that blood scares her and that if there is blood in her fight, she tries to not look at it as much as possible. She also throws up before every fight, even now, 40 fights in. She’s tried to not think about, listen to music, and distract herself, but as soon as they start putting the gloves on, she starts to feel it. This is in contrast to her cousin, who is the opposite.
However, her dislike of blood and her pre-fight nerves have not stopped her from fighting to make women more popular in kickboxing. A good example of this can be seen in the lead-up to her second fight with Riri Nasukawa, where she commented, “I’m going to make it exciting so that people will want to go to another women’s event. I’ll be happy if I can deliver a fun fight, where we we fight hard and I get the KO, so that they can see that women can also strike.” She has made comments like this throughout her career, so it seems only fitting that she now has the opportunity to fight in front of more people than ever before on Fuji TV and at the Saitama Super Arena, where she can prove how exciting the women can be, yet again.
RIZIN 30
Rizin 30 will take place on September 19h at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan. The event will be available on Fuji TV, PPV, and on LiveNow for international audiences.
Full Card
- Kai Asakura vs Alan Yamaniha
- Naoki Inoue vs Kintaro
- Hiromasa Ougikubo vs Takafumi Otsuka
- Yuki Motoya vs Kenta Takizawa
- Ayaka Hamasaki vs Emi Fujino
- Koji Takeda vs Yusuke Yachi
- Ulka Sasaki vs Yoshinori Horie
- Shinobu Ota vs Yuta Kubo
- Shoji vs Chihiro Suzuki
- Panchan Rina vs Momoka
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