A Hieroglyphic RIZIN 26 Preview
When a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
I’ve been pretty salty with RIZIN in recent months for numerous reasons you can read about in past posts, but I have to say they seem to be coming through on this NYE card. Though the name match-ups are not all that red hot (aside from the amazing main event of Kyoji Horiguchi vs. Kai Asakura we are all dying to see and an intriguing Tenshin Nasukawa fight), it should make for a fun day/night (or night/day) of fights.
Another big reason to be excited is, unlike the last few RIZIN events, it’s not fifty bucks! Woohoo! The funny thing is this event might actually be worth the premium price (definitely unlike RIZIN 24 and 25), but happily they have returned to the more reasonable 25-dollar price point (for foreign audiences).
They also brought back our stalwart English commentary team of Joe Ferraro and Frank Trigg, who I can honestly take or leave, but lots of people prefer having the English content. Now if RIZIN want to bring back the Pride team of Mauro Ranallo and Bas Rutten, I’m all in. That said, there are too damn many fights to preview at length and I’ve been busy with work and holiday stuff so here are some thematic/symbolic representations of how I see the fights going. I’ll also be doing a recap/diary of the event.
(I managed to write another slightly more studious preview post you can read here.)
Ulka Sasaki vs. Kenta Takizawa
Minowaman vs. Tsuyoshi Sudario
Kyohei Hagiwara vs. Ren Hiramoto
Yuki Motoya vs. Naoki Inoue
Kanna Asakura vs. Ai
Hideo Tokoro vs. Shinobu Ota
Taiyo Nakahara vs. Kazuma Kuramoto
Yoshinari Nadaka vs. Pet Marai Pet Jarun Wit
Kyle Agwon vs. Kleber Koike
Mikuru Asakura vs. Satoshi Yamasu
Ayaka Hamasaki vs. Miyu Yamamoto
Kai Asakura vs. Kyoji Horiguchi
Some late additions:
Sakura vs. Eru Takebashi
Shibatar vs. X
Kouzi vs. Gomi (WTF???)
Tenshin Nasukawa vs. Kumandoi Phetjaroenvit
Enjoy the event. Catch you on the other side with a recap. ✌
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed the post please use the share button and pass it on to a likeminded friend or follow F.P. on Twitter and retweet there. Also please subscribe to the site. It’s free and gives me an idea of who’s reading and what they are interested in. Lastly, if you’re feeling up to it, you can buy me a slice. Thanks much and see you next time on Fight Pizza.