Hot Fighter Alert: Mika Nagano
Props to Fightlinker for turning us on to Mika Nagano, a 4-2 veteran of the Smackgirl and Jewels promotions in Japan. The 25-year-old fighter was an amateur grappling champion before turning to MMA, and has won her last three fights by armbar. She’s also quite a looker, and used her natural charm to promote her last Jewels fight with a semi-n**e photo-shoot. Those pics (among many others) are after the jump; you can see a few more photos here and here.
Mika Nagano’s Career
Mika Nagano came to MMA from competitive grappling, and that background showed in her finishes: armbars were her signature, as her three-fight submission streak at the time of this post showed. She went on to a long career on Japan’s women’s circuit, competing for Jewels and its successor promotion Deep Jewels against many of the best Japanese and Asian fighters of the era.
Japan was one of the few places where women’s MMA had a regular home in the 2000s, and promotions like Smackgirl and Jewels developed a generation of fighters years before the UFC launched its first women’s division in 2013.