Kleber Koike Erbst Subs Chihiro Suzuki, Gets Stripped for Missing Weight at Rizin 43

The latest
Rizin Fighting Federation event was a festival of knockouts,
submissions and drama.

The Rizin
43 headliner saw Kleber
Koike Erbst face Chihiro
Suzuki in what should have been Erbst’s first attempt to defend
the featherweight championship. Unfortunately, the Brazilian missed
weight by .9 pounds the day before and was stripped of the title,
making Suzuki the only fighter eligible to win the crown. During
the fight, the Brazilian jiu-jitsu expert Erbst (31-6-1, 1NC; 6-1,
1 NC Rizin) dominated Suzuki (10-3, 1NC; 5-1, 1NC Rizin) from top
to bottom. After a minute of striking exchanges on the feet, Erbst
dragged his opponent on the mat and quickly gained the mount
position. Once there, Erbst landed sporadic punches while
threatening his foe with submission attempts. With precision and
methodology, the Brazilian set up an armbar that inevitably made
Suzuki tap at the 2:59 mark. Since Erbst missed weight, the clash
was ruled no contest in accordance with the promotion’s rules,
nullifying his dominant performance.

In the 155-pound co-main event, Yusuke
Yachi dismissed Bellator
MMA alum Zach Zane
with a first-round rear-naked choke finish. Zane (15-15, 0-2 Rizin)
was never a threat to Yachi (25-13, 10-7 Rizin), who quickly moved
the contest to the canvas and kept the action there every time his
prey attempted to bounce back on the feet. Yachi manhandled Zane en
route to gain control of his back, threw a few punches to ease the
hooks in, secured a tight body triangle and sunk in a tight
rear-naked choke. Zane tapped at 2:50 of the opening frame, taking
home his sixth consecutive loss. In victory, Yachi accumulated a
modest two-bout streak.

Elsewhere, heavyweight Mikio Ueda
(2-1, 1-1 Rizin) annihilated Hideki
Sekine (13-7, 2-3 Rizin) with a combination of knees and
punches, punctuated with a final head kick 22 seconds out of the
gate; Hiroaki
Suzuki (3-3, 3-3 Rizin) dispatched Taisei
Nishitani (6-6, 0-1 Rizin) with punches 56 seconds into their
featherweight tilt; and Hiroki Suzuki wrecked Genji Umeno with a
well-timed flying knee in the second period of their 138-pound
kickboxing clash.

Before the intermission, Minoru
Kimura clubbed Daryl Lokoku with a haymaker, knocking his
opponent out cold on the feet and faceplanting Lokoku in the
opening round of their 161-pound kickboxing bout; 145-pounder
Yuta
Kubo (2-1, 2-1 Rizin) edged Takeaki
Kinoshita (6-7-1, 0-1 Rizin) thanks to a narrow split decision;
Saori
Oshima (12-3, 3-0 Rizin) submitted Haruka
Hasegawa (3-3, 0-1 Rizin) with a scarf hold armlock at
strawweight at 1:16 of the first stanza; 145-pounder Suguru Nii
(12-9, 1-2 Rizin) defeated Tateo Iida
(13-7-2, 0-1 Rizin) via first-round knockout thanks to a series of
punches followed by a soccer kick at 2:32 of Round 1; Tetsuya
Seki (15-9-1, 3-2 Rizin) upended Kisugi Endo
(15-12-5, 0-1 Rizin) on all scorecards at featherweight; Joji Goto
(14-6, 1-0 Rizin) overcame Trent
Girdham (12-5, 0-3 Rizin) with a remarkable twister at 2:34
into the second period at bantamweight; 135-pounder Aoi
Kuriyama (5-5-1, 1-0 Rizin) wobbled Marina
Kumagai (3-5, 0-1 Rizin) with a left overhand to call a
knockout at 2:48 of Round 1; in a 127-pound kickboxing bout, Kensei
Yamakawa crushed Ryoga Hirano en route to a TKO victory due to the
three-knockdown rule in the second period; Toshiki
Watanabe (20-8-2, 1-0 Rizin) forced Kento Azumi
(2-2, 0-1 Rizin) to tap to a kneebar 67 seconds out of the gate at
lightweight; Suguru
Hayasaka (21-15-5, 1-0 Rizin) choked out Daiki
Maruyama (1-3, 0-1 Rizin) via arm-triangle choke at 3:33 of
Round 1 in their 121-pound catchweight.