Rizin FF Releases Stacked Card for New Year’s Eve ‘Decade’ Event

Rizin Fighting Federation has put together an interesting card
for New Year’s Eve.

Rizin
49 “Decade” goes down at Saitama Super Arena near Tokyo on Dec.
31. The card will be headlined by lightweight champ Roberto
Satoshi de Souza (17-3) putting his belt on the line against
former featherweight champ Vugar
Karamov (20-5).

Souza is coming off back-to-back first round knockout wins and is
3-2 in his last five with both losses coming in promotional
crossovers with Bellator stars A.J. McKee and
Patricky
Freire. Meanwhile, Karamov lost his featherweight title via a
knockout against Chihiro
Suzuki at Rizin Landmark Vol. 7 in Novemeber 2023. The
Azerbaijani has since bounced back with a first-round stoppage over
Kazumasa
Majima last month.

Meanwhile,
Ultimate Fighting Championship alum Kyoji
Horiguchi (33-5) will defend his flyweight strap against
Nkazimulo
Zulu (16-6) in the co-main event. Horiguchi is undefeated in
his past five outings, which includes two finishes.

Meanwhile, Zulu is a former EFC flyweight champ and a training
partner of UFC middleweight champ Dricus Du
Plessis at the CIT Performance Institute in South Africa. “King
Shaka” is riding a three-fight finish streak, which includes a
spinning wheel kick knockout win over Jo Arai in his
Rizin FF debut in September.

Bantamweight veteran Yuki Motoya
(36-11) takes on undefeated prospect Kyoma
Akimoto (7-0). Motoya is 3-2 in his last five and coming of
consecutive submission wins. Meanwhile 18-year-old Akimoto has
finished five of his seven career wins.

Rizin FF debutant Lucia
Apdelgarim (2-3) will take on undefeated Japanese star Seika Izawa
(14-0) in a women’s strawweight bout. The Argentinian has dropped
three of her five career outings and is on a two-fight slump.
Meanwhile, Izawa has finished 8 of her 14 career wins and is fresh
off a unanimous decision win over Kanna
Asakura in September.

Koji
Takeda (16-7) and Suguru Nii
(17-10) will meet in a flyweight clash. Takeda is 1-4 in his last
five and coming off a submission loss against Rajabali
Shaidullaev in June. Nii is coming off a submission loss
against Kazumasa
Majima which saw a five-fight winning streak snapped.

Former K-1 kickboxing champ Taiga
Kawabe will make his MMA debut against fellow debutant Genji
Umeno. Kawabe will look to establish his kickboxing against
Umeno, who is one of the biggest names in Japanese muay thai.