Now, nearly three months after Ohtani and Yamamoto won their second straight World Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Hiruta has more hardware to go with her Ring and WBO 115-pound titles. Hiruta, who grew up in the same town as Yamamoto in Okayama, Japan, won The Ring’s 2025 Female Fighter of the Year. She was announced as the winner of the accolade at The Ring’s second annual awards gala on Friday at Cipriani’s in New York. “I admire them, but I cannot just admire them,“ Hiruta told The Ring via translator before her last fight. “I have to be like them. They showed that we can go there.” Hiruta (10-0, 2 KOs) was extremely active in 2025, as she went 4-0, with each win coming in dominant fashion. In her last title defense, she won every round on all three judges' scorecards against Gloria Gallardo on Nov. 22. In her previous title defense, she nearly did the same thing in a unanimous decision over Naomy Cardenas Gomez on Aug. 15, winning 100-90 on judges Carla Caiz's and Lou Moret’s scorecards. The third judge, Jack Reiss, had it 98-92. Hiruta, 29, also had one-sided unanimous decisions over Carla Merino on May 17 and Maribel Ramirez on Jan. 17, 2025. "I have a lot of room to improve still, and I'm not satisfied yet, not at all,” Hiruta told The Ring before her title defense versus Gomez. "I don't think I'm recognized very well, and then to have that, I have to unify titles and also move up the divisions, so that way I can be a superstar. I want to be a superstar." The other finalists for female fighter of the year (alphabetically):