Even though she hasn’t fought since October of 2019, Rin Nakai has been making waves on social media recently, appearing in Japanese publications and getting people talking about her. The former Queen of Pancrase joined Twitter in mid-April and quickly developed a following. By our calculations she currently has the 11th most followers on Twitter for a female fighter and is in position to break the Top 10 soon. Pretty impressive considering she has been on the platform for less than 2 months. This reminds me of when she appeared in a series of Youtube videos, like this, for Pancrase and generated hundreds of thousands of views. This was all before the Japanese MMA boom on Youtube. (The above photo is courtesy of LadyGo!)
As is typical, these recent changes and approaches by Rin have led to rumors that she has signed with a management company. The evidence for this is mainly that she joined social media and made a trip to Tokyo to train with a series of fighters. Notably, she trained with Kanna Asakura, Hinata Terayama, and Erika Kamimura. Kanna Asakura is managed by Athlete Marketing, as is Taiju Shiratori, who trains with Hinata, and so is Makoto, who has some connection with Target, where Erika teaches. These connections may just be coincidence, but naturally it has led to speculation among fans.
Whether or not she has signed with new management, Rin has been posting some interesting content on Twitter, including videos of her training and hunting for bugs. However, for the purpose of this article, the most interesting are a series of tweets expressing her desire to fight in the US and fight for the UFC. Rin briefly fought for the promotion before, but at the time the only division was 135, where Rin was undersized. At 34 years old, Rin appears to still be in her athletic prime and now that the UFC has both 125 and 115, it would be interesting to see what kind of impact she could have in those divisions.
I have attached the above mentioned tweets about the UFC and translated them;
That’s regrettable. Dear UFC, please let me, Rin Nakai in! #UFCVegas29 #Kanako Murata
Dear North America, let’s hurry up and get back to how things were before the pandemic. I can’t wait to compete. Please put me in a match. I am confident in my abilities. I am motivated and in good condition. Here is a video of a simple exercise.
Japanese 
English