2 champions defend, 2 champions crowned; Pancrase 333 results -

This past Sunday, Pancrase held their biggest event so far of 2023. In the main event, Akira defeated returning champion Kume to win the lightweight title, Salt defeated Karen again in their rematch to win the strawweight title, Hashi defeated Nøri again to be promoted from interim champ to champion, and Nakajima defeated interim champion Tajima to retain his belt. Elsewhere on the card, Edna defeated Fujino in their rematch and Naoki Hirata, the younger brother of Itsuki, submitted Watanabe. For those that missed the event, it is available on Pancrase’s Youtube Channel via a subscription (for those in Japan).

Akira defeats Kume to win lightweight crown

On Sunday, 38 year old champion Kume returned to action for the first time since unifying the titles in December of 2021. Challenging him for the title was Rizin veteran and long-time Pancrase fighter Akira, who continued his career rebound with a split-decision victory of the champion, winning the belt for himself. At 36 years old, Akira isn’t a young champion by any means but his career looks much better than it was, with Akira now winning 6 of his past 7 fights after going on a 4-fight losing streak. Pancrase lightweight champions have gong off to Rizin in the past, so it will be interesting to see what the future has in store for the new champ.

Salt crowned new strawweight Queen of Pancrase

Salt proved all her doubters wrong and showed that her first fight with Karen last December, a non-title fight, wasn’t a fluke. Despite switching gyms and training with the likes of Kanna Asakura, Karen was not able to get Salt to the ground, implement her striking, or put on any effective offense. Salt, on the other hand, was able to land some good strikes, including a good knee in the clinch, and despite coming from a kickboxing background, showed that she isn’t an easy lady to take down. As the new champion, the former Shooto fighter, it will be interesting to see what Salt does. To date, the title has never successfully been defended so it will be interesting to see if she looks to do that.

Hashi grinds out Nøri to win title

Going into Sunday’s event, Hashi was the interim bantamweight champion and since the champion was not able to defend her belt, she was stripped of that that title. As a result, Nøri and Hashi fought to essentially decided who the new champion would be. In their first match-up several years ago, Nøri looked to strike but in this bout, she showed no fear of the grappling exchanges and actually locked on some tight holds and looked to have Hashi in trouble a couple times throughout the fight, most notably when Nøri trapped one of Hashi’s arms with her leg as she went for a rear-naked choke. However, Nøri was not able to get the tap and Hashi used her experience to grind out a win against the cage, while also landing some good ground and pound at one point as well. At her age, it will be interesting to see how Pancrase utilizes Hashi.

Nakajima defeats Tajima, proving he’s the real champion

In the co-main event, Nakajima returned for the first time in a year and also returned to 135 after trying out 145 at Rizin. Across from him was the 23 year old Tajima, who won the interim championship back in December when an injury kept Nakajima from taking part. In the end, Nakajima swept the young challenger, winning every round of their 5 round contest. At 34 years old, the champion has been kind of hit or miss lately, likely due to his ventures up to 145 and 155. Now that he’s at 135, it’ll be interesting to see what the future has in hold.