Rizin Fighting Federation and Bellator MMA plan to tug out all of the stops for his or her
upcoming head-to-head showcase.
In a joint press convention Saturday morning, Rizin CEO Nobuyuki
Sakakibara and his Bellator counterpart Scott Coker, alongside a
assortment of stars from their respective organizations, introduced
the date, location and a partial lineup for his or her subsequent
collaboration. Bellator vs. Rizin 2 shall be
held on July 30 at Saitama Tremendous Area in Saitama, Japan. Just like the
first “Bellator vs. Rizin,” which happened on New 12 months’s Eve in
Saitama, the newly introduced card will pit champions and high
contenders from each promotions in opposition to each other, some within the
Bellator cage beneath the Unified Guidelines of MMA and a few in Rizin’s
trademark boxing-style ring, beneath Rizin guidelines. Notably, Rizin’s
rule set permits soccer kicks and stomps to grounded opponents,
whereas prohibiting elbow strikes.
Among the many matchups introduced on Saturday have been former Bellator
featherweight champ A.J. McKee vs.
Patricky
“Pitbull” Freire within the final quarterfinal of Bellator’s
light-weight grand prix. A matchup of former bantamweight champions,
Kai
Asakura of Rizin and Bellator’s Juan
Archuleta, beneath Rizin guidelines was additionally introduced, in addition to a
featherweight bout that includes Mikuru
Asakura and Vugar
Karamov of Azebaijan. The Rizin portion of the cardboard shall be
topped by a flyweight title struggle between Kyoji
Horiguchi and Makoto
Takahashi. Tofiq
Musayev and Kana
Watanabe have been additionally hooked up to the occasion, with opponents not
but finalized as of this writing.
Bellator vs. Rizin 2 is the newest installment in a string of
co-promoted occasions stretching again to 2019. Additionally it is a
continuation of the “Tremendous Rizin” collection, which debuted final
September with Rizin 38, an occasion that featured Floyd
Mayweather in a boxing exhibition in opposition to Mikuru
Asakura, alongside an MMA card stacked with a lot of Rizin’s high
fighters. Along with the matchups introduced on Saturday,
Sakakibara said that the cardboard ought to include six Bellator fights
and as many as 9 Rizin bouts.
