Today we were at Deep Jewels 16. Deep Jewels always puts on a good show and has many top women’s JMMA fighters on its cards. In the past they have had young teenage fighters, but this time they took it a step further with a child of 12 years of age (a 6th grader?) taking on a 24-year-old who had 5 fights under her belt.
We are talking about Momo vs. Momoko Yamazaki. In fact the entire world has been talking about this fight. It was even discussed briefly on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
If you have never been to a Deep Jewels show, the first time is pretty amazing. The crowd favorite fighters all have walk out performances. Sometimes it is dancing, sometimes a whole team carrying flags, with all kinds of fanfare.
Yamazaki came out to a dance number with two of her team mates decked out in maid dresses dancing to a song as they made their way to the ring.
Yamazaki was in good spirits and very comfortable; she seemed very confident. When it was time for Momo to make her walk out there was no fanfare. She just calmly walked to the ring as her music played. As a father myself, I just saw a very young and kind of nervous little girl. I had no idea what was about to unfold.
After the bell rang, the fighters met at the center of the ring, throwing a few combos to test the waters and each other’s reactions. It would seem that the older and more experienced fighter would easily have this fight in the bag in round one, but all of a sudden Yamazaki over committed on a punch, young Momo saw it and capitalized on the opportunity. She quickly jumped up and clinched.
After some struggle Momo got Yamazaki to the mat and was able to take her back.
The rest of the round played out with Momo keeping the back and trying to work in the RNC. At one point Yamazaki. the bigger of the two, managed to get back to her feet for a moment, but in doing so she sealed her fate and left her neck exposed. Momo seeing the opportunity, was finally able to get under Yamazaki’s chin.
Riding Yamazaki’s back, they return to the mat where Yamazaki turtles for a moment then is eventually stretched out as Momo sinks in her hooks.
Eventually Momo uses her leverage and rolls on to her side securing the RNC even deeper.
Yamazaki still had some fight left in her and tried to pull on the back hand of Momo, but Momo rolled on to her back still with both hooks in and stretched her out.
10 seconds left in the round is announced and Momo put in all her strength, putting Yamazaki to sleep as the bell sounded.
At the end of the fight it took Yamazaki a few minutes to recover. She didn’t tap, but took a nap.
