Pancrase 28th Neo Blood, Fujino returns

Originally scheduled to fight last month at Pancrase 329, Fujino was rescheduled to fight this Monday when her opponent withdrew due to an injury. Now, she is set to face Ayaka Watanabe, a new comer from AACC, a gym famous for developing top-level talent, especially in the women’s divisions. At 25 years old, Watanabe comes from a Judo background. She made her pro-debut at the end of 2020 for Deep Jewels, where she got a first round stoppage. Fujino on the other hand, will be returning to the ring for the first time since losing her title to Karen in March.

Prior to the pandemic, Fujino won three straight in 2019, but she has had a hard time recently, going 0-2 since 2020. As she turns 42 next month, Fujino is nearly 20 years older than her opponent, making this match an interesting test of her current skill level. Elsewhere on the card, Team Pravajra’s Darani returns to action, young strawweights Yukari and Haruka look for their first win, and a ton of young fighters will look to make a big impression on the crowd. In fact, 25 fighters on the card have 5 or less fights.

Fight Card

• Emi Fujino (25-13) vs Ayaka Watanabe (1-0)
• Shinichi Taira (22-18-11) vs Shinsuke Nishio (3-2)
• Darani (13-16-9) vs Yui Amari (1-1)
• Kisa Miyake (6-3) vs Mayo Komori (11-7)
• Yoshito Itokawa (1-0) vs Rikuya Ishida (6-5)
• Ryo Tajima (5-1) vs Yuki Ueda (5-6-1)
• Makoto Ito (2-0) vs Takumi Hamada (1-0)
• Hiroki Uematsu (2-1) vs Hisashi Ezaki (3-0)
• Ryutaro Sato (1-1) vs Keisuke Iwaki (0-0)
• Bilal Kai Haga (0-2) vs Daichi Kamiya (0-0)
• Taisei Mizusugi (1-3) vs Takuma Okada (0-0)
• Ryo Iseki (10-15-3) vs Yuichi Nakamura (0-1)
• Koji Kanda (7-7-2) vs Mitsuhiro Taki (5-3)
• Ryo Yazawa (2-3) vs Shoui Urushima (2-3)
• Yusei Nakui (0-0) vs Misaki Umehara (0-0)
• Kaito Kimoto (0-1) vs Junpei Ueno (4-5)
• Kiyoshiro Akasaki (6-6) vs Kento Imai (3-1)
• Taiga Masuda (0-0) vs Kaito Kiyosawa (0-0)
• Yukari Suzuki (0-0) vs Haruka Yoshinari (0-0-1)

How to watch

The event will be broadcast live on Pancrase’s Youtube channel for those that are members. It is 1,790 yen a month subscribe to the channel.

Yuki Nakai will be doing the Japanese commentary. As it is a Neo Blood show there will not be English commentary.