Thursday, March 20, 2014

"V.V" Mei Yamaguchi to face Gina Iniong


On March 29th, Japanese Veteran Mei Yamaguchi (11-6-1) will be making her AtomWeight debut again Gina Iniong (2-1). 

2013-14 saw a lot of fighters retire in Japan. The women's divisions and the promotion Deep Jewels were especially effected. However there are still several very good fighters in Japan. One of these fighters is Mei Yamaguchi. Mei has fought stiff competition throughout her entire career and emerged with a respectable record. Yet, Mei has also competed for most of her career against larger and stronger opponents. Standing at 5ft, she was one of the shorter women in the 115lb division. Now that she is dropping to 105, I expect that she will be fighting on a physically more level playing field. I for one am all for the cut to 105. The 115lb division in Asia dried up over night and there is no one left for her to fight in the division. In addition, with Ham Seo Hee having successfully dropped and Ayaka Hamasaki following suit it only makes sense. Coming off of a razor-thin loss in her last fight, one can expect that Mei will be very motivated to get back into the win column and to make her 105 debut a successful one. 



Gina Iniong will be coming into the fight with a 2-1 record and will also be the hometown favorite. In her two victories she has finished both of her opponents in the first round. Iniong has to be incredibly motivated going into this fight. A chance to fight against a well known veteran is what most rising fighters hope for. A victory for Iniong will catapult her career much like Amber Brown's victory over Ishikawa. From what I gain, it looks like Gina comes from a Muay Thai and striking background. She looks to be very aggressive with her punches and likes to bully her opponents around the cage. 

Both of these fighters have pleasing styles to watch and it should be a good fight.

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