(Okay, so here’s my movie idea: A washed-up UFC heavyweight tries to make his way back into the big leagues by posing as a woman. Everything goes according to plan until he falls in love with a tough-talking ring girl played by Jennifer Lawrence. Working title: ‘Holy Crap, Gabi Garcia Is Enormous.’)
In what might be the first legitimate David vs. Goliath match in women’s MMA history*, nine-time jiu-jitsu world champion Gabi Garcia will make her MMA debut in an open-weight bout against bantamweight journeywoman Megumi Yabushita. The fight will take place at Real 1 (December 23rd at Tokyo’s Ariake Coliseum), which will be put on by Chinese promotion Real Fight Championship.
Garcia, who walks around well above 200 pounds, told Tatame that she plans to show up to the fight around 205. No matter what number she hits on the scale, she will dwarf Yabushita, a veteran Japanese jobber with a 19-22 record, who has lost to the likes of Rin Nakai, Sarah Kaufman, Shayna Baszler, Tara LaRosa, and Marloes Coenen. Yabushita is on a six-fight losing streak, hasn’t competed in 18 months, and hasn’t won a fight since April 2010. Basically, Gabi Garcia vs. Megumi Yabushita is the female equivalent of Bob Sapp vs Bobby Ologun.
In March of this year, it was revealed that Garcia failed a drug test for Clomiphene — the same estrogen blocker that Chael Sonnen tested positive for earlier this year — and was stripped of the medals she earned at the 2013 IBJJF World Championships. However, the United States Anti-Doping Agency ruled that Garcia “had not acted negligently and was not at fault for the positive test,” and did not suspend her.
Real 1 will also feature the MMA debut of Kron Gracie, who will compete in a 160-pound main event against an opponent to be named later. At this time, we can not confirm rumors that he will be fighting a nine-year-old child.
* UPDATE: We were wrong. Yabushita is no stranger to the female David vs. Goliath game. Check out her win over 330-pound Russian judoka Svetlana Goundarenko way back in December 2000: