Issue 070
December 2010
Japan’s Megumi ‘Mega Megu’ Fujii isn’t just rated the top female pound for pound – she’s the first ever fighter to rack up a 22-0 record. FO tracked her down in Tokyo.
Tokyo is even more humid than usual. It’s recorded as the warmest summer for years; a searing heat that stays in your skin for hours after you’ve escaped the sun. The city is everything you expect it to be: the clattering sounds and flashing lights of pachinko parlors, bustling yet cramped restaurants clustered under rumbling train tracks spewing steam into the night air and an incessant buzz of energy.
The inside of the Abe Ani Combat Club is no different. It’s in Omori, central Tokyo, and takes up a huge amount of sought-after real estate for a Tokyo mixed martial arts gym. Where most are a small single matted room, AACC has wrestling mats, a full-sized boxing ring and a rare feeling of spaciousness. To get to AACC, you need to mount a staircase in the open plan Gold’s Gym Omori, a sprawling, gleaming facility that caters to tanned and toned white-collar combatants.
Megumi Fujii is rapidly becoming considered as the greatest pound-for-pound female fighter walking the planet. The 36-year-old is the queen of the 115lb division, considered the most talent-rich in women’s MMA. At the time of going to press she claims a perfect 22 fights with 22 wins – the first professional to establish such a record. As FO went to press, her October 28th 2010 Bellator women’s 115lb title fight against Zoila Frausto was just announced. By the time you read this she could be 23-0 and champion.
A quick and powerful fighter with lightning fast takedowns and the ability to finish a fight in seconds with her arsenal of submissions, she stalks opponents across the ring with frightening efficiency: head down, eyes forward.
Right now, though, she’s waiting for the noise to die down so she can speak to Fighters Only. The kids’ grappling class at AACC is in full swing. From compact and cute elementary schoolers to gangly college students, each one pushes, pulls and sweats. Masatoshi Abe (younger brother of the owner and Megumi’s trainer, MMA veteran Hiroyuki Abe) guides them with a firm yet kindly burr. Several are tipped to be future wrestling Olympians, such is the reputation of the gym. When the class nears finish, the kids sit in a circle listening to their gurus. They receive advice on training, life, on discipline, and acknowledge each piece of wisdom with a resounding: “Hai!”
Megumi continues.
“Is that so? I had no idea. That’s really surprising. I’ll keep doing my best.”
Fighters Only just informed her that she currently has one of the longest winning streaks in MMA, and that she’s the first professional fighter to ever go 22 fights without a loss. In customary Japanese style, she responds with a stock phrase: “I’ll do my best,” and with a smile and a nod. What’s her secret? “There is no secret, really. I train hard, and I focus on one fight at a time.” In unruly gaijin style, FO pushes for an answer.
“I think it helps that I love what I do. I love mixed martial arts. Even training every day, I never get bored. And I want to achieve things that nobody else has done. Where everyone else will quit, I will never quit. That’s what makes me unique I think.”
Megumi is a mere 5’3” (159cm) tall with fanboy-pleasing looks. She arrived for the interview dressed in a loose, floral summer dress with neatly straightened hair. Her hobbies outside MMA are “playing with cats and enjoying nature”. And yet, she is one of the most fearsome and successful competitors – male or female – to ever step foot in ring or cage. She has left a trail of destructed limbs in the wake of her perfect record: tough Australian Serin Murray got her ankle broken by Megumi in 2006. Masako Yoshida suffered injury from a heel hook at the hands of Fujii in 2007. Most of her ten armbar victories have left opponents dealing with busted elbows. She holds notable wins over previously undefeated Brazilian jiu-jitsu expert Ana Michelle Tavares, and Japanese veteran Mika Nagano, who she triangle choked in 2007. Her weapon of choice though is an inazuma toe hold christened ‘The Megulock’.
In late 2009 she beat top-ranked Japanese fighter ‘Windy’ Tomomi Sunaba and caught the attention of Bellator, the relatively young but lauded American MMA promotion. It seems a long way to come from her birthplace in Okayama prefecture in southwest Japan. “My father was a judo player, and owned a judo dojo. Naturally, I started training there. At the start, there weren’t many girls. I trained with the boys; they would punch me and throw me around. I suppose you could say I was bullied there. Once I started to get good, though, it was fun. My father never saw it, and I never told him about it. Whenever they punched or threw me, it just motivated me more to throw them back,” she says, giggling.
Megumi soon supplemented her judo with sambo (a Russian grappling style) and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. She is a black belt in each. In competition she excelled in all of them, winning at home and abroad: she took the All Japan Sambo Championships nine times, second place at the Sambo World Championships five times, gold at the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Pan-American Games twice (2004 and 2006), and was the All-Japan Brazilian jiu-jitsu champion in 2002 and 2003.
After all that, she looked for another outlet, something into which she could put all of her energy, all of her experience. MMA provided it. “I’m not sure why I enjoy it so much. That’s something I still have to figure out for myself. There is something instinctive about it that I enjoy. If I am not training, I feel uncomfortable.”
Megumi’s MMA career has been nothing short of stellar. She debuted in leading Japanese women’s MMA promotion Smackgirl in 2004 (since renamed ‘Jewels’), submitting Yumi Matsumoto in 40 seconds with a rear naked choke. Unlike a number of Japanese fighters, whose win records are often padded out with relatively unknown domestic opponents, Megumi Fujii has fought fighters from MMA powerhouses Brazil and America, as well as Japan, and each one has fallen, usually to a submission. She’s famous for her foot-crushing toe hold, but seems happy to wreak disaster on any part of her opponent’s body. Her recent run through Bellator has brought her the international recognition she deserves.
This diminutive and polite woman, sitting hugging her knees and concentrating on our translator, has been a permanent fixture on the women’s MMA scene in Japan for the last six years, always fighting, always winning. Does she feel any affinity with the warrior caste of Japan’s past?
“I think samurai were very evolved, as humans. Their body and senses were strong. They made do without material possessions, but they were strong as human beings and as fighters. There is something about this samurai spirit that is in all Japanese, a connection between fighting and spirituality. We like to challenge ourselves to do difficult things, to endure. It’s how we live our lives.” Currently her challenge lies with her in-cage demeanor. “When I fight, it’s impossible to be completely calm, as when you are training. I want to be able to become objective, to have control over my emotions when I fight. It’s so difficult to do, but I want to pursue that objectivity.”
When the interview is over, she changes clothes and begins shadowboxing. Her movements are compact and strong, and she spends just as much time adjusting the stance of a schoolgirl practicing alongside her as she does her own.
“If I work hard, more fighters will be able to make a living from martial arts,” she comments with the dutiful civic nature instilled in the Japanese. The gym fills up with professional and amateur fighters, champions and beginners, and soon puddles of sweat stand out on the mats. If Japanese MMA is said to be struggling, the Japanese didn’t get the memo.
