The Open-weight Championship
At the signing ceremony held the day before, Amanda Buckner revealed that she did extensively study Megumi Yabushita's judo moves.
Her defense was perfect and that's what made the difference in this title bout.
Buckner, with a right left combination, takes the first move, so Yabushita circles around, counters with tricky punches followed by kicks to the leg.
Yabushita moves in, clinches and pushes her to the corner, trying to execute a judo throw but Buckner defends this perfectly, taking champion's back.
Yabushita just stays still for 30 seconds and the referee stands them up.
The champion knows how to utilize the Smack Girl rules - 30 second limit on the ground.
The ending came with a similar sequence.
Both fighters clinched by the corner. Yabushita goes for a judo throw, but Buckner defends it again, and this time, from the bottom, Buckner catches Yabushita in a guillotine choke.

Amanda Buckner is now Smack Girl Open-weight Champion.

After the fight, Yabushita declared, "(Not only the Open-weight title but) Middleweight title is in America too so even if I have to pay my own expenses, I want to go to America to get the belt back."
But of course, she had to add a joke at the end, "Because I want to go to America for sightseeing also."

Buckner told reporters backstage, "I studied (Yabushita's video) and trained five hard weeks with the team." In regards to her title defense, Buckner, in a moral tone, already showed her regal presence, "Whoever Smack Girl designates, I will fight."

The Upset
The biggest upset came in the sixth bout of the evening.
Debi Purcell, the star of American womens MMA, finally made a highly anticipated Japanese debut, but this also was her first fight in three years. One can expect her to be a bit rusty but Debi came out punching.
She looked sharp. Threw Pedro Rizzo like punch-kick combinations. But Hitomi Akano from AACC, didn't even bother with the striking game.
Akano circled around, looking for an opportunity.
Akano snaps on an ankle lock in the first round and scores another solid point with an armbar attempt in the second and ends up defeating this American star in a unanimous decision.

Hitomi Akano iniated the fight with judo take downs and various submission moves.

A former Judo-ka, Akano, made a professional debut back in May 2004. She was the winner of last year's Smack Girl rookie tournament called Next Cinderella tournament.
Debi looked a bit puzzled with the Smack Girl rules but her cause of defeat was insisting too much on striking. Akano is much smaller and two rounds just weren't enough to catch a fighter who keeps their distance, circles around and shoots in for a take down. Debi just couldn't score points.

Since Yabushita lost in the Main Event, Akano now should have the right to challenge the champion.
Akano trains with Megumi Fujii, undefeated womens MMA star of Japan, with a team named AACC, so her training environment can't be any better.
Will Akano get a title shot?
Regardless, the day Smack Girl's most dedicated Japanese champion lost, another Japanese star was born.

Windy Wants Yuka
At the weigh-in, Lee Soon Jin missed the cut for 300 grams over but Windy Tomomi accepted anyways, so the fight was on.
Apparently, the weight difference didn‚t matter to this woman warrior from Pancrase.
Windy bulldozed her way with a right low kick, left hook, and other varying punches and kicks, and at the end, with a knee shot, she completely devastated the Korean fighter.
Windy grabbed the microphone after the fight and requested a match against current Smack Girl lightweight champion Yuka Tsuji for the Osaka show on April 22nd.
Smack Girl already announced that Tsuji will defend her title in her hometown but the opponent is yet to be announced.
Windy fought Tsuji once three years ago, and lost in a decision.

By far the busiest MMA woman warrior in Japan, Hisae Watanabe (right), again, made huge impact with this one shot knock down.

Shot to the Chin Stole the Show
Amanda became new champ and Akano caused may be the upset of the year, but the night belonged to Hisae Watanabe.
Watanabe, a very popular kick boxer turned MMA fighter, faced a masked fighter named 15 (it's pronounces as "Ichigo." It means strawberry in Japanese).
15 initiated early. She got on top but Watanabe proved herimprovement from training with Tsuji and Yasuko Mogi, and snapped on an armbar from bottom.
15 held on for 30 seconds.
Back in standing position, 15 slides in for a leg submissions but Watanabe calmly responds.
In this first round, Watanabe looked like she was checking out the opponent but in the second, she came forward.
Right off the bell, Watanabe threw a barrage of powerful right low kicks.
Pressuring 15 she closed in, tried to clinch but Watanabe countered with an uppercut-like short right hook.
This shot landed squarely on the chin and 15 dropped on the canvass completely unconscious.
This was in fact one of the most shocking knock out in the history of Smack Girl.

Before the fight, Watanabe said, "If I beat her, then she should be thinking about taking off her mask" but ironically, the medical staff had to take off 15's mask for emergent measures. Still, 15 couldn't stand up and she was taken out on a stretcher.
Watanabe is also training under Shihan Tsukamoto at Shin Kyokushin Kaikai, and in the introductory video shown at the entrance, Watanabe was doing push ups with her fists. Not only her grappling skill but in her striking game, Watanabe showed her evolution.

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