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 »

Shizuka Sugiyama: All About the Hair

That’s right. It’s time for a look at one of our favorite MMA fighters, Shizuka Sugiyama! Specifically, as noted by the title, we’re going to look at the progression of Sugi’s hair over the past year.

As we’ve posted before, we’ve been cheering for her through all her matches as one of the Jewels promotion’s top competitors. Recently recognized for her fighting spirit, she always does her best and shows loads of heart in her fights.

So, why focus in on her hair of all things? Well, to put it simply, it’s cute! Also, it was actually one of the first things that kicked off our fandom back when she had her signature hair bun atop her head.

Still one of our favorite pictures of Sugi ever, I dare you not to smile as Sugi rejoices after finishing a rear naked choke. Too too cool:

While she kept the the bun for a while, by her third professional fight at Jewels Third Ring, she’d opted for a new ‘do.

Oh, and if you still have any doubt that hair is important to Sugi, here are two facts: 1) Her main sponsor is a hair removal machine and 2) Her only loss came the one and only time she has worn corn rows.

After the jump, check out our fairly comprehensive picture gallery illustrating the many faces, and varied hairstyles, of our beloved Sugi! ^_^

Read more »

Who Are You Cheering For???

When asked why you would support a sports team, many people would cite family tradition or location as big reasons. If you picked a team because they won all the time you would be a jerk, or worse a Yankees fan. Other times it’s some more intangible reason like team colors or attitude, like being a Raiders fan. When it comes to fighters, all of the above reasons also seem to hold true, but people are often more forgiving of a bandwagoner in MMA than in a team sport. Most of the time Favorite equals Greatest (Georges St. Pierre, Anderson Silva, BJ Penn, Megumi Fujii), and people too easily forget the glory days of a fighter after a tough loss, demand to see an endless string of victories, or come to believe some type of super human hype (Brock Lesnar) before they say they really like a new fighter.

I, on the other hand, find great joy in cheering for the underdog (Hitomi Akano vs Cyborg), the nerd (Roxanne Modafferi, Shinya Aoki), the crazy person (Jason Mayhem Miller), the quiet guy (Fedor), the heroic suffer (Yuki Nakai, Sakuraba vs Smirnovas, Galesic), or the unique stylist (Cung Le, Machida, Sakuraba). Often one fight will make me a die hard fan, add a cool back story, and I will be a fan forever (Hideo Tokoro).

So who am I cheering for? The previous names are all fighters I cheer for, but many of them are already pretty popular and they can all be considered great fighters. So the question is, who do I cheer for despite the fact they are not (YET) a great or very good fighter? Who do I, for some intangible reason, put my best wishes behind?

Answer: Shizuka Sugiyama!!!

Why am I cheering for this almost unknown female Japanese Zendokai Karateka MMA fighter, who supposedly was born in New York and likes rugby?

Is it simply because she’s cute? No.

Is it because she has a funny t-shirt or makes funny faces? Maybe.

Is it simply because her haircuts always seem to  grab my attention? Quite possibly, yes.

Or is it because she seems to have a lot of fun and is genuinely happy with life, especially when she wins ? Definitely, yes!

Pancake Landing will do its best to become the English language HQ for everything Sugiyama. In the meantime, check out more info about Sugi at her blog.