This Sunday, on Christmas Eve, Pancrase will return to the Yokohama Budokan for their final event of the year. Included on the card is the opening round of their Atomweight tournament, where the ultimate winner will be crowned the inaugural Atomweight Queen of Pancrase. In the opening round, Zenny Huang will face Satomi Takano and V.V. Mei will face Sayako Fujita.
We had a chance to go to AACC and watch Zenny train and ask her some questions about coming to Japan and her upcoming fight.
Looking to prove herself in Japan
A little more than a year ago, Zenny moved to Japan in order to take on the Japanese MMA scene. At the time, she hadn’t fought in almost 3 years and hadn’t won a fight since 2016. This was in stark contrast to the beginning of her career, where she had success in One Championship and even earned a title shot. However, due to circumstances outside of her control, One changed their weight classes and as a result, Zenny, who easily makes 48kg, was forced to essentially fight at 52kg, where she was noticeably undersized.
So after going through a losing-streak and not being able to fight due to the pandemic, Zenny set a goal for herself: to win a Japanese title. To her, winning a title here would prove to her that she has what it takes to compete in the sport. Towards that end, she came to Japan and started training at AACC. It is worth noting that this isn’t the first time she’s trained there, she’s trained there several times, including a stint back in 2017.
Why Japan
Despite there close proximity, Japan and Taiwan have very different attitudes towards MMA. According to Zenny, MMA still has a lot of growing to do in Taiwan. There isn’t a lot of support for the sport and there aren’t a lot of fighters or good training environments. In fact, her own family doesn’t support her decision to pursue a career in MMA, evidenced by the fact that they’ve never been to one of her fights.
This is very different from Japan, where promotions like K-1 and Pride helped elevate the sport to mythological levels during the “Kakutogi Boom” of the late 90’s and early 2000’s. While that era is over, MMA has been mainstream in Japan for awhile and has a lot of support. Just look at women’s MMA for example, women have been fighting in Japan since the 90’s, while Zenny is considered by many to be the first professional female mixed martial artist from Taiwan. In moving to Japan, Zenny moved to a country with numerous promotions, where women can fight regularly, and where there are good women to fight and train with.
Facing Satomi Takano
When Zenny steps into the cage on Sunday, standing across from her will be Satomi Takano, a former Shooto champion who also has experience in One Championship and Rizin. When asked about her opponent, Zenny lit up and told us that, “this is a really good chance for me. It’s a good challenge. Satomi is a good fighter with 31 pro-fights, she’s very experienced, she has a Judo background, has her brown belt in BJJ, and from what I’ve seen online, she can strike, she throws punches, knees, and elbows. She can do everything. So I have to prepare for that. I cannot get tired or risk losing a position to her. In fact, it keeps me up at night, I lay in bed thinking of everywhere the fight might go, trying to think of every possibility. I’m really focused on her and if I can win this fight, it’ll mean a lot to me. Maybe it’ll mean that I’m a good fighter too.” It is worth noting that despite her long record, this will be Takano’s first fight in the promotion.
Life in Japan
Zenny’s been in Japan for over a year now, but she’s still getting use to living here. Unlike Taiwan, where she’s used to big houses and wide roads, Tokyo is filled with tiny apartments and narrow streets. She also mentioned that the food is pretty different.
Since she’s been here, she’s been taking Japanese lessons and has been training regularly, 2-3 times a day, with high level sparring partners, of whom there are too many to list. She also mentioned that in her free time, she likes to go hiking in the mountains, paint, and practice calligraphy.
She didn’t mention how long she intends to stay in Japan, but she did tell us that if she wins the Pancrase title, she wants to defend the belt and try to win other belts as well.
How to Watch
Japanese Broadcast
Kenji Osawa, Tatsuhiko Nishi, Shintaro Ishiwatari
- U-Next
- Pancrase’s Youtube Channel (1,790 Yen a month)
English Broadcast
Stewart Fulton & Guy DeLumeau
- via Tiget (2,000 Yen)
Pancrase 340 Card
- Genpei Hayashi vs Ryuichiro Sumimura (Welterweight Title Bout)
- Seiichiro Ito vs Naoki Arikawa (Flyweight Interim Title Bout)
- Yasuhiro Kawamura vs Tokitaka Nakanishi (Bantamweight Title Bout)
- Yusuke Kasuya vs Tatsuya Saika
- Sayako Fujita vs V.V. Mei
- Zenny Huang vs Satomi Takano
- Shinsuke Kamei vs Naoki Hirata
- Ryogo Takahashi vs Sang Won Kim
- Ryo vs Yuito Yanagawa
- Muhammad Salohidinov vs Toki Matsui
- Yuki Kondo vs Wataru Miki
- Ryo Tajima vs Kunihisa Sasa
- Takahiro Kawanaka vs Shogo Sato
- Genta Shindo vs Misaki Umehara
English 
Japanese