Facing her greatest career adversity, Rizin FF Women’s Super Atomweight Champion Seika Izawa rallied from the brink of defeat and retained her title tonight at Rizin Fighting Federation: “Shiwasu no Cho Tsuwamono Matsuri” in Saitama, Japan. Izawa submitted Rena Kubota in the second round.
Izawa, who has steamrolled most of her opponents during her undefeated career thus far, was very nearly knocked out by a left hook and follow-up punches from Kubota early in tonight’s title fight. She recovered quickly, however, and proceeded to dominate the rest of the bout on the ground.
Izawa (18-0-0) found herself flat on her back less than a minute into tonight’s title defence after Kubota (15-6-0) rocked her with a lead left hook and then dribbled her head off of the canvas with two follow-up punches on the ground. Referee Masato Fukuda almost stopped the fight, but Izawa recovered enough to tie Kubota up from the bottom and then postured for an armbar seconds later. That action kept Izawa in the fight and Kubota ultimately stood over top of her and kicked at her legs.
When Izawa got to her feet, she took Kubota down in a corner and moved from side control to mount. Izawa dropped punches and elbows to Kubota’s face and then took Kubota’s back. She continued to punch and then worked for a rear-naked choke until the bell sounded to end the thrilling round.
Izawa took Kubota down into North-South position in the second round and transitioned from a North-South choke setup to a reverse guillotine choke. From there, she pulled guard with a conventional guillotine choke and Kubota was stuck with nowhere to go. She reluctantly tapped out at the 1:58 mark of the second round and Izawa held on to her title.
Tonight’s bout, which had been postponed and outright cancelled in the past due to issues that Izawa blamed on Kubota, had turned into a grudge match due to the bad blood that developed between the fighters. Izawa had promised to smash Kubota, and refused to shake her hand after weigh-ins, but tonight it was Kubota who opted not to touch gloves and then proceeded to almost pull off a shocking upset. Izawa gave full credit to her foe when speaking backstage after her successful title defence.
“I’m relieved,” Izawa said. “I did not expect the [left] hook, and I regret that. She came for the finish after I got hit, so I defended against that. She has the hardest punch that I have ever been hit by. I wanted our trash talk to have more honesty, but she didn’t show her real character when in front of the camera. I would like to push women’s MMA with stories and I started the Seika Izawa Challenge because of that. I want fighters to chase me. The students need hard training and to prove their character. If [Kubota] climbs up the ladder again, I will fight her again.”
“I felt that [left] hook’s effect and I thought I could get the finish,” Kubota reflected. “If I had hit five more punches, I finish her, but [Izawa] recovered so quickly and so I couldn’t chase it too much. She is good on the ground and set up her takedown well. If I had won, I would have retired because that would have been cool, but it did not happen. I can improve more and I will come back. I didn’t think about her trash talk and I didn’t care. We thanked each other [after the fight] because this is a sport.”