Rising star Fumika Watanabe needed just over two minutes to capture the Flyweight Queen of Pancrase title tonight in the main event of Pancrase 352 in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. The 25-year-old Watanabe knocked out champion Shizuka Sugiyama, who was unsuccessful in her first defence.
Watanabe, who has racked up three straight wins since dropping a narrow Split Decision in her pro debut, claimed the belt with a nasty right hook. Also on the card, former Deep Jewels champ Miki Motono narrowly outpointed current Shooto titleholder Emi “Kamikaze Angel” Fujino at strawweight.
Watanabe (3-1-0) scored a knockdown early on after landing a right hand to the face of Sugiyama (23-8-1), whose nose turned red. A right cross landed for Watanabe and Sugiyama responded by clinching and pushing her down to the ground. Watanabe worked back to her feet and she perfectly countered a left hand from Sugiyama with a right hook that badly hurt the veteran and ended the fight. The official time of Watanabe’s knockout victory came at the 2:15 mark of round one.
Despite her relative lack of experience, Watanabe has defeated three straight top contenders including former champions Takayo Hashi and now Sugiyama. She had previously gone the distance in each outing for Pancrase, but Watanabe left nothing up to the judges with her quick title win tonight.
Earlier on the card, Motono (9-5-0) made a successful Pancrase debut with a much-needed win over former Strawweight Queen of Pancrase Champion Fujino (30-16-1, 1 NC). In the first round, Fujino had early success with clinch strikes after backing Motono up against the cage wall. When Motono created space, she landed a jab and a leg kick before shooting in for a takedown, but Fujino countered it with a guillotine choke and all three judges scored the round in her favour.
Motono evened things up in the second round by striking from a distance with leg kicks as Fujino responded with straight right hands. Motono was not able to take Fujino down, but her clinch control was enough to earn her the round on all three scorecards. Motono scored with a body kick in the final round and secured a takedown, but she had to fight off two guillotine chokes from Fujino, who was active off of her back. The fighters stood up late in the round and exchanged jabs until the bell.
All three judges awarded the back-and-forth final round to Motono and returned scores of 29-28 in her favour for a Unanimous Decision win. The crucial victory was Motono’s first since November 2022 after back-to-back defeats to Xiaocan Feng including one in a Road To UFC matchup in August.