A Rena Retrospective, Part I

Becoming the Queen of Shoot Boxing and kickboxing

This weekend, Rena will have her 56th professional fight, an impressive feat considering she is only 30 years old. More impressive than her record is her impact in Japan. Over the course of a now 14 year career, she is one of the fighters directly responsible for the elevation of women in combat sports. When she was 17 years old she fought in the Saitama Super Arena, when she was 18 she won the first Girl’s S-Cup, she was responsible for Shoot Boxing re-instating their women’s championship, she won Rise’s first women’s championship, and she played a major role in Rizin adding women to their roster. Outside of the ring, she has regularly appeared on TV and in non-fight related publications, serving to promote both the sport and women’s involvement. With such a long career, it is difficult to summarize easily, but we will make an attempt over two separate articles. In this article, we will focus on her beginnings in the sport and her involvement in Shoot Boxing and kickboxing. (header photo is courtesy of Gravity)

The Kubota’s little sister learns to fight

Born in Osaka, Rena is the youngest of four sisters, who are three, six, and eight years older. Her mother worked and her sisters were Yankiis, a sub-culture unique to Japan that gained international attention via the movie Kamikaze Girls. As Yankiis her sisters were tough and had learned to fight on the streets. Looking back on it, Rena joked, “In my hometown I was known as ‘the Kubota sisters’ little sister’, so wherever I went, I went without a care in the world.” However, as is normal, Rena got into a lot of fights with her sisters and due to their experience and size, they got the better of her. One particularly bad fight happened when she was twelve and threw something at her oldest sister. Whatever she threw landed and rolled close to her sister’s baby, enraging her sister who charged Rena, pinned her down, pulled her hair, and hit her, leaving a bruise on her face.

Unable to beat her sisters in a fight, Rena started looking into martial arts. A lot of her friends were practicing Karate, but when she went to practice and saw them doing kata and forms, she knew this wouldn’t help her beat her sisters. Eventually, she went with her mother to a gym in her neighborhood that taught Shoot Boxing. After seeing them train and thinking that his would help her, she enrolled. She was in 6th grade at the time and with her mom working and her sisters getting married, she started to spend more and more time at the gym.

Making fighting her focus and turning Pro

To put it plainly, Rena wasn’t a good student. She didn’t like studying and regularly skipped school. In stark contrast, under the strict tutelage of Mashiro Oikawa, a former Shoot Boxing champion, she was doing well at the gym. She has since commented that Shoot Boxing was the only thing she was doing that she could be proud of, so she never considered going to college or continuing her education. Instead, she decided to focus on Shoot Boxing, turn professional, and become a champion. This is how in 2007, at the age of 16, Rena made her professional debut, under the ring name Kubochun Rena M15, an homage to her coach, who went by Naglanchan Masa M16.

Rena made her debut under the J-Girls banner, a once prominent kickboxing promotion that was developing a number of young fighters at the time, including Rena’s future opponent, Erika Kamimura. Despite her hard work, Rena, like Cris Cyborg two years earlier, lost her pro-debut.

Shoot Boxing sets the stage

On April 3rd, at the famed Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, the heads of Shoot Boxing and Jewels, along with Rena, Megumi Fujii, Saori Ishioka, and Hiroko entered the ring and announced that the two promotions were going to work together to promote women’s combat sports. As part of this collaboration, the head of Jewels asked that Rena take place in an upcoming event, which she did, but the more interesting comment came from the head of Shoot Boxing, Caesar Takeshi. He said that he and Jewels were planning an all women’s event for later that summer. This event would become the first Girl’s S-Cup, a now nearly annual event for the promotion that is highlighted by a single-day tournament.

Becoming the Queen of Shoot Boxing

The 2009 Girl’s S-cup took place at the Prince Hotel in Tokyo that August. Participants in the tournament included Rena, Saori Ishioka, and V.V. Mei. Going into the event, Rena had already attracted some media attention and this tournament offered a good chance to get even more. Just the year before, she fought the popular MMA champion Miku Matsumoto twice and despite some mixed results, she was getting good exposure, including a match at the Super Arena. Even though she was only 18 and still in high school, Rena put on an impressive performance TKO’ing Ishioka and beating V.V. Mei in the finals. Both of these victories were over big names at the time and helped legitimize both the tournament and her victory.

Remaining the Queen

While the tournament in 2009 has served as her coming out party, the 2010 event solidified Rena’s position as one of the faces of Shoot Boxing for the next decade. Going into the 2010 tournament, she had extended her win-streak to seven and she was becoming even more popular. The 2010 event was booked at a larger venue, half of the participants were foreign, and a big name was added, Hisae Watanabe. Rena had been scheduled to face her before, but was forced to pull out due to an injury.

In order to understand the importance of her addition to the tournament, it is first necessary to explain Watanabe. Watanabe made her MMA debut in 2002 and quickly became a star, known for her insane knockout power. Despite her small size, she had knocked out 11 of her opponents in MMA. In addition to this power, she had fought in Pancrase’s first women’s bout and had become a champion in Deep before stepping away from combat sports in 2007. In 2010, she returned to action, focusing primarily on Shoot Boxing. Her being in the tournament was a big deal, because she was a big name that almost guaranteed to bring more attention to the event, which in turn meant more attention for Rena. Hisae did not disappoint in this regard. She was outspoken at media events and even declared, “even though I just came back in April, I don’t see the point in sticking around if I lose to Rena, so I’ll retire if I lose to her.”

If Hisae didn’t disappoint in the lead-up, Rena didn’t disappoint in the tournament, TKO’ing Hisae in the opening round, winning her semi-final, and defeating Ai Takahashi, a fellow Shoot Boxer, in a tightly contested final that went to an extension round. In winning her second tournament, Rena proved that the first victory wasn’t a fluke and defeated some tough competition. However, these victories did not come without a price and a series of setbacks arose that almost led to her retirement.

The wear-and-tear of fighting & national exposure

After her first Girl’s S-Cup, Rena started to suffer from a series of injuries. She injured her left hand, which caused her to miss an earlier chance to fight Hisae, and she injured her left foot and suffered a broken orbital in the second tournament. The orbital injury kept her out of the ring for close to a year.

Despite not being able to fight, Rena still worked hard to promote the sport and even appeared on several television shows, the most notable of which was Flame Athletic TV. The shows normally generated a rating of around 11.8% but when Rena appeared they climbed to 14.5%. At the time, Rena’s fights weren’t aired live on national television, so exposure like this was instrumental in getting her national exposure.

Humiliation and a challenger emerges

After healing for a little under a year, Rena was set to face a Korean kickboxer at an upcoming Shoot Boxing event but the fight fell apart as Japan was hit by the biggest earthquake in history. The event, which now served as a charity drive for those affected, still went down and Rena still participated. However, instead of a fight, she participated in an exhibition match with Erika Kamimura.

Now serving as a matchmaker for Rise, Erika Kamimura was at one time widely considered to be the best kickboxer in Japan. As a Muay Thai and kickboxing champion, she went into this exhibition having finished her three previous opponents.

The exhibition was scheduled for 1 round, both fighters were to wear larger gloves, and a winner wouldn’t be declared. However, unfortunately for the returning Rena, Erika took the exhibition very seriously. Those in attendance commented that she had the intensity of someone going into an actual fight and she went straight for Rena, dropping her twice during the round. To say that the exhibition was humiliating would be an understatement. Not only personally but as a representative of Shoot Boxing at a Shoot Boxing event, she had been dropped twice by a rival promotion’s star.

A month after the exhibition, Shoot Boxing announced that they were going to revive their women’s championship and that Rena and Ai Takahashi were going to fight each other again, this time with the title on the line. After their first fight, Rena publicly campaigned for the belt to be re-instated, as it had been dormant for 13 years. However, even though she was instrumental in getting it re-instated, she wasn’t able to shake the lingering impact of the exhibition. Takahashi even told the media that Rena had tarnished the promotion’s reputation, which must have bothered Rena as she quickly responded.

When the fight finally did go down, in front of Erika who had come to watch, Rena tried to go for throws but was punished by the taller Takahashi who repeatedly landed kicks and knees to Rena’s body and legs. As a result, Rena’s stamina was sapped and she clearly lost via decision. With Takahashi crowned the new champion, the wheels were in motion for her to defend it against Erika.

The road to redemption

Having suffered from injuries, a humiliating exhibition, and failing to win the championship she had worked so hard to get re-instated, Rena later admitted that she thought about retiring. When asked why in an interview that October, she answered, “because there were things inside of me that I couldn’t forgive and I was angry with myself. I wondered if I could even call myself a professional…” However, she didn’t retire. She realized that if she quit then, she’d regret it and it would be like if she ran away.

Two months after failing to win the champion, Rena returned to action at the 2011 Girl’s S-Cup, however she did not participate in the tournament. Instead she faced the Thai, Zaza So Aree and brutally knocked her out with a body punch. While this was a much needed win in and of itself, it set up something much more important. For on the same night, Erika had won the tournament, putting on perhaps the most dominant Girl’s S-Cup performance of all time, KO’ing her fist two opponents and then dropping Seo Hee Ham in the finals. After receiving her belt, Erika was joined in the ring by Rena and it was announced that the two would face each other for Rise’s inaugural women’s championship. Later on, when the two went to promote the fight at a Rise event, Erika told the crowd, “come and see how I knock her out, not whether I’m going to win or not.” Needless to say, the stage was set for the biggest women’s kickboxing match in Japanese history and perhaps more importantly to Rena, the chance to erase the exhibition from the collective conscious of Japan’s fight community.

Getting redemption and becoming the Queen of kickboxing

With Takahashi sidelined with an injury, the fact that Rena and Erika were fighting for a championship seemed to take a back seat to the idea that they were simply fighting to establish who was the best. Erika was 18, held numerous championships, had just won the Girl’s S-cup, and had finished 8 of her past 9 opponents. Everything Rena was to Shoot Boxing, Erika was to Rise.

Despite her recent problems, Rena was still an incredibly popular fighter and had won two Girl’s S-Cups and more importantly, she was taking the fight very seriously, She actually left Osaka and came to Tokyo to train, where it looked like Shoot Boxing was pulling all the stops to make sure she was as prepared as possible.

Whether it was the fact that she had more time to recover from her injuries or it was the high-level training in Tokyo, Rena came into the fight looking like she was in the best shape of her career. This was smart decision on her part as the fight ended up being a gritty, high-paced, incredibly close fight. Exactly the type of fight the fans had hoped for between the two best. Throughout the fight, Erika effectively landed punches, where Rena’s best strikes were her kicks. However, a lot of clinching went on and as Erika got more frustrated, she became more reckless and aggressive, which led to more clinching. After several warnings, Erika was eventually deducted two points, while Rena was deducted one. At the end of the night, Rena was crowned the champion. This isn’t what mattered to her though. She had defeated her rival after a “really bad year” and could now say, which she did, “I’m the strongest woman. Thank you!” Not only would Rena never be plagued by the exhibition again, she hasn’t lost a Shoot Boxing or kickboxing fight since and is currently on a 19 fight win streak under those rules. Erika fought her last fight less than two years later, never again reaching the heights she had in 2011.

Part II, covering Rena’s move to Tokyo and her transition to MMA will be published on Wednesday.

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