Rizin Landmark Vol. 4; Takano returns -

This Sunday, Landmark 4 will take place at the Dolphins Arena in Nagoya, where kickboxer turned MMA fighter Ren Hiromoto will look to pick up his second win, this time against the former Deep Champion Dominator. While this event is technically a Landmark show, it is worth noting that it will be much more like a Trigger show, as it will feature 14 fights, take place in a cage, and will not be at the undisclosed location that the first 3 Landmarks were. Elsewhere on the card will be familiar fighters like Kuramoto, Imanari, Sudario’s brother Takakenshin, Kubo, and Yamaniha. At Super Atomweight, Satomi Takano and Laura Fontoura are set to face each other, with each looking to pick up their first promotional win.

From Judo to MMA to Rizin

Having made her debut in 2012, this upcoming bout will be Takano’s 30th professional fight, which is impressive, considering she’s only 32. Originally from Toyama, she first got involved in martial arts when she started competing in Judo at age 3. That eventually led her to Club Barbarian, where she started taking BJJ lessons to compliment her ground game. While there, she saw Miku Matsumoto and developed an interest in MMA. Since then, she’s won the Shooto Super Atomweight Championship and competed in nearly every promotion in the region. When we spoke to her last year, she mentioned that one of her goals is to fight abroad and represent Japan, meaning that Sunday’s match has added significance as a win over Fontoura could lead to these opportunities.

Nowadays, the Toyama-native trains under the watchful eyes of Kitaoka, learns striking from Rocky Kawamura, and studies BJJ at Carpe Diem with the likes of Aya Murakami. It’s worth noting that after her loss to Asakura, she went and trained at Team Oyama for a month in California.

Ahead of her fight with Fontoura, Takano commented, “Laura may be the type of fighter who almost beat Izawa with her strong grappling, but I’m going to make it an MAM fight and I’m absolutely going to win…[also] I’ve been competing in Nagoya since my amateur days so it makes me really happy that I have the chance to fight there, so I’m absolutely going to win!”