Final Rizin NYE Thoughts (spoilers, obviously)

moon to me said:
Anybody know Shrek's backstory? Moreso, why was he so emotional in the pre- and post-fight press conferences and also during his entrance? War Shrek!
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Not sure, but I know he fought regularly for a while and ever wore masks for some of his fights and his background is in grappling. Recently he's transitioned more towards pro-wrestling.

Finished watching the card last night, but I thought this was lesser of the RIZIN cards. Was cool seeing Hase in the ring with the wrestlers and I thought it would lead to the wrestlers announcing they would be fighting on future RIZIN cards, but it was just a public appearance.
 
overall good event. better than I expected. happy to see Oug get the win and Gomi not get wrecked.

Rizin needs some new commentators though. that or ditch the english altogether. I'd rather listen to Japanese or nothing. good thing I wasn't pulling an all nighter because those guys would've put me to sleep a couple fights in.

also I love Lenne Hardt but she sounds terrible now. they need a new ring announcer.
 
Ultimate Cuck said:
overall good event. better than I expected. happy to see Oug get the win and Gomi not get wrecked.

Rizin needs some new commentators though. that or ditch the english altogether. I'd rather listen to Japanese or nothing. good thing I wasn't pulling an all nighter because those guys would've put me to sleep a couple fights in.

also I love Lenne Hardt but she sounds terrible now. they need a new ring announcer.
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I agree on all fronts about the announcing. There's really no need for any kind of English play by play when most people watching RIZIN are going to know more about the sport than the average viewer, I'd assume plus any backstory can be covered by their Confessions series.

I'm glad im not that only one that feels like they need to move on from Lenne Hardt. I think she's honestly been phoning it in since the tail end of DREAM and they really should give up the ghost on any kind of connection to Pride outside of Takada and Sabakihara.

Definitely one of the weaker NYE cards but still had its moments. Ougikubo winning the entire thing is honestly one of the best feel good moments of the year and maybe even the last few years. I was really concerned about the stagnation of their atomweight division but this year alone has seen a big shake-up within the ranks and I think it's as good as it was when they had the GP a few years back.

Koji Takeda has also turned into one of my favorites based on that last performance and his fight with Kume alone. Shibatar is fucking cancer and I'd be willing to throw down with him if the Megaton title was on the line. Really hope they can start bringing in good challengers for Souza this year and I'm all in on a Flyweight GP if they're going with a 16 man field or both, if they decide on 8 participants.
 
oh and screw the FW GP

the world needs a Rizin HW / Openweight GP
Shrek
Sudario bros
Shibisai
Shibatar
Ishii
Ologun

Opening round in June on the Tenshin Takeru card. biggest card of all time

finals on NYE 2022
 
It was pretty good considering the lack of foreigners. They did okay with what they had to work with. Hamasaki losing and Ougikubo winning the GP were extremely memorable moments. Satoshi is a stud, hopefully they can find somebody good for him to fight soon. I'd love to see an Aoki fight but we know that isn't happening with his ONE contract.
 
Ultimate Cuck said:
also I love Lenne Hardt but she sounds terrible now. they need a new ring announcer.
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She was always terrible.

Anyways the only fight I've been able to find so far is Ougikubo vs Asakura... still waiting to watch the rest of the card (though I have spoiled the results.)
 
I agree about the commentators. There must’ve been a delay or something, bc case would get talked over. Ferraro wasn’t translating all that much, either. All we need is a bit of translation. Brown and Case were all over each other, and you could tell Johnny was getting frustrated. It was annoying so I turned on the Japanese feed.
 
Ultimate Cuck said:
oh and screw the FW GP

the world needs a Rizin HW / Openweight GP
Shrek
Sudario bros
Shibisai
Shibatar
Ishii
Ologun

Opening round in June on the Tenshin Takeru card. biggest card of all time

finals on NYE 2022
Click to expand...

this is actually what they should do. GP’s should be fun, not serious. Like with Bellator, I want to see the GP fights but don’t care about the tournament. Tournaments should be one night. I still think they dropped the ball this NYE. Find some obscure fighters, scout a bit.
 
card was weak as fuck, but the event was much better than i expected.

but for the first time, i watched it later instead of live.

re: commentary, i bet rizin is missing frank trigg's tin shed.
 
it would be nice if they did something about the English commentary too. the two guys being slightly behind the action and talking over each other constantly was bad enough, but adding a third guy in the mix was a big mistake and added nothing.

the commentary itself wasn't bad, but pretty annoying tech issues.
 
manboy<3 said:
remember the NYE show by Sengoku (back then considered a second tier Japanese promotion)
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lol wat? Sengoku was never considered second-tier. It was always the biggest Japanese org along with DREAM. Some would even say it was the true successor to Pride and #1 in Japan at the time. It even snagged up some of the biggest JMMA stars of the time (Misaki and Gomi). If you're calling it second tier by global standards (I wouldn't, imo it was just as good if not better in talent pool to EliteXC and Strikeforce of the time), then Rizin is like a 10th tier org lol.
 
Yi-Sunsin said:
lol wat? Sengoku was never considered second-tier. It was always the biggest Japanese org along with DREAM. Some would even say it was the true successor to Pride and #1 in Japan at the time. It even snagged up some of the biggest JMMA stars of the time (Misaki and Gomi). If you're calling it second tier by global standards (I wouldn't, imo it was just as good if not better in talent pool to EliteXC and Strikeforce of the time), then Rizin is like a 10th tier org lol.
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Back then it was considered second tier compared to DREAM/K-1 by domestic and international fans

I remember watching streams of Sengoku and the MMA forums were pretty much dead during the events, no one cared...

I remember when DREAM signed the popular gold olympian Ishii, Sengoku's reply was to do the same but they signed some Gorilla looking Judoka who was only a silver medalist..very second Tier
 
Ultimate Cuck said:
overall good event. better than I expected. happy to see Oug get the win and Gomi not get wrecked.

Rizin needs some new commentators though. that or ditch the english altogether. I'd rather listen to Japanese or nothing. good thing I wasn't pulling an all nighter because those guys would've put me to sleep a couple fights in.

also I love Lenne Hardt but she sounds terrible now. they need a new ring announcer.
Click to expand...

RIZIN needs new talent throughout the entire production. New ring girls, a new team for the pre-fight videos (which feel like filler at this time), a new color theme (I'm tired of blue, why not pink, crimson or purple), the introdution of mascots, new poster designer (current one makes low effort designs), A new fight announcer..and they also need to do some kind of entertaiment during the intermission which always kills the mood...the production has been great since PRIDE but after 20+ years I feel like Sakikibara needs to find new people that will offer a new and fresh presentation. RIZIN feels too much like DREAM but with a blue theme...

The RIZIN theme also doesn't do much, time for a new composer I guess..
 
manboy<3 said:
Back then it was considered second tier compared to DREAM/K-1 by domestic and international fans

I remember watching streams of Sengoku and the MMA forums were pretty much dead during the events, no one cared...

I remember when DREAM signed the popular gold olympian Ishii, Sengoku's reply was to do the same but they signed some Gorilla looking Judoka who was only a silver medalist..very second Tier
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Ishii signed with SRC originally, he just happened to have his debut fight against Yoshida under DREAM because Sengoku couldn't find a network willing to give them a NYE slot, that's why the theme of that year's Dynamite was DREAM x SRC. Something obviously happened in between though, I'm assuming money issues because Sengoku events became even more scaled down than they already were after that, and that's why Izumi, who was originally a complimentary signing along with Ishii, became someone they pushed instead. They didn't have a choice.

manboy<3 said:
RIZIN needs new talent throughout the entire production. New ring girls, a new team for the pre-fight videos (which feel like filler at this time), a new color theme (I'm tired of blue, why not pink, crimson or purple), the introdution of mascots, new poster designer (current one makes low effort designs), A new fight announcer..and they also need to do some kind of entertaiment during the intermission which always kills the mood...the production has been great since PRIDE but after 20+ years I feel like Sakikibara needs to find new people that will offer a new and fresh presentation. RIZIN feels too much like DREAM but with a blue theme...

The RIZIN theme also doesn't do much, time for a new composer I guess..
Click to expand...

What blue theme are you talking about? The off-white ring with gray borders and green gloves is all I associate with RIZIN. The LED ropes were cool as fuck too but I guess they became a liability after McCall sliced his head open on one of those ropes and they were eventually phased out.

I do agree they need to try something differently though. The pomp of prior iterations is most likely out of the question but there has to be something they can do stylistically. I like the theme tbh and I wish they'd bring the LED ropes back as that was something fresh and futuristic. I hope they'll do wild, out of the box locations for their Landmark events instead of just turning it into a studio show.
 
MitsuyoshiOhara said:
Ishii signed with SRC originally, he just happened to have his debut fight against Yoshida under DREAM because Sengoku couldn't find a network willing to give them a NYE slot, that's why the theme of that year's Dynamite was DREAM x SRC. Something obviously happened in between though, I'm assuming money issues because Sengoku events became even more scaled down than they already were after that, and that's why Izumi, who was originally a complimentary signing along with Ishii, became someone they pushed instead. They didn't have a choice.





What blue theme are you talking about? The off-white ring with gray borders and green gloves is all I associate with RIZIN. The LED ropes were cool as fuck too but I guess they became a liability after McCall sliced his head open on one of those ropes and they were eventually phased out.

I do agree they need to try something differently though. The pomp of prior iterations is most likely out of the question but there has to be something they can do stylistically. I like the theme tbh and I wish they'd bring the LED ropes back as that was something fresh and futuristic. I hope they'll do wild, out of the box locations for their Landmark events instead of just turning it into a studio show.
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-yeah you are right I forgot the story with Ishii, none the less Sengoku were 2nd tier compared to DREAM, that I clearly remember. Gomi was a massive bust for Sengoku, he looked like shit in every fight...
-The blue theme I am talking about is the blue lasers/projectors they do during each RIZIN show, I always got "Blue vibes" from RIZIN, white from PRIDE and an yellow/orange/white vibe from DREAM
-LED ring was a cool gimmick. The fact that the LED ropes could cut open someones face was a nice touch.
-The PRIDE theme is what people will subconsiously compare any current theme to, even if the RIZIN/DREAM themes are not bad by themselves they need to come up with something that can compete with PRIDE. PRIDE's theme was an excellent bit of marketing as people instantly assosciate it with JMMA.

RIZIN landmarks are definetly a massive disappointment compared to what they could do, like fights in a temple or an a mountain, even a beach event during summer would be a massive improvement...

Despite all the negativity around RIZIN over the last year, RIZIN after 7 years appears a lot more alive than DREAM or PRIDE were after 7 years so they appear to be in a decent position, they may still have time to reinvent the product..
 
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