Video: Rizin Fighting World Grand Prix preview

Bloody Elbow 2.0 | Anton Tabuena

The MMA is days away from a new Japanese MMA promotion’s inaugural show, as well as the long-awaited return of Russian heavyweight legend Fedor Emelianenko. The former Pride FC champion will headline the NYE show against Jaideep Singh following the completion of the Rizin Grand Prix tournament.

Check out the complete fight card(s) below:

Dec. 29 show

Grand Prix Round 1
Mohammad Lawal vs. Brett McDermott
Bruno Cappelozza vs. Teodoras Aukstuolis
Satoshi Ishii vs. Jiri Prochazka
Goran Reljic vs. Vadim Nemkov
Valentin Moldavsky vs. Yuta Uchida (Reserve fight)

Single Matches:
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Shinya Aoki
A.J. Mathhews vs. Anatoly Tokov
James Thompson vs. Tsuyoshi Kosaka
Hiroyuki Takaya vs. DJ Taiki

Mixed Rules
Kirill Sidelnikov vs. Carlos Toyota
Kazuyuki Miyata vs. Hinata Watanabe
Yuki Motoya vs. Felipe Efrain

K-1 Rules
Akiyo Nishiura vs. Hiroya Kawabe

Dec. 31 show

Fedor Emelianenko vs. Jaideep Singh
Grand Prix Tournament Final
Brennan Ward vs. Ken Hasegawa
Tournament Semi-final x 2

K-1 Rules
Yang Ming vs. Takeru
Kaido Höövelson vs. Jerome Le Banner

Shoot Boxing Rules
Bob Sapp vs. Akebono
Kron Gracie vs Asen Yamamoto
Gabi Garcia vs. Lei’d Tapa
RENA vs. Jleana Valentino
Yuichiro Nagashima vs. Andy Souwer

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About the author

Karim Zidan

Karim Zidan is a investigative reporter and feature writer focusing on the intersection of sports and politics. He has written for BloodyElbow since 2014 and has served as an associate editor since 2016. He also writes for The New York Times and The Guardian. Karim has been invited to speak about his work at numerous universities, including Princeton, and was a panelist at the South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival and the Oslo Freedom Forum. He also participated in the United Nations counter-terrorism conference in 2021. His reporting on Ramzan Kadyrov’s involvement in MMA, much of which was done for Bloody Elbow, has led to numerous award nominations, and was the basis of an award-winning HBO Real Sports documentary.