Rizin only hosts three or four cards a year and yet Rizin 17 shapes up as the second Rizin card in a row to not carry much hype ahead of time. There aren’t many PRIDE legends around any more and perhaps tellingly one of the most reliable for Rizin, Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic recently had to retire due to a stroke. Kyoji Horiguchi has been the iron man of Rizin—no gimmicks, just Rizin’s genuine claimant for best fighter in the world at his weight—but he cannot keep up that schedule and is now locked into working dates with Bellator as their champion as well. Tenshin Nasukawa is also a reliable draw but he keeps a frantic schedule outside of Rizin.
So this card seems to signify the coming of a necessary transition period for Rizin. They have to prove that they can stand on their own feet as a fighting promotion and not live solely on the nostalgia for a fad which gripped Japan over a decade ago. DREAM did well on its old names, and had a great cast of new talent, but it ended up quietly petering out four years and twenty four events after it began. On December of this year, Rizin turns four years old and hits its twenty fourth event. To succeed where DREAM failed, they must be able to draw with their home-grown, current stars and this card is healthily stocked with them.
Yusuke Yachi vs Mikiru Asakura
It is a little surprising to see that Tapology ranks Yusuke Yachi as low as #198 lightweight in the world but that is more a testament to the depth of the lightweight shark tank than anything else. If you have seen him work you could comfortably envision Yachi surprising many of the elite among the lightweight division. A rangy striker with heavy hands, Yachi came up in the Krazy Bee gym and as such values big power and lead hooks. Just like Kid Yamamoto, Yachi is a right handed southpaw, putting his power hand out front and swinging it in from the side every time the opponent advances.
If you need a measuring stick for Yachi vs the world in terms of what Yachi can do note that he is one of only two men to have knocked out Daron Cruickshank. In a back and forth scrap, Yachi held his own on the feet with the awkward Cruickshank, but a beautifully timed check hook rotated all the way through left Cruickshank glassy eyed and face down over the bottom rope.
Being so influenced by Kid Yamamoto, Yachi’s problems are similar to Yamamoto’s: he is trigger happy with the right hook. Despite having the very slick Kotetsu Boku in his corner, Yachi doesn’t have a lot of looks or set ups. He doesn’t pursue quite as wildly as Kid used to, which is for the best because that got Kid knocked out horribly in his last K-1 match. What Yachi does instead is set up a long range, wait for his opponent to close the distance, and then use the short left straight to push the opponent’s head into place before swinging through the right hook with all his might. He often he ends up facing away from his opponent off the power of this hook. A punch so pure that Jack Dempsey would kneel in veneration, but with absolutely no defensive considerations. Luiz Gustavo—a Wanderlei Silva pupil—was able to run Yachi ragged by staying on top of him, punishing the missed counters and simply hurrying Yachi so that Yachi could not read and time him effectively.
Yachi’s opponent at Rizin 17 is Mikuru Asakura. The Asakura brothers are veterans of Road FC and only made the jump to Rizin in 2017, but they apparently already have a large following among Japanese fans and both run successful Youtube vlogs. Kai Asakura is perhaps the better known—he grabbed attention on the opening night of the Rizin bantamweight grand prix even though he was not a part of the tournament, and is now slated to fight Kyoji Horiguchi for the belt next month. My preference for Kai aside, Mikuru is a fun fighter to watch and is riding a five fight winning streak. In that time Mikuru Asakura starched the Shooto legend, Lion Takeshi and head kicked the one-time would-be Aldo killer, Hatsu Hioki.
As an aside, the Hioki fight was as fun as it was frustrating because Hioki looked very good, and then got knocked out anyway. That is the story of Hioki: he is technically proficient on the feet, phenomenal on the ground, and still somehow finds a way to get chinned.
Most recently, Asakura defeated Luiz Gustavo in a decent stand up scrap. If you wanted to liken Asakura’s style to someone familiar, Arnold Allen might make a decent comparison. He’s a long, tall southpaw and he does his hitting in bursts but keeps pressure up throughout a fight. He also loves to go to the body with the left hand in single shots and to kick the body in order to get the opponent’s hands and elbows dropping. Then he will turn over a high kick at regular intervals to keep the opponent honest and upright, or KO them outright as he did Hioki.
Odds and Sods
Another item of note on this card is Shintaro Ishiwatari vs Ulka Sasaki. Sasaki is coming off a a fairly decent UFC run and can act as a good measuring stick for the Rizin talent. In his last fight in the UFC flyweight division, Sasaki was submitted quickly by Alejandro Pantoja, but before that he was able to give Wilson Reis quite a handful while Reis was already supposed to be fighting for the title in Demetrious Johnson’s next defence.
Ishiwatari is returning from a lengthy lay off after being brutally stopped by Kyoji Horiguchi in the final of the Rizin bantamweight grand prix. In that fight, Ishiwatari was pretty much knocked out twice as the first time his head was out of the ring and the referee could not see him being viciously beaten on the other side of the ring post. This was just after Ishiwatari’s opponent in the semi-finals demonstrated once again how useless the ring is for MMA by simply sticking his head over the bottom rope to stop Ishiwatari from punching him in the head as Ishiwatari stood over him.
Ishiwatari is a decent all rounder who has developed a good striking game despite his judo roots. He won the Pancrase bantamweight title and split a pair of decent fights with WEC and UFC veteran, Jonathan Brookins. And being a Japanese southpaw he naturally gets a lot done with his lead right hook. This preview might be getting a bit one note, but for whatever reason Japanese fighters just love this strike!
There are only a few other notable bouts on the card. Yuki Motoya fights Hiromasa Ogikubo. Motoya went the distance with Horiguchi in 2017 and caught Justin Scoggins with a teepee choke from his guard in his last Rizin showing. Ogikubo went the distance with Horiguchi last year and is the reigning Shooto flyweight champion. Then Taiga is taking a kickboxing match with Hikaru Machida. Taiga is a very Muay Thai influenced Japanese kickboxer who had a good pair of scraps with Takeru back when he was under the K-1 banner, though he was stopped in his last Rizin appearance. Hikaru Machida can be summed up by this hilarious promo video he made for himself and his iaido inspired left hook which he draws from the hip. He’s odd, and a little bit corny, but he’s fun.
I’m not much geared up for the lightweight grand prix, Satoru Kitaoka is an established meme fighter, relying entirely on his grappling, and Tatsuya Kawajiri has been dragged back into action for what the Rizin representative on Reddit assures me is the honour of fighting in the lightweight grand prix and not simply because it lacks any star power. Though Roberto ‘Satoshi’ de Souza is well worth a watch—a world class jiu jitsu competitor who surprised in his last Rizin performance with surprisingly decent (or at least effective) striking.
Then there is Seo Hee Ham’s arrival in Rizin. After getting drubbed out of the UFC she went back to her actual weightclass of 105 pounds and has since become arguably the top atomweight in the world. Road FC put a belt on her and she stopped Jinh Yu Frey in the first round back in December of 2017, something that almost never happens at that weight. Ham’s opponent is the 12-9 Tomo Maesawa, coming off a loss and likely just there to warm ‘Hamderlei’ (and the Japanese fans) up for a fight with Rizin champion, Ayaku Hamasaki.
A final notable character turning up on the card is Ivan Shtyrkov. ‘The Ural Hulk’ has been dominating the Russian scene for some time and Tapology has him as number 1 at both light heavyweight and heavyweight on the Russian regional rankings. Shtyrkov got about as far as you can outside of the major organisations and ended up fighting Fabio Maldonado and Thiago Silva—two of the better names outside of the UFC but still far past their best. The Maldonado fight was underwhelming as Shtyrkov walked Maldonado down for the entire fight but won on a short takedown and a flurry of six inch punches into Maldonado’s glove on the ground.
The Silva fight showed more of what people like about The Ural Hulk as he took Silva down, pounded on him from closed guard, and then got more technical when Silva attacked with a smooth triangle attempt. As Shtyrkov scrambled out, Silva began coming up on almost a single leg mount escape and Shtyrkov snapped onto an armbar almost immediately to pick up the submission.
It is that mix of raw power and surprisingly crisp technique to surprise you that is a little reminiscent of Fedor Emelianenko. His swings on the feet are far clumsier and the strength of his record is nowhere close, but a failed drug test is all that kept Shtyrkov from making his UFC debut a few months back. He’s pretty legit and while he’s being fed some poor lad with a losing record, he’s an exciting acquisition for Rizin. Hell, anyone within Jiri’s weightclass has the potential to produce an exciting title fight.