Twelve-year-old mixed martial artist Momo Shimizu submitted a rival who was twice her age in a controversial bout.
Shimizu was handed a spot in the Japanese MMA promotion's DEEP JEWELS 16 despite having never competed in MMA prior to the bout. She was then controversially matched with Momoko Yamazaki, who was twice her age and had a professional record of 3-5, despite backlash from fans.
The fight took place despite concern for the remarkable age gap, with Shimizu and Yamazaki touching gloves at the opening bell. The pair exchanged rabbit punches before the twelve-year-old promptly shot a takedown and took the contest to the ground.
After a minute of wrestling on the floor with the younger fighter seizing the initiative, Shimizu searched for a rear-naked choke of her older opponent. She then tightened the hold for several seconds before the referee intervened to stop the bout.
Yamazaki was clearly in distress and was gingerly sat up after being choked for over a minute, while her opponent walked to the centre of the ring to be announced as the winner. Upon confirmation of her opening round submission victory, Shimizu was handed a cuddle toy, a box of protein and a trophy to award her for the win.
Shimizu trains at a small karate gym in Japan and was not confident of victory going into the fight, having only just entered seventh grade in school. She remarked prior to victory: "I don't have firm confidence to win this fight, but I don't think I will lose or anything like that."
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This is not the first time the Japanese promotion have come into criticism for their matchmaking with young fighters used in the past by MMA promotion DEEP. However her coach Shu Hirata was unconcerned going into the meeting and leapt to the defence of the promotion.
“Momo has been training MMA six times a week at least three hours a day ever since when she was in the kindergarten," Hirata explained. "Momo already had 100 amateur fights in BJJ, kickboxing, and karate combined which is far more experience than her upcoming opponent Momoko Yamazaki who actually works at Hostess Bar and barely trains. This is not the first time Jewels put teenagers against an adult.
"They have done twelve-year-old vs adult and thirteen-year-old vs adult in the past and in both fights a younger fighter won via submission. Fans are used to seeing kids doing kickboxing and beating adults. If anything, there's more of an expectation that she's the next big thing. So her coach [Sadanori Yamaguchi] actually appreciates the concern from the U.S. side, because nobody is too concerned in Japan. Of course, there's always a danger as you can never say it's 100 percent safe."
