Roxanne Modafferi vs. Hitomi Akano Added to Sengoku Soul of Fight

Roxanne Modafferi

Roxanne Modafferi and Hitomi Akano have been added to Sengoku’s Dec. 30 Soul of Fight event at Airake Coliseum in Tokyo. Modafferi announced the fight on her Myspace blog on Thursday.

Each fighter is coming off of a loss, and each last fought for Strikeforce earlier this year.

Modafferi (15-6), in her last fight, failed to take the Strikeforce women’s welterweight title from Sarah Kaufmann in July. She earned that shot by defeating one of the sport’s top female competitors, Tara LaRosa, after also defeating Molly Helsel. Modafferi is 8-2 in her last 10 bouts; her only other loss being to current Strikeforce welterweight champion Marloes Coenen.

Akano (16-8) was last seen in Strikeforce’s 135-pound women’s tournament in August. She defeated Carina Damm in her opening bout that night, but lost to Meisha Tate in the tournament final, seeing a shot at the title fall to the wayside.

It’s interesting to note that Modafferi and Akano have trained at the same gym in Japan for the past couple of years, although Modafferi has sought other places to train since learning of the fight with Akano.

“Hitomi has been (at AACC) from day one. How many years ago? Ten? It’s gonna be strange being across the ring from her and my friends,” wrote Modafferi. “But I purposely have been keeping my distance because we might fight some day.

“But it’s my honor to fight her in a big show.  If we have to fight, I want it to be televised and hyped and shown to the world.  She said to me, ‘Let’s have a good fight!’ Let’s show Japan, and the world, our skill.”

Other bouts recently added to Soul of Fight include Maximo Blanco (7-2-1) vs. Won Sik Park (9-2-1) and Masanori Kanehara (15-7-5) vs. Yoshiro Maeda (27-9-2).