Pancrase 288: Miura vs. Abe - July 2 (OFFICIAL DISCUSSION)

PANCRASE 288
July 2, 2017
Differ Ariake Arena
Tokyo, Japan

Main Card:
Hiromitsu Miura (12-6)       vs.                        (3-0) Daiji Abe    
Main Event |  Title Fight | Welterweight | 170 lbs (77 kg)
Kazuki Tokudome (17-7)      vs.               (20-7) Kieran Joblin    
Co-Main Event | Lightweight | 155 lbs (70 kg)
Yuki Kondo (59-33)               vs.             (63-41) Minowaman    
Main Card | Middleweight | 185 lbs (84 kg)
Masakatsu Ueda (24-5)          vs.  (11-6) Toshinori Tsunemura    
Main Card | Bantamweight | 135 lbs (61 kg)
Issei Tamura (10-8)               vs.           (10-4) Yuki Nakahara    
Main Card | Flyweight | 125 lbs (57 kg)
Kanako Murata (4-1)              vs.                (4-2)  Claire Fryer    
Main Card | Female Strawweight | 115 lbs (52 kg)

Pancrase announced the welterweight title match between the champion Hiromitsu Miura and the challenger Daichi Abe on July 2nd.

WEC veteran is coming off from a win over Akihiro Murayama in October of last year. In this fight, Miura dominated Murayama with his boxing skill and won via unanimous decision.

Abe is a relative rookie with pro MMA record of 3-1 but in November of last year he also dominated a veteran Kenta Takagi with his striking and won via unanimous decision.

Also, A middleweight bout between Yuki Kondo and Minowa-man (a.k.a. Ikuhisa Minowa) is added to Pancrase 288.

These two met back in August 9th, 1997 at Umeda Stella Hall and Kondo won via toe hold.

Back then both Kondo and Minowa were just rookies. Kondo made a pro debut in 1996, and for Minowa, that was his fourth pro fight of his career.

And now, almost 20 years later, these two will fight again, this time in a three three-minute round bout.

Both of them are 41 years old and these two have combined pro fights of 210 fights, which is simply amazing.

In addition, a strawweight bout between Kanako Murata and Claire Fryer is also added to Pancrase 288.

Murata was supposed to fight Fryer at Pancrase 286 but she had to scratch because of the injury.