RIZIN has put a new plan in motion for its return to the iconic Tokyo Dome.
After losing out on a rematch between fan-favorites Ren Hiramoto and Mikuru Asakura—cancelled due to an arm injury on Hiramoto’s part—the promotion has since booked a featherweight title clash and given the card a new theme as they hope to fill the 55,000-capacity venue in roughly two months.
The event will no longer be called “THE MATCH 2,” a title which made the card focus heavily on the headlining contest and drew comparisons to their highly successful cross-promotional kickboxing card in 2022 headlined by Tenshin Nasukawa and Takeru Segawa.
RIZIN’s May 4th show will now be titled “Otoko Matsuri,” a callback to the Japanese name Pride FC used in the mid-2000s for their “Shockwave” cards. The change could potentially show a shift in focus for the event, promoting a super-show instead of a singular matchup that could pull viewers in.
The lineup has already started strong, as a fight between newly-crowned RIZIN Featherweight Champion Kleber Koike and undefeated contender Razhabali Shaydullaev was announced on Friday afternoon.
Koike was on the winning side of an instant-classic New Year’s Eve battle just a few months ago, competing in a back-and-forth battle against Chihiro Suzuki to regain the RIZIN Featherweight Championship.
The victory continued a strong run for Koike over the past year or so, previously also submitting former champs Yutaka Saito and Juan Archuleta. The wins put Koike back into the title mix, a conversation he left in 2023 after a weight miss forced him to vacate the division’s title.
He’ll now go up against Shaydullaev, one of the most impressive prospects to emerge in the promotion as of late. The Kyrgyzstan-based fighter debuted for RIZIN in June, submitting Koji Takeda in the first round via rear naked choke. He returned in the following months to also beat Archuleta and Yuta Kubo within the distance.
If successful in May, he’ll have earned a title less than a year into his time with RIZIN, completing a highly active 12-month stretch in his career.
While Asakura—a previously expected headliner for the card—is without an opponent, RIZIN remains confident that he’ll be in action on the show. It was also announced on Friday that Hiroya, a regional fighter who became popular through Asakura’s “Breaking Down” web series, will meet kickboxer Tatsuki Shinotsuka under kickboxing rules. The bout will be Shinotsuka’s MMA debut, riding the momentum of six consecutive wins in kickboxing.
RIZIN also plans to host the opening round of a tournament, although few details about such a bracket have been provided thus far.
The upcoming card will be RIZIN’s third time promoting a Tokyo Dome card. Their first trip, the only time they went there without any co-promotion partnerships, only drew a crowd of 9,000 in 2021 due to COVID-19 crowd restrictions.
The following year, an event in collaboration with K-1 and RISE Kickboxing attracted an attendance of 56,000, per reports.
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