💥💥💥Notice💥💥💥
10th anniversary ⚡️
#RIZIN_DECADE
🥊 Announcement: Joint public training session 🥊
📆 Date: Saturday, December 14th, starting at 10pm (Central Time)
📍 Location: Somewhere in Tokyo
✅ Participating fighters:
👑Chihiro / 👑Satoshi / Motoya / Akimoto… pic.twitter.com/b2Cyvk2uhN
— RIZIN.tv (@RIZINTV_)
December 11, 2024
Rizin Fighting Federation has put together some interesting cards for New Year’s Eve.
RIZIN 49 “Decade” will be held at Saitama Super Arena near Tokyo on December 31st. The card is headlined by lightweight champion Roberto Satoshi de Sousa (17-3), who will face former featherweight champion Vougal Karamov (20-) for the belt. 5).
Souza is coming off back-to-back first-round knockout wins and is 3-2 in his last five fights, with both losses coming in promotional crossovers with Bellator stars AJ McKee and Patricki Freire. Meanwhile, Karamov lost his featherweight title by KO to Chihiro Suzuki at RIZIN Landmark Vol.2. Azerbaijan has been on a roll since stopping Kazumasa Majima in the first round last month.
Meanwhile, Ultimate Fighting Championship alum Kyoji Horiguchi (33-5) is set to defend his flyweight strap against Nkazimulo Zulu (16-6) in the co-main event. Horiguchi remains undefeated in his past five races, including second place.
Meanwhile, Zulu is a former EFC flyweight champion and training partner of UFC middleweight champion Drikas du Plessis at South Africa’s CIT Performance Institute. “King Shaka” has completed three consecutive fights, including a KO victory over Joe Arai with a spinning wheel kick in his Rizin FF debut in September.
Bantamweight veteran Yuki Motoya (36-11) will face undefeated prospect Kyoma Akimoto (7-0). Motoya has three wins and two losses in his last five fights, coming off consecutive submission wins. Meanwhile, 18-year-old Akimoto has won five of his seven career wins.
Rizin FF debutant Lucia Abdelgalim (2-3) will take on undefeated Japanese star Seika Izawa (14-0) in a women’s strawweight bout. The Argentine has lost three of his five career matches and has had two slumps. Izawa, on the other hand, has won eight of her 14 career wins, and just won a unanimous decision over Kanna Asakura in September.
Koji Takeda (16 wins, 7 losses) and Suguru Arai (17 wins, 10 losses) will face off in the flyweight division. Takeda is 1-4 in his last five fights, coming off a submission loss to Radjabari Shadulaev in June. Arai is coming off a five-game winning streak after suffering a submission loss against Kazumasa Majima.
Former K-1 kickboxing champion Taiga Kawabe will make his MMA debut against fellow debutant Genji Umeno. Kawabe aims to establish kickboxing against Umeno, one of the big names in the Japanese Muay Thai world.
