On Friday, May 18th, in Lake Charles, Loiusianna, the #1 & #2 ranked fighters will battle. Who? You might be asking. Sliva vs Sonnen, GSP vs Condit? Rousey vs. Kauffman? Nope. The current pound for pound best female fighter on the planet and #1 ranked at 115lbs, Megumi “Mega Megu” Fujii of Japan will be facing the current #2 ranked 115lb fighter Jessica “JAG” Aguilar. This is a fight that should be bigger than Tate vs Rousey. The MMA world should be putting a keen eye on this fight. When the fight takes place, Fujii will have just turned 38 and Aguilar wants the number one spot in their weight division. It’s a fight that’s been in the making since both women suffered controversial losses to Bellator current women’s champ Zoila Gurgel (nee Frausto). Both have stated they want a rematch with Gurgel, but Aguilar chose the match up with Fujii first when given the choice by Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney. It’s also possible that this might be the last fight at 115 in Bellator for some time. Which makes this fight all that more important. Rebney has earlier confirmed they are looking to have another women’s tournament, but at 125lbs. The current women’s champ has been sidelines since last year with a knee injury, and it seems once she is ready to go, the 125 tournament will take place.
There won’t be any trash talking between these two ladies, as they both have a high, mutual respect for one another and are also friends. It will be up to the promotion, media & fans to bring the deserved attention this fight should be attracting. To me, this fight will be epic and it should be far better the main event battle that occured recently in Strikeforce. Fujii’s ground game is second to none. She started learning Judo from her father at the age of 3, and has added jiu-jitsu, Sambo and catch wrestling to her ground attack. During the 2010 115 tournament, her striking became much improved, which she decided to use against Gurgel in the championship fight. Aguilar is a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, but she is also an accomplished striker. Both women have tried to stay busy fighting and both have not lost since their losses to Gurgel. Fujii has fought outside Bellator three times, all for shows in Japan. Aguilar was to fight Fujii’s protege Ayaka Hamasaki in Japan last year. But Japan suffered a major earthquake and tsunami while Jessica was there, and the event was canceled. She has since fought and won decisions over Carla Esparza and Lisa Ellis-Ward in Bellator and Patricia Vidonic last Febraury for Fight Time Promotions. She won via submission over Elsie Henri in November 2010 for G-Force fights.
Hopefully this week the buzz for this fight will start to grow. It is an exciting match up, and both women will be ready to give the fans a great fight. I would expect Megumi to try to take the fight to the ground, while Jessica would prefer to stand and throw punches. Aguilar (13-4) has lost only one fight by submission, and that was in her pro debut when she had only been training for a few months. Fujii (25-1) has only lost only to Gurgel and has 19 submission wins. The fight will air live on MTV2 on may 18th. The preliminary bouts are streamed live on Spike.com starting at 7P/EST and the main card goes live on MTV2 at 8P/EST. Check your local listings.
Sources:
Bellator
Sherdog
MMARising.com