A bantamweight showdown pitting former featherweight champion
Juntaro
Ushiku against Olympic silver medalist Shinobu Ota
is one of seven new contests addded to the Rizin
Fighting Federation 46 card.
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The Japanese promotion recently announced the bouts. The other six
matchups are as follows: Taichi
Nakajima vs. Soo Chul
Kim at bantamweight; Makoto
Takahashi vs. Jung Hyun
Lee at flyweight; Kazuma
Kuramoto vs. Ji Yong
Yang at bantamweight; Yoshiki
Nakahara vs. Viktor
Kolesnik at featherweight; Sora Yamamto vs. Ilhom
Nazimov at featherweight and Ryo Takagi
vs. Taisei
Nishitani at featherweight.
Rizin 46 takes place on April 29 at Ariake Arena in Tokyo and is
headlined by a featherweight championship tilt between Chihiro
Suzuki and Masanori
Kanehara.
Ushiku snapped a two-fight skid in his last outing, when he took a
unanimous decision over Kyohei
Hagiwara at Rizin 44 this past September. The 29-year-old
American Top Team representative owns a 21-8 career mark that
includes stints in Deep and Pancrase.
Ota, who medaled in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 2016 Olympic
Games, has compiled a 5-3 mark while competing exclusively under
the Rizin banner. He is coming off a first-round knockout of
Ryusei
Ashizawa at Rizin 45 on New Year’s Eve.