Rizin FC, the new Japanese promotion from the former owner of PRIDE, makes it’s debut with two events in the space of three days starting on December 29th and you can check out the full fight cards for each below.
The highlight of the Tuesday card will be the opening round of the heavyweight grand-prix which features the likes of Muhammed ‘King Mo’ Lawal, Satoshi Ishii and Goran Reljic.
Also noteworthy on the first day of the event is the legendary Kazushi Sakuraba being wheeled out to face the far younger submission specialist Shinya Aoki.
Moving on to the New Years Eve card, we’ll witness the semi-final and final of the heavyweight GP, but the real star of the show is undoubtedly the return of Russian heavyweight star Fedor Emelianenko over three years since his last fight, taking on Jaideep Singh in the main event.
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December 29th:
Heavyweight Grand-Prix Grand Prix Round 1
Muhammad Lawal vs. Brett McDermott
Bruno Cappelozza vs. Teodoras Aukstuolis
Satoshi Ishii vs. Jiri Prochazka
Goran Reljic vs. Vadim Nemkov
Valentin Moldavsky vs. Yuta Uchida (Reserve fight)
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Shinya Aoki
A.J. Mathhews vs. Anatoly Tokov
James Thompson vs. Tsuyoshi Kosaka
Hiroyuki Takaya vs. DJ Taiki
(Mixed Rules)
Kirill Sidelnikov vs. Carlos Toyota
Kazuyuki Miyata vs. Hinata Watanabe
Yuki Motoya vs. Felipe Efrain
(K-1 Rules)
Akiyo Nishiura vs. Hiroya Kawabe
December 31st:
Fedor Emelianenko vs. Jaideep Singh
Grand Prix Tournament Final
Brennan Ward vs. Ken Hasegawa
Tournament Semi-final x 2
(K-1 Rules)
Yang Ming vs. Takeru
Kaido Höövelson vs. Jerome Le Banner
(Shoot Boxing Rules)
Bob Sapp vs. Akebono
Kron Gracie vs Asen Yamamoto
Gabi Garcia vs. Lei’d Tapa
RENA vs. Jleana Valentino
Yuichiro Nagashima vs. Andy Souwer
