VALKYRIE held a press conference today to announce that the VALKYRIE Featherweight Championship will be awarded at their Apr. 25 Differ Ariake show. They will also hold a tournament to determine the number one challenger for the title. Obviously the title match and the likely champ will be former SMACKGIRL Lightweight Champ Yuka Tsuji. Of course Tsuji is considered one of the top female fighters in Japan. Her record is 21-1 and most recently won over V1 at the first VALKYRIE show. Her opponent is...drum roll...US fighter Kate Martinez. I never heard of her either. She's an IKF kickboxing champ but inexperienced at MMA. She trains at the Royce Gracie gym in Colorado and her only match was a win over Sharya Hefner at the Dec. 1, 2007 Ring Of Fire show in Bloomfield, CO. Certainly I would prefer someone more experienced in a championship match. The four fighters in the tournament drew lots to determine the matchups. The first match is Emi Fujino vs V1. Her record is 8-2 and most recently lost a tough match to WINDY Tomomi at the first VALKYRIE show. She also won a split decision over V1 on the Dec. 26, 2007 SMACKGIRL show. V1's record is 3-2 and she lost to Tsuji at the first VALKYRIE show. The second match is hard hitting WINDY Tomomi vs Kyoko Takabayashi. Tomomi's record is 12-9 and most recently lost to Rin Nakai on the Dec. 7 Pancrase show. Takabayashi is 8-3 and most recently lost to Ana Michele Taveras at the Feb. 14, 2008 SMACKGIRL show. I didn't see anything about when the final of this tournament will be but I don't expect any of them to beat Tsuji. Expect more matches to be announced shortly.
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