The UFC’s women’s straw weight division has brought a constant influx of new talent to the promotion. While featherweight and bantamweight struggle to find new top talent, strawweight has regularly found new fighters to feature. On the UFC’s upcoming trip to Saitama, Japan, they’ve picked up another new face in pro-wrestler and kickboxer Syuri Kondo. She’ll be facing recent acquisition Chan-Mi Jeon on the FXX prelim card.
Who is Syuri Kondo?
Syuri Kondo or, as she is more commonly known in the Japanese Professional Wrestling world, Syuri, has made a seamless transition from sports entertainment to real fighting. Syuri grew up a Karate practitioner and started her wrestling career under the ring name “Karate Girl”. However, she really made a name for herself wrestling in Smash, a Japanese promotion co-owned by “Mr. Pride” Akira Shoji. Alongside her wrestling career she compiled a Kickboxing and Shoot boxing record of 13-1, which has no doubt assisted her mma crossover.
All of Kondo’s fight’s have taken place in Pancrase, where in a little over a year she has racked up five wins and collected the strawweight Queen of Pancrase title. Syuri defeated multiple solid young fighters in Pancrase including RIZIN veteran Kanna Asakura, Nicolle Caliari who recently signed with Legacy FC and her title fight was against (9-3) Brazilian veteran Kinberly Novaes. Overall her competition’s combined record has been stellar at 23-9, which should make the talent level increase less drastic in her debut.
What you should expect?
Don’t be fooled by the professional wrestling background Syuri Kondo is a mixed martial artist through and through. In her five professional fights she has displayed all of the skills required of a top notch mma fighter. In the aforementioned five round title fight she maintained constant pressure on her challenger and was able to push a very high pace for the entire five rounds. Coming from a Karate and kick boxing background you would expect to see a fighter looking for a stand up battle. She does have a solid over hand right and an array of effective kicks, but she does much of her best work wearing down her opponents in the clinch. She has not had to fight on the ground much, but the short amount of time she has spent on the mat has been on top landing effective ground and pound. Overall her diverse combat sports upbringing will make her an interesting contender in a strawweight division that may be losing depth due to the advent of the women’s flyweight division.
What this means for her debut?
Syuri will meet South Korean Chan Mi Jeon in her octagon debut. Jeon lost her debut to J.J Aldrich in a exciting back and forth striking battle. The excitable 20 year old took the debut fight on two weeks notice, making it very likely we did not see the best version of the spunky prospect. Jeon is a Muay Thai fighter and will be eager to bring the fight to Syuri on the feet. Syuri has shown the maturity level and fight IQ of a veteran fighter and will be able to use her grappling savvy to drag her youthful opponent into deep waters. It might not be pretty but the Queen of Pancrase will get a decision victory in her debut.
Syuri in a grinding victory over tough Finnish fighter Minna Grussander:
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