Rizin put on two events in the space of a single day at the tail end of 2018. But fight fans will have to wait a bit longer for the next show as the Japanese promotion will take nearly four months off before returning on April 21st.
Rizin 15 is set for the Yokohama Arena. While last night’s exhibition between Floyd Mayweather and Tenshin Nasukawa turned out to be a horribly one sided mismatch the presence of the legendary boxer did wonders for ticket sales.
The attendance at Rizin 14 was reportedly 29,105 with a capacity crowd packed into the Saitama Super Arena. Rizin Heisei’s Last Yarennoka got underway very early in the morning in the same venue and still managed to attract an audience of 7,498 people.
Last night Kyoji Horiguchi became the inaugural Rizin bantamweight champion by beating Darrion Caldwell. But he is contractually bound to face the American in a Bellator rematch and that’s a fight which could happen before April.
Meanwhile Tenshin is booked to compete at Rise World Series on March 10th and was adamant he would be ready despite being knocked down three times by a much bigger opponent last night. The promotion has expressed an interest in matching Jiri Prochazka with heavyweight tournament winner Mirko Filipovic.
