More than a face, Kate Lotus looks to rebound on Saturday -

This Saturday, the popular prospect Kate Locus will return to the ring at Deep Jewels 34. Having trained for a little over a year now, she quickly caught people’s attention and has become a popular fighters in the promotion. While this has led to media attention and a popular social media page, it also brings some negative attention. Notably people telling her she’s nothing more than a pretty face. Despite these negative comments, she has continued to train hard and make improvements, going so far as to impress a current champion with her heart and passion.

From bodybuilder to prospect

With the amount of attention that Kate has received throughout her young career, it is easy to forget that she only started training in 2020. Early last year, she was still a bodybuilder looking for a way to cut weight before an upcoming tournament. This is what led her to start training at an MMA gym. She thought it would be a good aerobic workout. However, as fate would have it, she enjoyed the training and when the upcoming bodybuilding tournament was canceled due to the pandemic, she decided to come back and keep training at the gym. This was in June. Training regularly, she eventually caught the attention of the Deep Welterweight Champion Ryuichiro Sumimura, who impressed, reached out to Deep to tell them about her. This is how Kate, the bodybuilder became an MMA fighter. 5 months after she started training, she made her amateur debut at Deep Jewels 30.

Despite her newness, Kate has gotten a lot of attention. Her Instagram page is one of the more popular amongst female fighters in Japan and her fights are widely reported. This rapid rise in popularity has led to some criticism, with some stating that she is “only a face.” A thought held by some of her fellow fighters as well. Before she had an opportunity to train with her, the 52kg/115lb champion Seika Izawa admitted that she thought she was only a cute face, but now, after training with her she’s changed her opinion. Kate has even responded to these comments, saying, “It’s really frustrating to be honest. I don’t want people to focus on my looks, I grew up in a family where my mom and brother would say “fuck that/that’s shit” if I tried to do something like that (lol). It’s really frustrating but I don’t have the abilities yet to prove that I’m not just a face, so I don’t blame them for saying that.”

Critics aside, Kate has shown some quick improvements and clearly has potential in the division. It will be interesting to see how Deep Jewels develops her going forward.

This Saturday

This Saturday, Kate will return to action and face fellow rising prospect, Micco Nirvana. Aside from both being prospects, they have some other things in common. Both made their professional debuts in 2020, both are looking to rebound from their first professional loss, and both are associated with bodybuilders. However, despite the fact that they made their pro-debut in the same year, Nirvana will be the more experienced fighter when they enter the ring, having made her amateur debut in 2018. Nirvana also has a win over Shoko Fujita, who defeated Kate as an amateur, so this match is a good opportunity for Kate to show how much she’s grown.

Still new to the sport and learning, Kate had a rough weight cut before her last fight. She blames the weight cut for sapping her stamina and exhausting her during the fight. Not one to make the same mistake twice, this fight is scheduled slightly heavier, 1.7kg/3.7lbs, and she has worked to gradually get down to weight, instead of a drastic cut. In addition to this change in diet, she has also made some training changes. At her gym in Kobe, she doesn’t really have access to female sparring partners, so she made the trip to Tokyo and trained with Mizuki Furuse, Mika Nagano, and the 52kg/115lb champion Seika Izawa.

This upcoming match is important for both fighters and it will be interesting to see if the changes made by Kate, will be enough to overcome the more experienced Nirvana.

Deep Jewels 34 takes place on September 4th at Shinjuku Face.