By:  | October 2, 2023 9:38 am

Alan Yamaniha scored a unanimous decision victory against Hideo Tokoro at Rizin Landmark 6 in Nagoya. The Brazilian was fighting for the first time this year and made it back to back wins, moving a step closer to title contention in the bantamweight division.

His last outing came in November last year where he got the nod from the judges against Yasuhiro Kawamura at Rizin Landmark 4.

Hideo Tokoro has been competing in the sport for more than two decades. The 46 year old arrived on a two-fight skid having been knocked out by John Dodson at Rizin 40.

Tokoro look sharped initially, feinting with the jab while moving gracefully and showing good footwork to avoid the clinches of the BJJ black belt. Yamaniha landed a right low kick followed by a left body kick but ate a jab.

Top position

But Tokoro lunged forwards while trying to land a left hand and Yamaniha ducked under to secure a body lock and take him down. He landed in half guard but the Japanese veteran was able to reverse the position almost immediately.

Tokoro seemed happy to work from top position and  even after standing up he elected to try and land stomps rather than allow Yamaniha to stand up. He tried to transition immediately from a stomp to a leg lock attack but only succeeded in giving up his back.

A round which had started so well for Tokoro ended with him fighting off submission attempts with Yamaniha on his back. The second round started badly too with the Brazilian landing some solid body kicks and punches before taking him down.

Yamaniha attacked with ground and pound but Tokoro weathered the storm. The Brazilian got to his feet but wasn’t attacking to the referee decided to stand them up.

Yamaniha landed some hard left hands to the body as Tokoro looked to counter with knees. They came together and a scramble ensued with the Japanese fighter finishing in top position.

Difficult decision

While Yamaniha fished for submissions from his back Tokoro was landing some sporadic ground and pound. With a minute remaining the Brazilian got to his feet, landed a knee from the clinch and then threw his opponent to the ground.

He landed some elbows at the end of the round and was dominating when the ball rang once again. It left Tokoro with a big job to do in the final five minutes but Yamaniha looked the fresher of the two fighters.

It took Tokoro less than ten seconds to give up his back in the final round during a clinch. Yamaniha secured a tight body triangle but the Japanese fighter reversed the position with four minutes remaining in the round.

With a minute remaining he tried to secure a head and arm choke. It looked tight but he decided to switch to a leg lock an almost gave his back up again in the process.

At the end of an afternoon that had featured several split decisions it appeared the fight could have gone either way. But all three judges scored it for Yamaniha who improves to 21-10-4 while Tokoro falls to 35-33-2.

Best of the rest

In the co-main event there was a split decision win for Shoko Sato. The ONE Championship veteran overcame Shinobu Ota in their bantamweight bout to take his record to 35-15-2 while his opponent slips to 4-3.

Rizin Landmark 6, Nagoya, October 1st
Alan Yamaniha def. Hideo Tokoro by Decision (Unanimous)
Shoko Sato def. Shinobu Ota by Decision (Split)
Tsuyoshi Sudario def. Dong Hwan Lim by TKO (Punches) at 2:10 of Round 3
Yuki Ito def. Topnoi Kiwram by Decision (Split)
Kickboxing: Genji Umeno def. Yuto Saito by Decision (Majority)
Yusaku Nakamura def. Hiroya by Decision (Split)
Igor Tanabe def. Animal Koji via Submission (Triangle choke ) at 3:40 of Round 1
Machi def. Ayaka Watanabe by Decision (Split)
Hidetaka Arato def. Takakenshin via TKO (Punches) at 4:55 of Round 2
Rogerio Bontorin def. Yutaro Muramoto by Decision (Unanimous)
Viktor Kolesnik def. Ryo Takagi by Decision (Unanimous)
Yusaku Inoue def. Kohei Tokeshi by TKO (Punches) at 1:11 of Round 1
Joji Goto def. Junya Hibino by Submission (Twister) at 2:00 of Round 2
Shogo Ota def. Ginji Hara by Submission (Arm-bar) at 1:52 of Round 1
Kickboxing: Genki Takeno def. Ryota Naito by Decision (Unanimous)
Ryuki Kirishima def. Masanari by Decision (Unanimous)