MMA: YOUNG MAKES MMA RETURN TONIGHT

“The Striking Viking” Kaitlin Young returns to MMA after nearly four years away from the sport to battle colorful “King” Reina Miura tonight at RIZIN 12 in Nagoya, Japan. The showdown will be the ninth of twelve fights being streamed live at www.fite.tv with the card is set to begin at 1 AM Central Time. Minnesota Fight News will relay the fight stream here at our Facebook page shortly before her fight begins.

Young, now 32,  left MMA in 2014 to focus on Muay Thai where she won 11 of 12 fights. Many of those wins came by brutal strikes that resulted in bloody stoppages. Her opponent, 22-year-old King Reina was in grade school when Young flattened Miesha Tate (2007) to earn her most celebrated MMA win.

Mn Fight News caught up with Young at The Academy in Brooklyn Center last week to learn more about her opponent and the promotion she will be fighting for on Saturday night.

Sports in Japan put the importance of entertainment right up there with competition. You will be fighting for RIZIN Fighting. What can you tell us about Rizin?

YOUNG: I’m pretty excited to be fighting in Japan because I feel like it’s sort of a right of passage. Almost all of the great fighters had a time they spent in Japan at some point. Rizin is an organization that was founded by the same guy that started Pride. It is in a ring and we are allowed soccer kicks and knees to the head on the ground. We also get elbows. It’s kind of a strikers dream.

Have you signed a multi-fight deal or is this a one time deal?

YOUNG: We are going to be looking at this fight for now with an option to continue in the future.

You are returning to MMA after a few years of strictly Muay Thai. Could we see you compete in MMA locally?

YOUNG: Speaking frankly, muay thai doesn’t pay as well as MMA. So it’s easier to do it at a higher level on a local level. I think it would be harder to be matched locally but I’m not opposed to it.

You will be facing a fighter that goes by the name of “King” which tells us that she must be confident. What can you tell us about King Reina?

Her primary focus is Judo. To her credit, she did take a kickboxing fight this summer to sharpen up. She’s young though. She started fighting in 2015. She is young, aggressive, and confident which has the good and the bad that comes with it.  She’s mostly faced grapplers, not strikers. Her only loss is to Cindy Dondois who’s also a Judo black belt. Shayna (Baszler) fought her but it was weird because it was only a two-round deal. She’s had a lot of fights in a short amount of time. But it’s great because there’s a lot of tapes to watch.

Do you think she plans on standing and trading with you?

YOUNG: Honestly, I think she might think that is what she’s going to want to do. I think she’s going to learn pretty quickly that she doesn’t want to do that and she will try to take me down. That is what I anticipate happening.

It’s been a few years since you have competed in MMA. Has getting back into the grappling side of fighting been like riding a bike, where you don’t really forget? Or has it taken time to get back into it?

YOUNG: It’s funny, my grappling feels better than ever which is odd because I didn’t really do that for three years. I’m not sure if it’s a confidence thing or because I’ve done a lot of clinch, which is stand up grappling, except if you get relaxed, you get tossed. Maybe it’s a conditioning thing, I’m not sure. I’m not opposed to a ground fight but I prefer to hit people. Having trained with Kronphet (Phetrachapat), Thai style Muay Thai is much more similar to MMA and wrestling. So the jump back to jiu-jitsu isn’t that much. So yes, like riding a bike but partly because certain aspects of it were never not being practiced.

What would you like to say in closing?

First of all, I want to thank Kronphet for coming and training me for this one. He takes a lot of time out of his stuff to do it. Ryan Murray as always for helping me out. Matt Haffner for rolling with me a bunch. Brian Hollenbeck and Nick Thompson who have all been super helpful for coming up with a game plan and working on specific things. My sponsors Zebra Mats, Menacing Valor, East and West, Mr. Mouthguard, Cardinal Carpet Care.