Miyuu Yamamoto fights for the final time at Rizin 45. She has been competing in wrestling and MMA for nearly 40 years and will call the curtain on her career with a fight against Seika Izawa on New Year’s Eve.
Yamamoto won her first wrestling tournament in 1987. She was already in her 40s when she made her MMA debut and is a veteran of 13 Rizin fights.
Her father represented Japan in the 1972 Olympics while her brother, Kid Yamamoto, became a legend with Pride and K-1. She has been on the Rizin roster since 2016 and admits to having no idea what retirement will look like,
“I have no idea what’s going to happen. For now I’m focused on this fight, after that its up to me which doors to open.”
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New challenge
Her husband, Kyle Aguon, is also a mixed martial artist who fights for Rizin. She has three children and one of them, Ersen Yamamoto, is already a veteran of ten Rizin fights.
Yamamoto has been a mother for nearly three decades now but her children have never known her to do anything other than compete,
“I’ve been an athlete since they were born, they’ve never seen me not competing.”
Her and Aguon run a chain of coffee shops in Guam so Yamamoto does have business interests outside of fighting. But right now her focus is on what looks like a very difficult final match.
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Undefeated champion
Seika Izawa is not just 23 years younger than Yamamoto. She is the reigning, undefeated Rizin super atomweight champion and the best 108lber on the planet.
Her title won’t be on the line but Rizin could not have picked a more difficult match for Yamamoto. She will need to pull of a major upset if she wants to end her career with a win.
But Yamamoto knows she will have a long time to dwell on the result and has left nothing to chance with her preparation,
“I’m very excited for this fight. My preparation is the same as normal, I train each day so I don’t have any regrets.”
Yamamoto is a three times wrestling world champion who travelled all over the world to compete. She has been married four times and released her own nude photo album.
The 49 year old has certainly had an interesting life and it sounds like even she has no idea what will happen next,
“I’ve been all over the place, I still don’t understand my life. I just go with the flow.”
