Rizin Fighting Federation and Bellator MMA plan to pull out all the stops for their next head-to-head show.
At a joint press conference on Saturday morning, Rizin CEO Nobuyuki Sakakibara and his Bellator counterpart Scott Coker, along with a host of stars from their respective organizations, announced the date, location and partial lineup of their upcoming collaboration. The Bellator vs. Ryzen 2 match will take place on July 30th at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan. Like the first “Bellator vs. Rizin”, which took place on New Year’s Eve in Saitama, the newly announced card will pit champions and top contenders from both promotions against each other, some in a Bellator cage under the Unified Rules of MMA and others in a boxing ring with Trademarks of Rizin, under the Rizin Rules. It should be noted that Rizin’s set of rules allow soccer strikes and steps to bound opponents, while elbow strikes are prohibited.
Among the bouts announced on Saturday is former Bellator featherweight champ AJ Mackie versus Patricky “Pitbull” Freire in the final quarter-final of the Bellator lightweight division. A bout between former bantamweight champions, Rizin’s Kai Asakura and Bellator’s Juan Archuleta, was also announced under Rizin’s rules, as well as a featherweight bout featuring Mikuru Asakura and Azebaijan’s Vugar Karamov. Rizin’s part of the card will headline the flyweight title fight between Kyoji Horiguchi and Makoto Takahashi. Tofik Musayev and Kana Watanabe have also been linked to the event, as the opponents have yet to finish as of this writing.
Bellator vs. A boxing exhibition against Mikuru Asakura, along with an MMA card stacked with many of Rizin’s best fighters. In addition to the matches announced on Saturday, Sakakibara stated that the card should contain six Bellator fights and up to nine Rizin matches.