12-Year-Old Fighter Chokes Out 24-Year-Old Opponent At Japanese MMA Event

Remember Momo, the 12-year-old who got booked for an MMA fight in Japan against an opponent twice her age? She choked out the 24-year-old in question in the first round.

The word out of Japan when Momo’s bout at Deep Jewels 16 with Momoku Yamasaki was announced was that Momo was perhaps more dangerous than she seemed because she trained at a highly respected Japanese gym. That said, she’s also a preteen, so it’s shocking that she got booked to fight a 24-year-old to begin with. The rules of the bout were tweaked to make it slightly more safe by banning strikes to the head of a grounded opponent and requiring participants to wear headgear, but it’s still a gross publicity stunt that put a middle-schooler’s developing brain on the line.

The fight went down this weekend in Tokyo and Momo destroyed Yamasaki. She took Yamasaki’s back within the first few seconds of the fight and finished her opponent in the first round with a rear naked choke.

Momo told Uproxx that she had been doing 18-hour training weeks in preparation for the bout. Hopefully she doesn’t have to do any more of those to get ready for any more 20-something opponents.