Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano are the only women’s MMA pioneers according to the UFC’s thoroughly whitewashed history of MMA, but the sport has a much richer history than that. One of the earliest stars of women’s MMA is Hisae Watanabe. A workhorse for the now-defunct SmackGirl promotion (basically the Japanese equivalent of Invicta FC, except founded all the way back in 2001), she fought a whopping 25 times from 2002 to 2007.
Hisae is best remembered for her leopard-print outfit and legitimate one-shot knockout power. Photo by Susumu Nagao.
She would retired in 2007 at just 27 years old after a run in DEEP with a respectable record of 19-6…but surprised fans when she came back last night at WSOF GC: Japan 1. Also surprising? She faced a winless 16 year-old Korean by the name of Ye Ji Lee.
That’s Lee on the left of the creepy guy with the hat, getting towered over by the ROAD FC ring card girls.
As you probably guessed by the headline of this article, things went very poorly for Lee in this fight, as she was viciously defeated in second round by Watanabe. Now I’m not sure, but I imagine you’d like to see a video of this knockout. If so, we’ve got you covered. Go to the next page to check it out.
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