Happy New Year. Please take care of me again this year.
That year-end greeting of "have a good year" is lovely, isn't it? It seems to carry a uniquely warm atmosphere, and I really like it.
Like last year, I went to the combat-sports event RIZIN 33 on New Year's Eve, so for the first post of the new year I am writing something like a match report.
If you are not into combat sports, it may be hard to picture.
In 2020 the pandemic hit harder than now, and for infection control every other seat was empty.
So for RIZIN 33 this time, roughly twice as many people were in the venue. It was packed.
My first live viewing was the year before last, so seeing that insane number of fans again made me feel how popular RIZIN really is.
Beyond longtime combat-sports fans, stars like the Asakura brothers and Tenshin Nasukawa have won huge audiences on YouTube and TV — and above all, it is producer Nobuyuki Sakakibara's achievement.
Right around New Year's I watched a YouTube video of the press conference from when Sakakibara launched RIZIN.
After the combat-sports boom faded, PRIDE was sold, and he stepped away from the industry — then he decided to build a promotion from zero again.
With his track record and network, only he could have done it; for Japanese combat sports and for fans, that is endlessly welcome.
It is a wonderful video — please watch at least the opening speech.
You can feel how serious he was about building a promotion again. From about the first three minutes of this video.
Early on they ran somewhat spectacle cards — Bob Sapp vs. Osunaarashi, Shinobu Kandori vs. Gabi Garcia, and so on (rude to call them that, but) — and leaned on faded PRIDE-era names.
Things are very different now. Homegrown RIZIN stars carry the shows — thank you, Sakakibara-sama.
Fans and fighters alike trust him. His press conferences are funny and full of humor.
He does not get talked about enough, but he is excellent at conferences and speeches — maybe top-level among Japanese speakers.
Including his leadership qualities, I think he deserves more attention.
Also, digression: every RIZIN hype video still gives me chills. Same with RIZIN CONFESSIONS on YouTube. Video producer Daisuke Sato is a master at stirring emotion.
Making videos like that must be so fun. Whether or not it is combat sports, it makes me want to get into video production.
I want to try that — pay someone good at it to teach me. Maybe in 2022.
Personally, if I could, I could also get deeper into video-ad work in my own scope — so if you know a good way to learn video editing and production, please tell me. (I am seriously thinking about learning...) Contact form here, just in case
Anyway — this RIZIN was fun as a baseline, but there were cards that made me go "hmm?", fight trajectories that felt off, and fighters I root for who lost — so compared with last New Year's Eve it was not that I was fully fired up.
I guess some fans who go every year felt the same. Still, maximum respect to every fighter who made New Year's Eve exciting.
As Shinya Aoki touched on in a note, there felt like many fights that "did not make sense as contests of winning and losing." Extremely put: fights that could have been there or not.
Well — compared with last year's main event, Horiguchi was there, so the comparison is unfair.
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RIZIN 33 match notes and impressions
Not a full report. I will mention fights that stuck with me or where I had something to say beyond the fight itself. The fights go up on YouTube anyway.
— Ota vs. Sone
Ota is exactly the kind of fighter RIZIN wants to grow as a homegrown product. He had basically dominated Kubo last time and dominated again. Looking smooth — but he has not beaten a "this is the one" opponent yet, so his true level and potential are still unclear.
On the women's side, someone like Miyu Yamamoto — if she piles up experience, will she crack the top of the division (bantamweight) within a few years? If he fought Tokoro, who beat him in his debut, who would win now?
In Tokoro's career, beating Royler Gracie of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu lit the fuse. So Ota also needs an impactful win over a real-level opponent soon.
Among others this card, if Veinot had beaten Takeda, that would have been a big career point.
— Shibatar vs. Kubo
Shibatar again this year — fun.
When you watch many fights live you get tired, so a bout like his lifts the room and acts like a reset.
The walkout music pumps you up too.
The flying armbar finish is great. Off the top of my head, only old Aoki comes to mind as someone finishing with a flying armbar.
I vaguely remember Shibatar doing flying armbars in Outsider too — and he felt like a real fighter, strength included.
Also, HIROYA in the corner is somehow nice. When HIROYA is smiling, I feel happy too.
Kubo is thinking about whether to continue after the loss — he has potential and a strong ability to put combat sports into words, so he has grown fast in MMA.
If this somehow broke his confidence in a weird way, the card may have been a huge failure.
For Kubo there was no career-positive outcome either way, so that is even sadder.
A few more fights followed, but nothing I specially want to comment on, so I will skip them.
— Hamasaki vs. Izawa, RENA vs. Park Si-woo
Hamasaki lost too. And Izawa, only in her second year of MMA, dominated.
Hamasaki's ground game is very high-level, but Izawa has almost no striking experience and basically has to win on the ground alone — nobody expected this trajectory.
Probably the biggest upset of this RIZIN (runner-up: Inoue vs. Ogikubo).
(Incidentally I had studied Izawa beforehand on the YouTube channel "MMA Commentary Channel / MMA", so I thought maybe, just maybe.
It is a personal channel, but the host knows combat sports and fighter info incredibly well, and the videos are carefully made — highly recommended. Under 20k subscribers for now, but quality is outstanding. Prepping for first-time RIZIN fighters on this channel has become my routine.)
Within RIZIN women's MMA, I think it was good that Hamasaki lost.
Even if she won, there was not much next — she had already fought most of the skilled opponents, so things felt dried up.
You can book overseas women, but fighters at her level do not come, and they go to the UFC or ONE anyway. In that sense I want Itsuki Hirata, active in ONE, to keep going — she is pulling Japanese women's combat sports on a different axis from RIZIN.
Age-wise, as Hamasaki herself said, becoming a wall for young fighters and accepting challenges and dominating is one path — but that also leaves women's MMA short on heat. Still, if she leaves, the overall level drops and popularity may drop further — a dilemma.
She stayed domestic to build Japanese women's combat sports, and after dominating she naturally hit this dilemma.
In that sense, in hindsight, her earlier loss to Ham Seo-hee hurt RIZIN.
That fight showed a kind of ceiling, and Ham went straight to ONE, so domestic women's MMA has been left half-digested.
Against that backdrop, Izawa winning felt like the women's MMA frame being rebuilt — a really good thing.
Also, hearing Izawa speak on the mic after the win for the first time — articulate, bright personality, a really good character.
RENA lost too. And when the card was made, people probably expected her to dominate, so it stung.
Park Si-woo is also a same-age striker, which makes it tougher.
In MMA, RENA's striking looks like it has lost its edge — she still seems more a shootboxing fighter than an MMA fighter.
The potential is clearly there, so maybe the development environment did not fit.
Still, she is a hard worker with star quality — ending here would be a waste, but she might quit.
— Yutaka Saito vs. Mikuru Asakura
I am a Saito fan, and this was my main event.
Asakura is also very appealing and I like him, but I love Saito's mentality and fight style, and I wanted Saito to win.
If he won I would have nothing to complain about and could cross the year happily — so it was crushing and I lost my voice.
It was not even a close loss; after taking damage in round 2 the flow was all Asakura, which hurt as a fan too.
The disappointment lingered, and I could not focus much on Souza vs. Yachi or Asakura vs. Ogikubo afterward.
Maybe 80% of the venue was cheering for Mikuru.
Between fights the whole place did Mikuru chants — I was struck again by how popular he is.
Saito came in on a bad run after a doctor-stop loss to Ushiku.
That loss was already a fight he should not have lost, and this time neither Saito nor Asakura could afford to lose.
Tension in the venue was very high; the majority Asakura fans put silent pressure on the Saito fans around me — a strange atmosphere.
Round 1, Saito earned points with his usual calm reads and took the round, I think — but from round 2 Asakura kept pushing without stalling, took risks, and took the flow. In a pure firefight Saito may be weaker.
— Roberto Satoshi Souza vs. Yachi
Satoshi had a title fight with Musaev in June 2021, and that story and finish were so beautiful that this one was never going to top it.
The gap was clear; it did not feel like it had narrowed much since their previous meeting. Even as the co-main it felt thin.
The fight was one-sided — maybe a bit better ground defense thanks to Aoki's coaching — and as expected Satoshi dominated.
At lightweight, with no foreign talent left, the depth is dried up, so even as a title fight it did not feel very meaningful.
In that sense, Satoshi deciding after the fight to go to Bellator (hard to catch the intent live in the venue, so I am not sure of the exact meaning) seems good for him.
He is clearly unmatched domestically — I want to see him overseas.
— Kai Asakura vs. Ogikubo, bantamweight tournament
Bottom line: Ogikubo was strong. That is it — but the whole bantamweight picture got harder afterward.
If either Kai or Inoue won, overseas challenges or a shot at Horiguchi (unrealistic, but) felt possible.
For better or worse, domestic turnover continues and the path ahead is foggy.
I watched thinking Kai would win — then Ogikubo steadily took control.
Still, after a previous total loss to Kai, winning when it counted is impressive.
That is it for the fights! This got insanely long and the ending got a bit sloppy.
— Complaint section (feel free to skip)
This is basically complaining. I am tired of writing fight notes, so just a short breather.
I wrote something similar last year, but RIZIN commentary is somehow odd.
For example — not that I heard much since it is not a TV broadcast — does Sho-ko Nakagawa need to be on commentary or as a ring announcer...(?)
Even the fighter intros have a quirky vibe that feels off, and I felt the same watching RIZIN's on-demand live stream before.
When the announcer tossed questions, instead of answering, she would read shallow fighter info she had researched — distracting.
You see people like that at work too — talking about what they want to say instead of what was asked. I just cannot like that kind of communication.
She likes combat sports and is trying her best, and fans and people around her probably rate her. She is not a bad person — it is a weird spinning-wheels situation.
On the other hand, RIZIN ambassador Kurumi is not a fighter but you strongly feel her interest in RIZIN and combat sports. She has a fan's eye and asks sharp questions — casting matters a lot.
(I just found Kurumi's YouTube channel. There is a video talking about RIZIN 33 that as a fan I agree with almost entirely. About 17 minutes. A token ambassador could not talk like that. Hats off.)
Also, RIZIN Girl Kawame, who appeared in a video chatting with Kyohei Hagiwara a while back, clearly cares about RIZIN and combat sports — I liked that. I have only seen her in that video, so I do not know what she is doing now.
Still, people who are both famous and can actually do it well are rare. Personally I think fans want this side more. Maybe we just have to wait for Kurumi and Kawame to grow into it...
Not only RIZIN — for fans who want to focus on the sport, anyone other than a pro commentator is better left out.
Someone like Masato in K-1, talking from a pro's eye, is genuinely fun to listen to — with or without him is a totally different experience (please keep him!). For RIZIN, former women's MMA PFP #1 Fuji Meg plays that role.
People who are neither pro commentators nor enjoying it from a fan's seat should stay on a secondary audio track at least.
From a marketing angle, how much impact does putting famous entertainers on really have for growing combat-sports interest?
Anyway — New Year's Eve had its ups and downs, but RIZIN 33 was the best. Respect to all the fighters.
A fighter's mentality is something noble, I think.
After RIZIN I drank in Ueno, ate soba, then visited Senso-ji for hatsumode and went home.
Finally — Shinya Aoki sensei's paid note on New Year's Eve RIZIN: if you are a RIZIN fan, please buy it.
(Needless to say, this is not an affiliate link.)
Incidentally this post took over two hours of rambling writing.
Let's work hard again this year.
© 2022 ZUUHE