Summary: New Years MMA Recap Rizin 14 and ONE Championship - Asian MMA Podcast Episode 12 This episode is brought to you by New Year's resolutions you have no intention of keeping. I am sure a lot of you know that New Year MMA is a sort of tradition in Asia going back to the Pride days, and it seems that RIzin has picked up that mantle. And while we didn’t have any fight action from ONE Championship we did get some interesting news from them that we’ll get into a bit later. First things first we have to talk about Rizin 14 and Floyd Mayweather and his “fight”, or as I have taken to calling it, drive by worth 9 million dollars. He finished. Tenshin in the first round after three knockdowns the corner threw in the towel. I’m not sure how much of a fight this actually was, I don’t want to say it was a work, but it was fairly suspect… I’m just saying. If, and this is a big if it wasn’t a work. Floyd Mayweather was bigger, more experienced and fighting under a ruleset he was comfortable with. Tenshin wasn’t able to utilize the kicks he’s known for and Floyd was never in trouble. Other fights worth mentioning on the card: Kyoji Horiguchi claimed the first ever Rizin bantamweight championship by choking out Bellator champ Darrion Caldwell in the 3rd round. Former Invicta FC champion Ayaka Hamasaki defeated Kanna Asakura to claim the Rizin women’s super-atomweight title, via second-round armbar. Openweight woman's fighter Gabi Garcia tapped out Barbara Nepomuceno with a first-round Americana. These are both big women, but Gabi was still a full 10kg heavier than Barbara, But at the end of the day this is the type of fight you expect in Japan, I guess I’m just happy that there is a platform for this type of freakshow fight still. What is hands down one of the nastiest eye injuries I have ever seen Yusuke Yachi got a nasty cut to the right eye that ended his fight with UFC vet Johnny Case, google this, it’s just crazy. In ONE Championship news over the holiday break, they announced that they have inked a broadcast deal with TV Tokyo for weekly content, both live and recorded that will have them on free TV analog and digital as well as their cable platform. This is the second major broadcast deal we have seen ONE sign to round out the year. This is a major win for ONE who I know sees Japan as a key market in their plans for global domination. Of course, they are going to Japan with their first event there next march in a stacked card that not only has three titles on the line but also the debut of DJ and Eddie Alverez, But I’ll talk more about that in the next episode. Chatri Sityodtong also announced that ONE Championship will have a crazy schedule with 45 events in 2019, it will break down like this -24 ONE Championship events -12 ONE Hero Series events -6 ONE Warrior Series events-3 ONE Esports events That is an insane schedule, That is great for me though, ton’s of Asian MMA to cover! In other news, I am now contributing to the rankings discussion at Asian Persuasion MMA, you c
