Sugiyama Defeated Again: Back to the Drawing Board

This pancake spent too much time on the pan, but here are the results of Shizuka Sugiyama’s most recent fight at the March 19th Jewels 7th Ring event. Sadly, due to our unfortunate inability to watch the fight on TV or find video of it, we turn to MMARising.com with this analysis:

Miki Morifuji vs Shizuka Sugiyama

In other featured action, Miki Morifuji defeated Shizuka Sugiyama by Unanimous Decision after two 5:00 rounds. Morifuji improves to 9-6-0 with the win.

Sugiyama had little interest in standing with Morifuji and pulled guard early in the opening round. She attempted submissions from her back, but Morifuji remained calm and scored with punches to the body. Morifuji nearly passed to mount, but Sugiyama scrambled and regained guard. The close first round came to an end with neither fighter holding a significant advantage.

Once again, Sugiyama tried to take the fight to the mat in round two, but Morifuji reversed her takedowns. The fight returned to the feet and Morifuji picked Sugiyama apart with crisp punches. Sugiyama secured a clinch and landed knees to the body, but it was not enough to steal back the fight. Sugiyama, touted as the future of Jewels, has dropped two of her last three fights, but is still young and has time to continue her improvement.

Sugiyama seems to have been beaten again as a result of getting picked apart standing up. What would be interesting to see is if her stand up, and especially her head movement, improved since her loss against  Alexandra Sanchez.

Sugiyama continues to try and take the fight to the ground due to her seeming disadvantage standing, which perplexes me considering she’s supposed to be a karate fighter. Then again, it’s Zendokai Karate which is a type of Karate/Judo/Shooto hybrid.

Sugi needs to improve her stand up and not rely on her guard game to try and get a submission off her back, especially when she’s going against stronger opponents. If you can’t finish people off your back without ground and pound to the face, what do you do when punches or elbows are allowed with gloves smaller then the large puffy Jewels ones?

Also, she  might think about spending time being more of a boxer than kickboxer when it comes to her stand up. I don’t think we’ve seen her slip punches, just block them. It is defiantly easier said than done, but it’s an amazing skill to have.  I also think spending more time working on a good high guard and getting some more traditional wrestling to help get those difficult take downs would also go a long way.

That’s my rational opinion. My irrational one states that Sugiyama lost again because she had corn rows, and we all know its all about the hair. Miki’s hair was out of control in the later part of the fight, and as you can see it changed everything.

See more pics from the fight courtesy Sherdog after the jump. Read more »