On April 30th, Mei Yamaguchi will fight in Japan for the first time since 2019, when she steps into the cage to face Kanna Asakura at Rizin Landmark 5 in Tokyo. This will be the veteran’s promotional debut, making Rizin the 10th MMA promotion she’ll have competed for in a career that has so-far spanned 36 fights across 16 years.
It is also worth noting that outside of the cage and ring, Mei has proven to be one of the more interesting fighters in Japan, having filmed self-defense videos with a member of AKB 48 for NHK, worked as the ring announcer for Rise, and taught English to and worked as a translator for Tenshin among other things. With her returning to her native soil, we thought this would be a good opportunity to look back at her career.
From watching Jackie Chan to MMA
Those that follow Mei probably know that she speaks nearly fluent English. This is because she lived in the U.S. at different times in her life, first as a kid then again to go to college. It was during the initial stint, when she was kid, that she first got interested in martial arts via Jackie Chan. This interest led her to a karate dojo, where she started taking lessons from a guy that she remembers as having played one of the Cobra Kai members in The Karate Kid.
Despite moving back to Japan when she was 9, Mei kept up with karate and joined a dojo, where she is still an instructor today. Later on, she also kept up with her training when she went back to the U.S. to play softball and go to college. It was during this stint in the U.S. that Mei first got introduced to grappling, since her karate instructor also taught BJJ. After getting involved in BJJ, people started to suggest that she participate in MMA, since she was already learning a striking-based and grappling-based style.
From V Hajime to V.V. Mei
Back in Japan, Mei started training at Max BJJ Academy & Yoga Studio under the tutelage of Max Masuzawa, a BJJ black belt who trained under Royce Gracie before returning to Japan. It was Max that came up with Mei’s first fight name, V Hajime, which looks like V一 in Japanese and can also be read as V 1, an homage to the V-1 armlock (another name for the Americana). A year later, Mei returned to the U.S. and started training at Caique Jiu-Jitsu, where Max had worked as an apprentice instructor.
In 2007, Mei made her MMA debut for Smackgirl, taking part in their Next Cinderella Tournament. Before getting into her Smackgirl fights, it is important to note that Smackgirl had some interesting rules, primarily no strikes to the head of grounded opponents and fights were to be stood up after 30 seconds on the ground. The mandatory standup was abolished in December of 2007.
In the opening round of the tournament, her pro-debut, Mei out-struck then submitted her opponent with a rear naked choke, earning event MVP honors. In the following round, she submitted Saori Ishioka with a knee bar before defeating Emi Tomimatsu in the finals.
In her next fight, Mei faced and lost to Emi Fujino via split-decision. This would be her last fight in Smackgirl, which ceased operations in April of 2008. For her next fight, she joined Valkyrie, which was an affiliate of Cage Force, and as the name indicates, they used a cage. More importantly, Valkryrie used the same ruleset as Cage Force, meaning ground and pound was allowed, something that was never allowed in Smackgirl and would take years to spread to Jewels.
In her first fight with the promotion, Mei faced Yuka Tsuji, one of the legends of Japanese WMMA and at the time, arguably one of the biggest female fighter in Japan. They were set to face off in the new promotion’s first main-event. Going into the bout, Tsuji was 20-1, having already avenged her sole-loss, while Mei was 3-1. Once the action started, Mei had a speed advantage, but Tsuji was able to get her down and land some GNP, something Mei had never experienced before. In the end, she lost via UD. Not one to be dejected, Mei picked up two more wins, including a win over Emi Fujino, before switching things up and undertaking some Shoot Boxing bouts.
Suplexes and throws, the Girls S-Cup
For those that don’t know, Shoot Boxing is a unique promotion in Japan that is essentially kickboxing with throws and standing submissions. While throws and submissions are allowed, most bouts end up looking pretty similar to kickboxing bouts.
In 2009, Shoot Boxing, who had a young star in the making named Rena, held their first Girl’s S-cup, an annual one day tournament. In order to create a diverse field of participants, MMA fighters, kickboxers, and Shoot Boxers were chosen to participate. Mei was one of those chosen and she wisely chose to embrace her grappling background, hunting for submissions and throws throughout the tournament. In the semi-finals, she faced Madoka Okada, a fellow MMA fighter from Smackgirl, and proceeded to land three back-suplexes, earning 6 shoot points, earning ridiculous scores of 30-24, 29-24, and 28-22, before advancing to the finals where she fought and lost to Rena via UD.
Beating a legend
After making her mark on the first Girl’s S-cup, Mei returned to MMA in order to challenge Yuka Tsuji again, this time with the Valkyrie title on the line. As alluded to above, Tsuji was a big deal. She had wrestled at Chukyo Women’s University, whose famous wrestling program produced both Saori Yoshida (3x Olympic gold medalist) and Kaori Icho (4x Olympic gold medalist), and since turning pro in 2001, she’d only lost once, to a non-Japanese fighter, who she later beat. She also had national exposure since Smackgirl’s producer had also produced Inoke Bom-Ba-Ye 2003. which allowed them to put her on that the card, which was on national TV during New Year’s Eve, a prime TV spot in Japan. This background combined with how their first fight went, makes it clear why so many people assumed Tsuji would defeat Mei again. Even Mei’s own friend refused to attend the event, telling her “I don’t want to see you lose.”
Tsuji was so dominant, that according to sports writer Norihiro Hashimoto, prior to this bout, it was commonly believed that Tsuji and Fujii simply couldn’t be beaten. Japan’s WMMA scene existed in a rigid framework where this was an absolute truth and in emphatically defeating Tsuji with a rear-naked choke in just over a minute, Mei shattered this belief and completely changed the scene. Instead of there being unbeatable fighters, people now understood that anyone can be beaten and that serious and ambitious fighters could also reach the top.
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