Pancrase 322: Karen Date Wins -

After a pause due to the pandemic, Pancrase is back up and going as they had their 2nd Tokyo based event on Sunday. In the sole women’s bout, Karen Date faced off against Ayumi “Edge” Saito. Karen Date is a member of Team Date and at 17 years old, she is the youngest member of their team fighting for Pancrase. Edge on the other hand, is a veteran of Smackgirl who recently returned to the sport after a 6 year absence.

In the opening round, Karen Date fought similarly to her teammate Nori a month ago. She circled away from Edge, using kicks to keep her distance and threw hooks when the opportunity arose. Edge was the aggressor, pressuring Karen and chasing her. It was a fairly even round and this can be seen in the judges scoring as two judges gave the round to Karen and one gave it to Edge.

In the 2nd round, Karen started to pick up the pace, landing a hard switch kick to the head, some low kicks and a hard elbow. At the end of the round all three judges were in agreement and awarded the round to Karen. In the 3rd round, Karen pushed Edge against the cage and took her to the mat, where she started to land punches and ground and pound. Edge was unable to escape and after answering unanswered punches the ref waved off the fight, awarding Karen the TKO victory. At just 17 years of age, Karen has moved to 3-0, with all of her professional wins in Pancrase.

Later on the card, in the post-lims, Team Date teammate and former opponent to Kai Asakura, Tiger Date picked up a win by KO, meaning that Team Date has gone 3-0 in the past two Pancrase events. Team Date is an interesting team that is very unique to the Japanese market. With the fans and attention that they bring to their matches, it will be interesting to see how Pancrase continues to use them in the future.

Below are some pictures from Karen Date vs Edge and the results from Pancrase 322.