An eight-woman featherweight tournament will begin on September 11th in Tokyo, Japan to determine the first Jewels Featherweight Queen Champion at 48 kilograms. The tournament, which will conclude on December 17th, was officially announced during Jewels: “15th Ring” in Tokyo tonight.

Among those participating will be final Valkyrie Flyweight Champion Yasuko “Ikuko” Tamada and Naho “Sugi Rock” Sugiyama, as well as other veteran fighters such as Misaki Takimoto and Sachiko “Sachi” Yamamoto. Jewels crowned its first champion with a similar tournament late last year.

The first round of the Featherweight Queen Tournament will be held on September 11th at Shin-Kiba 1st Ring. There, the quarterfinal matchups will take place, as the eight participants look to advance on to the semi-finals and finals in December.

Tournament participants are as follows (Fight records; Unified Women’s MMA Rankings in brackets):

– Naho “Sugi Rock” Sugiyama (4-0-0; Ranked #1)
– Yasuko “Ikuko” Tamada (12-5-3; Ranked #2)
– Misaki Takimoto (13-12-4; Ranked #4)
– Sachiko “Sachi” Yamamoto (8-5-1; Ranked #5)
– Kikuyo Ishikawa (5-2-0; Ranked #6)
– Yukiko Seki (8-20-0; Ranked #9)
– Miyoko Kusaka (3-3-0; Ranked #10)
– Ayumi “Edge” Saito (8-5-0)

The tournament semi-finals and finals will be held on December 17th at Shinjuku FACE in Tokyo; the site of tonight’s “15th Ring” event. The winner will be crowned the first Jewels Featherweight Queen Champion, and will join Lightweight Queen Champion Ayaka Hamasaki as the second titleholder in Jewels. First-round matchups will be announced in the coming weeks.