Kanna tops V.V. Mei, Lopez submits Rena; Rizin Landmark 5 -

Landmark 5, Rizin’s biggest event of the year to date went down on Saturday at the Yayogi National Gymnasium, located in the heart of Tokyo just minutes away from Harajuku and the Meiji Shrine. In the main and co-main event, superstars Mikuru Asakura and Ren Hiromoto both competed and their presence was immediately apparent, with their presence creating an electric atmosphere from the opening ceremony.

While the card was stacked with popular fighters, this unfortunately did not translate into action. With only 9 fights on the card, 6 of them went to decision and the main and co-main were lackluster, with Ushiku strangely pulling guard numerous times just to stall on the ground and Ren and Saito seemingly too cautious to engage each other. The large number of decisions caused the pacing of the event to drag on, with the 9 fights taking place over nearly 6 hours. In fact, a large number of fans actually got up during the Mikuru fight and waited by the entrance to hear the decision before rushing out to go home.

While the card was generally lackluster, some of the fights did deliver. Olympic silver-medalist Ota made quick work of fellow wrestler Kuramoto, getting the KO in just 27 seconds, Kanehara put on a grappling clinic against Yamamoto, and Mei and Kanna engaged in some fun scrambles. In the other women’s bout, Claire Lopez also took the fight to Rena, winning with a rare knee-bar that a lot of the fans in attendance didn’t even see until it was shown on replay.

Following her win over Mei, Asakura told the press that she wanted to eat something good like a burger and then take some time off. Rena for her part had stated before the event that she wanted to fight in the cage and move up in weight in order to compete in Bellator in the future and the Rizin card in Hawaii. With this loss, it will be interesting to see how she decides to proceed.