Rizin 33 Reaction & Numbers -

On New Year’s Eve, Rizin celebrated their 7th anniversary in front of 22,449 people at the Saitama Super Arena. The first time a full capacity event has been held since Rizin 21 in February of 2020. One a card that saw most of their stars participate, fans got to witness prospects make their promotional debuts, an all time great be toppled, an unexpected conclusion to the grand prix, an engagement, and what would eventually devolve into allegations of fight fixing. Outside of the fights themselves, fans got to see Olympic Skateboarder, and friend of Tenshin Nasukawa, Yuto Horigome grind on a bar and crash into a stack of Yogibo chairs to open the show, as well as a video message from the legendary pro-wrestler Antonio Inoki. Several announcements were also made, including that Sudario’s twin brother and the son of the famed pro-wrestler and Shooto founder Satoru Sayama are all expected to make their MMA debuts soon. In the crowd, fighters, celebrities, and Youtubers were all in attendance to watch the end of the year show.

Ratings, highest NYE to date

New Year’s Eve is the biggest night for TV in Japan and as a result, people are always curious about the ratings. For Rizin, the scores were as follows:

7:00PM – 8:00PM: 5.5%
8:00PM – 11:00PM: 7.4%
11:00PM – 11:45PM: 4.3%

For comparison, past New Year’s Eves scored:

While an average score of 7.4% may not have broken the 10% goal Sakakibara had set for himself, it is the highest average score in Rizin’s history for a New Year’s Eve card. Even if it is only by 0.1%. With last year’s event scoring a 7.3%, it looks like the popular New Year’s Eve special, “Warrate Wa Ikkenai” not airing didn’t have a significant impact on the ratings, like Sakakibara had hoped. Despite not being as high as Rizin had hoped, a 7.4% is still good news as it further distances the promotion from the 5.2% they scored in 2019. This is also the first time the promotion has exceeded an average score over 7% two years in a row, so it will be interesting to see what kind of ratings they get in 2022.

Mikuru on the rise

2022 may be the year that Mikuru Asakura becomes the most popular combat sports athlete in Japan. Known throughout Japan for his highly successful Youtube channel, Mikuru hosted his own fight series on Youtube, had a street fighting PPV on Abema, headlined Rizin’s first Landmark show, whose servers crashed due to demand, and even designed and sold his own model homes. Furthermore, at Rizin 33, Mikuru got revenge against the popular Saito, hurting him badly and going on to win via decision. Throughout the fight, Mikuru clearly got the loudest reaction from the crowd, who chanted his name several times. With this win, it will be interesting to see if Rizin goes forward with their plans to hold a tournament next year or if they give the superstar an immediate title shot against Ushiku.

A look at Google Trends reveals some interesting data about Mikuru. While he is nowhere near as popular as an athlete like Shohei Ohtani (the most popular in Japan), it looks like he is in a position to overtake the popular Naoya Inoue and Tenshin Nasukawa. He already generates more searches on average, outside of occasional spikes and near the end of 2021, his spikes were nearing those of Naoya’s. His Youtube searches have been higher for longer, dating back to 2019, which makes sense considering he has more than a million more subscribers than Tenshin. Other evidence of his popularity can be seen in that of Rizin’s five most popular videos from 2021, Mikuru was featured in four of them.

Google Web Searches 2019-2021
Red: Naoya Inoue (Boxing)
Yellow: Tenshin Nasukawa (Kickboxing)
Blue: Mikuru Asakura (MMA)

Youtube Searches 2019-2021
Red: Naoya Inoue (Boxing)
Yellow: Tenshin Nasukawa (Kickboxing)
Blue: Mikuru Asakura (MMA)

Seika Izawa topples Ayaka Hamasaki

In what was clearly the biggest upset of the night, the now 25 year old Seika not only climbed to 5-0, she defeated Ayaka Hamasaki in a one-sided affair. As the only Japanese fighter to ever win a major North American title, Hamasaki has already cemented her legacy as one of the best Atomweights to ever compete, making Izawa’s victory all the more impressive, especially when you consider she has only been involved in MMA since the pandemic began, in 2020. Before the fight, Izawa had made it clear that she wants to fight in the UFC one day and it looks like that may become a possibility. Before then, she will likely rematch Hamasaki again, this time with the Rizin title on the line.

Seika Izawa TKO’s Ayaka Hamasaki in RD 2

Controversies

Clearly the biggest news to come out of Rizin 33 involves Shibatar and Kubo. Without going into too much detail, it is alleged by Kubo that Shibatar asked him to fix the fight out of a fear of being injured and told Kubo that Rizin was ok with this situation. As part of their agreement, they both agreed to take it easy in the opening round. However, after initially playing around, Shibatar hit Kubo with a hard punch, followed it up with some uppercuts and then landed a flying armbar, which caused Kubo’s corner to throw in the towel. Clearly upset about what happened, Kubo released a series of screenshots and audio recordings making their agreement public. In response to this, Shibatar said that it was all a ruse to get Kubo to lower his guard in the first round, so he could win, going as far to state that if he hadn’t done this he would’ve only had a 10% chance of beating the former champion. In his response to the incident, Sakakibara commented that there has never been a fixed fight in Rizin and now the promotion is looking to add a clause to their contracts that fighters cannot talk about how to fight in a fight with their opponent before a match. This will cover situations where a fighter tries to trick their opponent into thinking a match is fixed in the future.

The other controversy is on a much smaller scale. It is simply that some fans think that Si Woo Park purposefully headbutted Rena during their tightly contested bout. This in combination with the illegal kick in her Izawa match, the headbutt that broke Panchan Rina’s nose, and the referee’s warning in the match with Rena, has caused some to label her as a dirty fighter. She isn’t quite at the level of Kouzi, who once again headbutted his opponent, but it will be interesting to see what happens in her next fight.

Speaking of Panchan Rina, despite not fighting on this event, she has received a lot of negative attention recently. This attention seems to be a result of various statements made by Panchan that she isn’t interested in competing in MMA, including a tweet where she asked Si Woo Park to fight her in another kickboxing match. Si Woo Park declined the invite, stating that she’s a MMA fighter now, which led some fans to question why Panchan isn’t fighting in a kickboxing promotion, if she isn’t interested in MMA. As is often the case, this negative attention has turned ugly as some fans appear to be mocking her past as a model. Hopefully, this stops soon as it isn’t a good look for the fans, especially considering a young pro-wrestler killed herself in 2020 due to online bullying.

Ya-Man donates fight purse to children’s charity

On a more positive note, Ya-Man, who defeated Kouzi in an action packed slug-fest, donated his entire fight purse to the children’s charity “Peace Project.” A popular fighter from Rise, known for his aggressive punching heavy style, it is nice to see the 25 year old giving back. Raised by a single mother who worked hard to open her own bar, his father was imprisoned when he was a child and his father’s parents took the money meant for his child support and left, perhaps shedding some light onto why Ya-Man would be interested in helping a children’s charity.