Mikuru Asakura Outpoints Juntaro Ushiku in Rizin Landmark Vol. 5 Headliner

By Martial Arts Videos April 29, 2023
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The caged environment seems to suit Mikuru
Asakura just fine.

Asakura captured a unanimous decision against Juntaro
Ushiku in the Rizin
Landmark Vol. 5 featherweight headliner at Yoyogi National
Gymnasium in Tokyo on Saturday. While Rizin typically holds its
events in a ring, its Landmark series takes place in a cage.

Former Rings two-division champion Asakura (17-3, 1 NC; 11-2 Rizin)
fired the most powerful shots in the opening round, mixing punches
and kicks. In turn, Ushiku (20-8, 2-2 Rizin) looked to grapple
against the fence, pulling guard once he felt comfortable. Asakura
couldn’t do much damage due Ushiku’s strenuous guard, forcing the
referee to stand them once the action stalled. The pace stayed the
same in the second frame, where Ushiku pulled guard again after
Asakura had some success with his body punches. The pair spent most
of the second frame on the mat before they were made to stand for
lack of action. In the third stanza, Ushiku pulled guard and held
his opponent close, while Asakura occasionally found openings to
land ground-and-pound. Ultimately, Asakura upended Ushiku on all
scorecards and took home a unanimous decision.

In the co-feature, former 145-pound champion Yutaka
Saito did enough to outpoint Ren
Hiramoto. Saito (21-7-2, 4-3 Rizin) relied on his wrestling and
pushed the action against the fence early in the opening frame,
hitting his foe with knees to the body. Hiramoto (2-3, 2-3 Rizin)
resisted his foe’s attempts to take him down and scored with some
dirty boxing. In Round 2, Saito’s attempts to move the action to
the floor were unsuccessful, with Hiramoto bouncing back from every
takedown attempt and controlling the distance with body and head
kicks. Overall, Saito was the one who took the initiative more
often, even though Hiramoto kept the fight on the feet and attacked
with some timid punches from afar. When the relatively uneventful
fight went the distance, the cage announcer revealed Saito edged
Hiramoto via split decision. Judges Takashi Hashimoto and Tomoki
Matsumiya saw it in favor of Saito, while Masato Kataoka was the
dissenter with the scorecard for Hiramoto.

Elsewhere, Shinobu Ota
(3-2, 3-2 Rizin) wobbled Kazuma
Kuramoto (9-4, 3-4 Rizin) with a punch followed by a soccer
kick 27 seconds out of the gate in their 135-pound affair; Luiz
Gustavo (13-2, 4-3 Rizin) edged Koji Takeda
(15-6, 5-6 Rizin) via split decision at lightweight, with Takaya
Ishikawa being the dissenting judge; Kanna
Asakura (20-7, 13-6 Rizin) cruised past One Championship alum
Mei
Yamaguchi (21-15-1, 0-1 Rizin) to score a unanimous decision
victory at super atomweight; Claire
Lopez (8-4, 1-0 Rizin) upset Rena Kubota
(13-5, 12-4 Rizin) thanks to a remarkable kneebar submission at
4:21 into Round 3 in their 113-pound catchweight bout; former
heavyweight professional sumo wrestler Tsuyoshi
Kamiyama (7-2, 7-2 Rizin) manhandled Roque
Martinez (16-9-2, 3-3 Rizin) for three rounds before the judges
rewarded him with a unanimous decision; Masanori
Kanehara (28-12-5, 3-1 Rizin) outpointed Sora
Yamamoto (12-7, 3-3 Rizin) en route to a unanimous decision
victory in their 145-pound clash; and lightweight Ali
Abdulkhalikov (12-2, 1-1 Rizin) crushed Tatsuya
Saika (9-4, 0-2 Rizin) with punches at the 3:30 mark of Round
1.

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