Two of the top women in MMA’s lighter divisions are set to meet in
a champ vs. champ superfight with pound-for-pound implications.
Advertisement
Deep
Jewels atomweight champ Si Yoon
Park (6-3) will defend her title against her strawweight
counterpart, Seika Izawa
(12-0), at Deep Jewels 44 on March 24 in Tokyo. The promotion
made the announcement on Jan. 23, just days after “Sankaru” added
the Black Combat atomweight title to her hardware
collection by defeating Moeri Suda
at Black Combat 10.
In the challenger, Park will face a fellow multi-divisional
champion, as Izawa owns the
Rizin Fighting Federation super atomweight (108 lbs.) belt in
addition to her Jewels title. A win by Izawa would make her a
simultaneous three-division champion, a feat nearly unprecedented
in top-level MMA.
On the other hand, a successful defense by Park would reaffirm her
status as one of the world’s top atomweights and continue her
shocking rise over the last year. Park, who went 1-3 in her first
four professional bouts from 2017 to 2019, returned last March from
a three-year layoff and has since won five straight fights, three
via stoppage, to capture her Jewels and Black Combat titles.
Izawa is no stranger to rapid career ascent herself. In just her
third career fight, the then 23-year-old won the Jewels strawweight
title by defeating Miki
Motono. Seven months later, she pounded out Rizin super
atomweight champ and longtime pound-for-pound stalwart Ayaka
Hamasaki in a non-title fight, then repeated the feat at Rizin
35 in April of 2022 to take the belt.
Deep Jewels 44 takes place on March 24 at New Pier Hall in Tokyo,
Japan, with 10 women’s bouts currently confirmed. In
addition to the Park vs. Izawa main event, the main card is stacked
with three super atomweight bouts: Road FC champion Jeong Eun
Park (9-7-1) takes on Namiko
Kawabata (4-3) in the co-main event, with Yuko Kiryu
(13-10) vs. Kate Oyama
(4-6) and Mizuki
Furuse (11-11) and Saki
Kitamura (1-2) ahead of them.