Rikuhei Fujii Claims King of Pancrase Crown

Filed under: News, JapanTOKYO — Pancrase’s penultimate event of the year at Differ Ariake on Sunday featured three title fights in which all participants had met in the ring before.

Light heavyweight King of Pancrase Ryo Kawamura made a small step to…

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TOKYO — Pancrase‘s penultimate event of the year at Differ Ariake on Sunday featured three title fights in which all participants had met in the ring before.

Light heavyweight King of Pancrase Ryo Kawamura made a small step towards redeeming himself from his embarrassing knockout loss to Yuji Sakuragi in September as he managed to fight to a tense majority draw in the rematch for the belt.

Yuki Kondo was looking for redemption as he dropped a unanimous decision to Wajutsu Keishukai RJW’s Rikuhei Fujii in Cage Force back in September, but it was spoiled as Fujii again outworked the 85-fight veteran on the feet and on the canvas to claim Kondo’s crown.

In the fight of the night, current flyweight King of Pancrase Kiyotaka Shimizu and former champ Mitsuhisa Sunabe fought to an entertaining split draw in their rubber match. Sunabe pushed the action early and scored well with strikes while Shimizu came home strong to even the score and retain his crown.