If you don’t know by now a new massive Japanese based MMA event called RIZIN Fighting Federation will be taking place at the end of the year. It is being spearheaded by Pride FC founder Nobuyuki Sakakibara.
RIZIN FF World Grand Prix will be held in the legendary Saitama Super Arena with 2 events over the course of 3 days between December 29th and December 31st and will feature a number of special fights as well as an 8 man tournament. The quarter-finals will be held on the 29th and then the semi-finals & final will be held on the 31st.
The unique thing about RIZIN FF is that it is not a promotion in the typical sense of the word itself. It is an event where promotions from around the world will send fighters to compete.
At the press conference last week representatives from various promotions around the world gathered at the official launch of RIZIN FF. David Green from BAMMA (UK), Donatas Simanaitas from Bushido (Lithuania), Wallid Ismail from Jungle Fights (Brazil), and Scott Coker from Bellator (USA) were all in attendance. Since then Martin Lewandowski from KSW (Poland) has met with Mr. Sakakibara and I expect more names and promotions to join that ever growing list.
From their website–
“It is said that there are over 1,000 fight promotions existing globally these days. RIZIN FF is the event where top competitors from these organizations will gather and compete to determine the best.”
As of October 17th there has been only been one fight officially announced: Shinya Aoki vs. Sakuraba for December 29th.
Other fighters signed to fight but are awaiting opponents are:
Fedor Emelianenko: one of the greatest fighters of all time.
Gabi Garcia: multiple ADCC and BJJ World Championship gold medallist.
Rena Kubota: popular Japanese fighter kickboxing and shoot-boxing.
Over the next few weeks we can expect the tournament to fill out & fights to be announced:
Website: www.rizinff.com
Twitter: @rizin_PR & @nobu_sakakibara
Facebook: RizinFightingFederation