By:  | June 14, 2022 10:31 am

Floyd Mayweather will fight Mikuru Asakura in September. The news was confirmed by Rizin just now at a press conference although the event does not have a date or a venue yet.

Asakura seems to have some sort of feud with Ren Hiramoto. But his next outing will be a foray into the world of exhibition boxing rather than an MMA fight.

The format of the fight has not been confirmed either although it will inevitably be an exhibition boxing match.

Easy money

In 2018 Mayweather appeared at Rizin 18. He took on Tenshin in an exhibition boxing match which made headlines all over the world but lasted less than three minutes.

Mayweather, who recently announced he would be fighting for Rizin again this year, destroyed the overmatched Tenshin, who was competing in boxing for the first time. The American seems to have enjoyed the experience as he has taken part in two more exhibition bouts since then.

Mayweather is reported to have earned $9 million USD for that performance, making it the easiest pay day of his illustrious career.  The timing of the news will raise eyebrows with Tenshin Nasukawa set to take on Takeru in an eagerly anticipated kickboxing match on Sunday.

That event is being co-promoted by Rizin whose president, Nobuyuki Sakakibara, was recently forced to call a press conference to deny allegations that he was involved with the Yakuza. He didn’t have to deal with any difficult questions today as the Mayweather fight was officially confirmed.

Turbulent times

These are turbulent times for Rizin. On the one hand the Japanese promotion is putting on the biggest kickboxing bout of the year with Rise and K-1 this weekend.

Tickets for ‘The Match’ sold out in record time and there is sure to be a full house at the Tokyo Dome to see Tenshin take on Takeru this Sunday. The event looks sure to be extremely profitable even if there is no international broadcast and no domestic TV deal.

At a hastily arranged press conference last week Sakakibara acknowledged that Fuji TV would no longer be broadcasting the event and admitted it could be because of newspaper allegations surrounding his relationship with the yakuza. It will still be available on pay per view in Japan even if fans outside the country don’t have a way to watch.

It makes the timing of this news somewhat surprising. Rizin officials clearly decided that the announcement of a fight between Mayweather and Asakura could not wait until after Sunday’s big kickboxing bout.