Rizin held their 6th New Years Eve event and it proved to be a successful one for the promotion. Rizin reached their highest New Years Eve TV ratings since 2015, crowned two world caliber champions, and debuted some new talent despite travel restrictions. In this article I will go over my thoughts of the event so please enjoy.
It is also worth noting that all of the fights are available on Youtube.
Opening Thoughts
Going to the event was a reminder that Rizin is currently the biggest combat promotion in Japan. Despite being reduced to 50% capacity, Saitama was filled with fight fans. From the second I stepped off the train, I realized that what seemed like everyone at the station was going to the arena. All I saw was a sea of Marrion, Inspirit, Lazy God, and Mobstyle shirts. All of the nearby restaurants were packed with people getting one last hot meal before the event started as the arena would not be selling food. It wasn’t only fight fans either, fighters were all around as well. Seika Izawa was talking to fans outside of a Chinese restaurant, Mizuki Furuse was studying at Starbucks, and perhaps easiest to spot was Hirota Itsuki with her purple hair, taking pictures with fans. One got the impression that every fight fan and fighter in the country was flocking to Saitama.
After a rough year, which included several event cancelations, Rizin was able to end the year on a high note and set the stage for a massive event at the Tokyo Dome in March. Sakakibara wants to put on a huge event before the Olympics and seems to be targeting Takeru vs Tenshin. It waits to be seen if this fight will actually materialize, but Sakakibara is probably attracted to the Dome as even if a 50% capacity restriction is in place, he will be able to sell more tickets.
Young Fighters
In the opening fight, which actually occurred before the event started, Sakura defeated Eru Takeyabashi by submission in the first round. The fight was ruled a no-contest because Sakura missed weight. This is fairly common practice in Japan, just look at Mizuki Inoue’s loss to Emi Tomimatsu. Despite missing weight, Sakura was able to highlight her grappling skills and will likely appear at another Rizin show. They appear to be following their Kanna blueprint and are highlighting the fact that Sakura is still in high school. At just 17 years old and her only loss coming to Deep Microweight Champion Oshima, it will be interesting to see what is next for her. My bet would be that she appears in the Deep Jewels Atomweight tournament then returns to Rizin if she wins.
While not as young as Sakura, the 23 year old Naoki Inoue made a big statement with his first round submission of Motoya. Before the fight, I had the chance to see Inoue train and based off of what I saw, I thought he was going to win, but I did not think he was going to blow Motoya out of the water. Before the fight, Inoue worked on his boxing, notably with one of Naoya Inoue’s trainers and it showed. Inoue’s striking looked lightning fast and Motoya looked like he was having problems with it. In an ending sequence very similar to his fight against Watanabe, Inoue defended a takedown, took Motoya’s back and submitted him with an RNC. On a humorous note, Rizin seems to be poking fun at Naoki as they billed him as the the guy who isn’t good on the mic and highlighted his shyness in the pre-fight video. It was fun to see the promotion get creative and Rizin continues to have some of the best pre-fight videos in MMA.
While Rizin seems to be putting Sakura on the Kanna Asakura track, it seems that they are putting Nadaka Yoshinari on the Tenshin track. The 19 year old Muay Thai fighter completely blew his Thai opponent out of the water and is perhaps due for a step up in competition. After his fight he eluded to his desire to fight Tenshin before he goes to boxing, but everyone is more interested in seeing Tenshin fight Takeru, so that fight isn’t likely to happen at the moment.
Finally, 23 year old former Rikishi Sudario moved to 2-0 after a somewhat sad fight against an aged Minowaman. Credit to Sudairo for making the most of the opportunity, but it would be nice to see him matched with a more appropriate opponent in his next fight. At 6″3 and 250 lbs, the large man has dropped a lot of his sumo weight and appears to be thriving under the tutelage of Enson Inoue. It will be fun to see who he is matched against next, but if COVID-19 restrictions stay in place, it may be hard for Rizin to find opponents within Japan.
Youtube
It would seem that 2020 was a breakout year for Youtubers globally, not just in Japan. Comedians and fighters have flocked to the platform during the pandemic and with the financial success of the Asakura brothers, it seems that even more fighters are flocking to the platform in an attempt to cash in as well. In addition to fighters, Rizin has also taken notice. Perhaps driven by a need to find alternative revenue streams after several events were canceled due to the pandemic, Sakakibara seems to have developed an interest in the platform and has started releasing prank videos on Rizin’s account, has appeared in popular Youtubers’ videos, and has started uploading fights to Youtube almost immediately after events.
In addition to using the platform more, in keeping with Sakakibara’s desire to put on some strange/fun fights, Shibatar fought Hiroya in a mixed rules match (think Aoki vs Jienotsu. In what can be described as a spectacle, Hiroya wasn’t revealed to be the opponent until the match happened. As I wrote above, Rizin seems keen to take advantage of the popularity of Youtubers and pulled out all the stops for this fight. Shibatar is a pro-wrestler with some MMA fights in his past and he is a very popular Youtuber in Japan. He also had exhibition matches with each of the Asakura brothers, with the match against Mikuru getting over 19 million views and the match with Kai getting close to 9.5 million.
If Shibatar’s Youtube following was not enough, he was accompanied to the ring by Hikaru, who has over 4 million subscribers, and Tenchim who has over 1.5 million. And to really drive the point home, Youtube was written in giant letters across Shibatar’s spats. Without going into details about the fight, which was very entertaining, it is worth noting that the fight received high ratings and so far has received the most views on Rizin’s Youtube channel, over 1 million views in less than a day. In addition to their own channel, Hikaru, Tenchim, and Shibatar have all also released videos about Rizin. For publicity and ratings purposes alone, having Shibatar on the event was a genius move by Rizin.
In a final side note, after the fight Hikaru gave Shibatar 10,000,000 Yen for winning the fight, close to 100,000 USD.
New Champions
Two former Rizin champions regained their championships. In the main event, Horiguchi made quick work of Kai as he seemed to hurt him badly with calf kicks, which seem to be a topic of hot discussion on Japanese twitter now. Both the fighters are big stars for the promotion and both have done their part to help carry the promotion at different times. Horiguchi has already expressed interest in fighting the current Bellator champion, a feeling which has been reciprocated. In addition, it is likely that this match will happen as Sakakibara probably feels like he owes Coker as Horiguchi was supposed to defend his Bellator title for them before he got injured. On a side note, it appears that a number of Asakura’s fans are upset that Horiguchi yelled “Easy fight” to Mike Brown after the fight, but they would probably be upset anyway.
In the other match, Ayaka Hamasaki once again became the Super Atomweight Champion, making easy work of former wrestling world champion Miyuu Yamamoto. Before the fight, in the pre-fight video footage Ayaka revealed that she had though about going to One FC just to fight Ham again but then decided against it. The inability to fight Ham again seems to have had an impact on her. It is hard to know how much prep Miyuu was able to do for the fight, she had recently finished a two week quarantine in Guam after returning from her honeymoon in New York then had to undergo another two week quarantine when she came to Japan. In addition, her knee was heavily taped and she reacted badly when it was kicked making me wonder if she had come into the fight with an injury. It didn’t really matter though as Ayaka used a double wrist lock, what appears to be her favorite submission, to reverse a takedown attempt and finish Miyuu with a leg scissor choke. Ayaka expects to fight Kanna next and that will likely be that match that is made.
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