RIZIN 26 full card announced with Horiguchi, Asakura, Tenshin and Minowaman

RIZIN FF’s yearly traditional of a stacked New Year’s Eve show continues this month, with RIZIN 26 set to go down at the fabled…

By: Tim Bissell | 2 years ago
RIZIN 26 full card announced with Horiguchi, Asakura, Tenshin and Minowaman
Bloody Elbow 2.0 | Anton Tabuena

RIZIN FF’s yearly traditional of a stacked New Year’s Eve show continues this month, with RIZIN 26 set to go down at the fabled Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.

Headlining the festivities will be a highly anticipated rematch between Kyoji Horiguchi and Kai Asakura.

The pair first fought last August, at RIZIN 18, and it was Asakura who came out on top, blitzing Horiguchi early and taking a KO win in just over a minute. That was a non-title fight, but Horiguchi would vacate both his RIZIN and Bellator bantamweight titles months later. He hasn’t fought since then.

Asakura followed up his win over the former UFC title challenger by breaking Ulka Sasaki’s jaw. After that win he was KO’d by recent UFC singing Manel Kape. Since then Asakura has looked unstoppable with three straight finishes, including two via soccer kicks, in 2020. He earned the RIZIN bantamweight title with a win over Hiromasa Ougikubo in August. He’ll defend that title against Horiguchi.

The co-main is a kickboxing bout featuring the immensely popular, and undefeated, Tenshin Nasukawa, who will look to add more clips to his already incredible highlight reel versus Kumandoi Phetjaroenvit. Bangkok’s Phetjaroenvit is a 2018 WBC Muay Thai world champion.

Also on the card former Invicta atomweight champion Ayaka Hamasaki will face Miyuu Yamamoto for the vacant RIZIN atomweight title.

The card also sees a return to action for the legendary Ikuhisa ‘Minowaman’ Minowa. The 44-year-old Minowaman is a veteran of PRIDE and K-1 and memorable battles versus Mirko Cro Cop, Phil Baroni, Kazushi Sakauraba, Wanderlei Silva and much of the who’s who of early 2000s Japanese MMA.

The 65-43-8 Minowaman will fight the 1-0 Tsuyoshi Sudario, a 23-year-old who finds his way to MMA via the sport of sumo.

Popular former UFC fighter Takanori Gomi will also be on the card in a “special standing bout rules” fight versus Koji Tanaka.

Full card (12:00AM ET, December 31st on live-now.com):

Bantamweight championship: Kai Asakura vs. Kyoji Horiguchi

Kickboxing: Tenshin Nasukawa vs. Kumandoi Phetjaroenvit

Catchweight (150 lbs): Mikuru Asakura vs. Satoshi Yamasu

Special rules bout “standing only”: Takanori Gomi vs. Koji Tanaka

Atomweight championship: Ayaka Hamasaki vs. Miyuu Yamamoto

Bantamweight: Yuki Motoyo vs. Naoki Inoue

Catchweight (148 lbs): Kyle Aguon vs. Kleber Koike

Catchweight (150 lbs): Kyohei Hagiwara vs. Ren Hiramoto

Bantamweight: Hideo Tokoro vs. Shinobu Ota

Kickboxing: Yoshinari Nadaka vs. Petmalai Phetjaroenvit

Bantamweight: Ulka Sasaki vs. Kenta Takizawa

Atomweight: Kanna Asakura vs. Ai Shimizu

Catchweight (139 lbs): Taiyo Nakahara vs. Kazuma Kuramoto

Heavyweight: Ikuhisa Minowa vs. Tsuyoshi Sudario

Strawweight: Sakura Mori vs. Eru Takebayashi

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Tim Bissell
Tim Bissell

Tim Bissell is a writer, editor and deputy site manager for Bloody Elbow. He has covered combat sports since 2015. Tim covers news and events and has also written longform and investigative pieces. Among Tim's specialties are the intersections between crime and combat sports. Tim has also covered head trauma, concussions and CTE in great detail.

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