Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Hitomi Akano added to Mar. 13 PANCRASE show

Hitomi Akano, Chisa Yonezawa
A few days ago, PANCRASE announced a women's match for their Mar. 13 show at Taisho Azeria show in Osaka. Today they announced a second women's match being billed as JEWELS vs VALKYRIE. They are calling it Bantamweight (probably 135lb) scheduled for two five minute rounds. It will be Hitomi Akano facing Chisa Yonezawa. Akano has a huge experience advantage. She trains at AACC. Her record is 16-8 and She lost to Miesha Tate at that Strikeforce tournament in August. 13 of her wins have been by submission and she is known for pulling those submissions out of thin air. Yonezawa trains at Cobra Kai. Her record is 1-3 and her last fight was a win over HARI on the Nov. 28 VALKYRIE show. Her losses were to Mizuho Sato, Takayo Hashi and Roxanne Modafferi. Obviously Yonezawa is overmatched and one would expect Akano to finish her quickly. In their press release, PANCRASE is selling this match as JEWELS vs VALKYRIE. But the real reason this match has been booked is Hitomi Akano is from Osaka and has never fought in her home town. Most women's MMA matches are in Tokyo so this is obviously a rare opportunity for Hitomi to fight in front of family and friends. So I will forgive the mismatch on this occasion..

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