Roughly a year after Mikuru Asakura fell to Floyd Mayweather in the 2nd round at Super Rizin 1, Vugar Karamov forced the popular Youtuber to tap out in the main event of Super Rizin 2 in front of 24,264 spectators. In doing so, Vugar was crowned the new Featherweight champion. Elsewhere on the card, Seika Izawa successfully defended her title for the first time, Juan Archuleta was crowned the new Bantamweight champion, and Chihiro Suzuki shocked everyone when he knocked out Bellator champion Patricio Pitbull in the 1st round.
Earlier in the day, Bellator also held a show where Patricky Pitbull finished Satoshi Souza in a fight that was put together last minute, Kyoji Horiguchi accidentally gauged Shinryu in the eye, forcing the bout to be called off, and Kana Watanabe struggled to use her wrestling or judo to get her opponent to the ground, leading to a hard fought decision victory.
It is also worth noting that Rizin announced their first international event. They will be going to Azerbaijan, the home of their new featherweight champion, on November 4th for Landmark 7, meaning it will be a cage show. After Sakakibara made this announcement, he was joined by Azerbaijani officials who also addressed the crowd. It was also announced that Hagiwara will face Ushiku in the main event of Rizin 44 on September 24th at the Saitama Super Arena.
Suzuki stuns crowd and media, KO’s Pitbull in 1st
On Sunday, former lightweight title challenger Chihiro Suzuki sent Bellator’s featherweight champion crashing to the canvas with an overhand right in one of the most surprising results in Rizin history. When the fight was announced just days ahead of the event, few gave Chihiro a chance, considering his relative lack of experience and the lower caliber of opponents he has faced when compared to Patricio. However, Chihiro did have one thing going into this fight, the great equalizer, knock out power, and unlike his last performance against Koike, he seemed content to throw caution to the win and move forward aggressively, throwing bombs from the get go.
This aggressive high-risk-high-reward approach to the fight paid off with what is easily the biggest win in the young fighter’s career. Not only did he become the first person to knock out Patricio, he completely stunned and drove all in attendance into a fervor with his victory. Even in the media room, where members of the press were interviewing Ota, people were stunned. No questions were asked, the room went quiet and Ota stood up to watch the replay on the T.V.
For a fighter who’s first brush with fame came as a result of his association with an alleged corrupt politician who misused Covid relief funds, Suzuki has had a hell of run in Rizin since losing to Shoji in his promotional debut. He’s now defeated a who’s who of big names in the promotion, names like Ren Hiromoto, Hagiwara, Imanari and now Patricio Pitbull.
Afterwards, Suzuki told the media that his mindset going into the match was “go for the win, while having the courage to lose.” He also added that before the match, Gomi came and embraced him giving him words of encouragement and that afterwards, he couldn’t tell for sure, but he thinks a teary-eyed Gomi came and congratulated him.
Izawa chokes Lopez unconscious, wants to fight again soon
Even though Claire Lopez said she was looking to knock her out and that all of the pressure was on Izawa, Seika seemed incredibly calm, collected, and confident going into Sunday. Even though she admitted that Lopez has a powerful punch and acknowledged that she was probably going to try to knock her out, these ideas didn’t seem to bother her. There was no nervousness in her voice, just a smile and the occasional laugh. Taking her last fight against Amp and this Sunday’s fight against Lopez into consideration, it really looks like Izawa is just having fun out there.
As for the fight itself, Lopez surprised Izawa a little by throwing a couple hard low kicks to start the fight, but Izawa shot for a takedown, got Lopez against the ropes and eventually to the ground. Once there, Izawa’s grappling skills shined through and as Lopez tried to get to her feet, she locked on a ninja choke that got the tap, but by the time the referee separated them Lopez was already out. All in all, it took the young champion a little more than a minute to dispatch the challenger. Afterwards, she’s made it clear that she’d like to fight 2 more times this year, so it will be interesting to see if her next fight is in Deep or RIzin.
Vugar big brothers Mikuru, crowned new champion
With Tenshin leaving kickboxing to make the move to boxing, there is no doubt that Mikuru Asakura is now the most popular and well-known fighter in Rizin. His Youtube channel alone has over 3.2 million subscribers and over 1.6 billion views. At this point in his career, it is probably safe to say that his Youtube fame has eclipsed his fighting fame, meaning that when he fights, he draws a lot of fans to the events that aren’t MMA fans. His popularity was ever present at the venue, as his goods were sold out, people in the restaurants near the venue were in his shirts, and people went nuts when he came out. The only other fighter in Rizin who gets similar treatment is Ren.
Going into the fight, Vugar was the favorite, but Mikuru and his fans were not prepared for what happened. Vugar completely dominated Asakura, taking him down, getting to mount with ease, landing some brutal elbows, then forcing him to tap after Mikuru gave up his back in an attempt to escape. Afterwards, when addressing the media, Mikuru commented that he was going to have to reflect on what had happened, he wasn’t able to do anything in the fight, and that this defeat was different than his other losses. Ahead of the fight he had flown the Pitbull brothers out to train with him, so it will be interesting to see if he mixes up his training again.
As for the new champion, he has looked very good since losing a split-decision to Saito back in 2021. He prepared for this bout at Fight Cliff in Florida with Musayev and it looks to have paid off. In the post-fight press conference he seemed excited for the November show in Azerbaijan, saying that it added to his motivation to win this fight. Even though nothing has been announced, he seems like a clear candidate, now that he is champion, to headline that card.
Watanabe earns hard fought decision in brawl with Arteaga
While the fans at the Super Arena were left disappointed when Shinryu couldn’t continue after the accidental eye-poke, they were able to see Kana Watanabe fight tooth-and-nail to get back in the win column, after coming off a close split-decision loss to Ilima-Lei in April. This was the former judoka’s first fight back in Japan since 2019.
During the bout, Watanabe repeatedly tried to get Arteaga to the ground, using a mixture of judo techniques and wrestling, but she was never really successful. This may be because Watanabe has been working on her wrestling and she appeared to be going for more doubles than trips or throws. Whatever the case, she wasn’t able to keep the fight on the mat and as a result, the fight turned into a kind of sloppy brawl with Watanabe being the aggressor, coming forward and trying to clinch or shoot for a takedown, while also throwing big punches. Arteaga for her part also threw a bunch of strikes, with most of them landing since Watanabe tends to keep her head sedentary. With this win, Watanabe made it clear that she wants a shot at the title and that the title is her goal.
Koike and Pitbull feud ringside and backstage
According to numerous sources and the fighters themselves, there was a scuffle between Kleber Koike and the Pitbull brothers. We are still figuring out what happened but here is the alleged timeline:
- December 31, 2022 – Patricio Pitbull defeated Kleber Koike at Bellator vs Rizin 1.
- Unknown – Pitbull brothers arrive in Japan to train with Mikuru, they hear Koike is badmouthing them on Youtube in Japanese.
- July 26, 2023 – Patricio Pitbull vs Chihiro Suzuki is announced, Koike tweets “????”, indicating that maybe he wanted the fight.
- July 30, 2023- Patricky defeats Satoshi, Koike’s friend, Patricio hugs a tearful Koike post-fight.
- Chihiro Suzuki KO’s Patricio, Koike is watching ringside and cheers.
- Patricky confronts Koike ringside about the the videos and appears to shove Kleber.
- Patricky confronts Satoshi backstage, Satoshi claims to have no idea what is going on.
- Satoshi takes Kleber to Pitbull locker room to apologize.
- Kleber allegedly kicks Patricky in the chest and a scuffle ensues, Patricio tries to get Kleber in a guillotine before they are separated.
- Pitbull brothers maintain they have no beef with Satoshi, who was respectful throughout.
- July 31, 2023 – Kota Ibushi tweets, indicating that he was somehow involved in the brawl.
- August 1, 2023 – Koike’s teammate Shrek tweets that Koike’s account of the locker room is different and will be cleared up.
Google Trends for Super Rizin 2
Super Rizin 2 Quick Results
- Vugar Karamov submitted Mikuru Asakura via RNC @ 2:41 of RD 1
- Juan Archuleta defeated Hiromasa Ougikubo via UD
- Seika Izawa submitted Claire Lopez via Ninja Choke @ 1:04 of RD 1
- Chihiro Suzuki KO’d Patricio Pitbull @ 2:32 of RD 1
- Tofiq Musayev KO’d Akira @ 1:11 of RD 2
- Shinobu Ota TKO’d Kenta Takizawa @ 4:54 of RD 1
- Igor Tanabe submitted Daichi Abe via Heel Hook @ 4:34 of RD 1
- Yuki Ito defeated Hiroya via SD
Bellator vs Rizin 2 Quick Results
- Patricky Pitbull TKO’d Roberto Satoshi de Souza @ 0:49 of RD 3
- Kyoji Horiguchi vs Makoto Shinryu ended in a No Contest
- Kana Watanabe defeated Veta via UD
- Magomed Magomedov submitted Danny Sabatello via Guillotine @ 3:55 of RD 1
- Andrey Koreshkov defeated Lorenz Larkin via SD
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