It’s official. Former Invicta FC champion and RIZIN FF standout Kanako Murata is a part of the UFC roster and has notched win No. 1 under her belt.
The now 12-1 Japanese wrestling champion made her first UFC appearance at UFC Vegas 14 on November 14 opposite Randa Markos. Originally, Murata was booked to square off against a fellow former Invicta titleholder in Livia Renata Souza. Unfortunately for Souza, she would suffer an injury that forced her out of the contest.
Murata was notified of the opponent change roughly three to four weeks out just as she arrived in California to finish up her fight camp before heading to Las Vegas. In preparation for the incoming Canadian Markos, the Combat Sports Academy (CSA) product watched all the footage that she could on the well-rounded veteran.
In the strawweight clash, Murata entered an MMA enclosure for the first time in one year and 13 days. While ring rust has shown its effects on many in the fight game, the Matsuyama, Ehime native was not one of them.
Overall, Murata would land four takedowns throughout the fight and outstrike Markos 79 to 37 according to UFC Stats. Scoring a unanimous decision win with 30-27s across the board, Murata’s current streak was extended to eight in a row.
With her wrestling as the big highlight of the performance as always, Murata also showed major improvements in her striking as well as ground and pound. It was about as complete of a performance as one could ask for in their UFC debut without getting a finish.
And because of that, the ultra-competitive Murata believes she could have done much better.
“I wanted to capitalize on the opportunities that I had,” Murata told MyMMANews. “I think there were some places where I could have finished the fight. And I look back and realize that I need to capitalize in those given opportunities.
“It wasn’t really me wanting to show off my striking skills. But since I’ve been sparring with the K1 champion, Kana [Morimoto] from Silver Wolf, I wanted to test how I could utilize her striking in MMA. So it was more me trying to figure things out in an actual fight than me trying to showcase my striking skills. I was trying to put things together in that fight.”
Continued: Kanako Murata hopes to follow similar path to Weili Zhang after UFC debut