This article was written by Chris Gunn and used with his permission.
Last night the 4th Seiza event was held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo. For the uninitiated, Seiza is an all-female martial arts promotion. Rather than MMA rules, there is a 30-second ground fighting limit and in addition to being able to submit or knock out an opponent, fights can be finished by Ippon if a fighter was thrown or pushed from the mat three times.
Team Seiza took on an all Korean team this time around. After some preliminary fights, team Seiza’s Radha Manandhar took on Lee Kihyun. Radha, who has shown considerable progress in her ground skills, took the fight to her opponent and was able to dominate her before getting a first round rear naked choke finish.
Last night’s event featured single match ups over last time’s winner-stay-on format and next up was Seiza’s Rajina Bista against Kim In Yeong. While Rajina also seemed to have made good progress, her efforts were thwarted by her young, but physically powerful Korean adversary, who won by Ippon after pushing Rajina from the mat three times.
Next up was Tabatha Ricci vs. Choi Yul Mi. In a fairly one-sided contest, Ricci was able to use her grappling prowess to dominate her opponent. If it were not for the 30 second limit on ground fighting, Tabatha would most likely have submitted Choi inside the first minute or so. However, she won by Ippon after executing a glorious display of her Judo skills.
The final fight of the night featured Julija Stoliarenko vs. Jung Seo Yung. The fearsome Julija put on an excellent display, rarely looking in trouble at all. She dominated her opponent before finishing with a perfect armbar in the first round, giving team Seiza a decisive 3-1 victory.
Unfortunately, this was Tabatha and Julija’s last event under the Seiza banner. They will return to the respective homelands of Brazil and Lithuania to further their young MMA careers. Both fighters have a huge amount of potential and it’s incredibly exciting to see how they progress from here. We wish them well and certainly won’t be surprised to see them fighting in major organizations over the next few years.
If you want to catch a last glimpse of Julija, she will be competing at the Lethwei event in Korakuen Hall on November 15th.
