Rizin 2015 was the best

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leifi

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I just remember watching Rizin 2015 on 29 th dec during my administration work at an office. It was like, wow! Pride is back!

I literally thought Rizin would get someone like Brock Lesnar to fight on that organization together with other UFC fighters and also make a permanen open grand prix tournaments. We unfortunately got two grand prix with guys who weights more then 205 lbs and that was it. Watching Jiri smashing all opponents and got his rematch against King Mo later was great.

Kirill Sidelnikov was like the new Fedor for the Japanese fans.



How it comes we will never see this again? It was great, now it is like 115 lbs japanese female fighting there and that is it :(
 
Because in the beginning, that's what they thought would get them the most viewership traction, bringing International talent and old school stars like Fedor and Mirko.
After that, they probably found their formula which works for them currently, and that is putting much more attention to domestic lighter weight categories.
Rizin has a consistent fan base and it's quite popular in Japan, not Pride-level of course, but it seems respectable.
I also wish they would bring back some heavier International talent, but obviously that's not worth it for them at the moment.
 
Totally agree with you about Rizin the events that were put on for about the first 3 years were imo the best thing going on in the mma world at that time. It also spawned some great fighters like Jiri and Vadim, Kron had great potential but it seems things have fizzled out a bit with his career but all in all they were incredible events.

Moving ahead to now Rizin events imo are pretty subpar and uninteresting and would get the attention and relate to the immature crowd who like social media hype (Asakura's) and female fights,
not my cup of tea at all but maybe that's what they have to do to stay relevant its very disappointing but an unfortunate fact that many organizations crumble due to disinterest so it is what it is.
 
Hindsight brings a ton of clarity to those early RIZIN cards. No one back then really knew who a lot of the prospects were going to become. Their early roster included HW/LHWs who ultimately won titles in all three major Western orgs (those which existed prior to me typing this).

At the time we were excited for the familiar names and faces, the legends, but those cards today hold a lot more weight on paper, bc we know the Jiris and Nemkovs and Cappelozzas are elite (or solid, in Bruno's case. He didn't even make it past the opening round of the 2015 RIZIN GP, but he won that PFL tourney, later on).

I'm thinking it might be time to revisit those cards. I remember saying around that time that people should give the "new guys" a chance (a common gripe from fans with RIZIN is that they "don't know who anyone is," it "isn't like when they had those guys in PRIDE"), bc Sakakibara has one of the best eyes for talent in the MMA game, and a lot of those legends from PRIDE were the "new guys" at a point. I'm willing to bet that if I go back to those early RIZIN cards today that I will be reminded of prospects who'd fought on those cards, whom I'd forgotten about, but they're names today in a different org. That's kinda how it goes with RIZIN, they springboard legit international talent westward. Hoping now that the MMA climate has changed, and Bellator essentially doesn't really exist anymore, that RIZIN will benefit from that situation.
 
Mirko winning the 2016 RIZIN Openweight GP was the peak of RIZIN.
mirko.png


RIZIN can't make these moments with Juan Archuleta and they know that. Just to parrot off what posters have already said, It's a Japanese regional promotion now. Their current roster doesn't even compare to ONE's or KSW's rosters. Us western people just aren't the target audience anymore. Nobody is going to fuck up their circadian rhythm to watch flyweights.

The current product of RIZIN has it's place in MMA now and it's not for me.

But it's MMA, who knows? Maybe the PFL could reignite things over in Japan.

 
TheBrownRanger said:
Us western people just aren't the target audience anymore.
Click to expand...
Anymore? The western audience was never their target audience. It has always been about the locals. That's why they didn't even bother streaming some of their events overseas.

TheBrownRanger said:
Maybe the PFL could reignite things over in Japan.
Click to expand...
They're doing perfectly fine business in Japan. They have a solid audience and they have fighters who appeal to that audience like the Asakura brothers.
 
They need a national star. I guess the Asakura bros are it now.

Too bad it couldn't be Kyoji.

I don't follow mma like I used to be, but in the peak mma days in japan, so many casual were brought in by guys like Ogawa or Sexyama... stars from other sports like judo and pro wrestling.
 
They couldn't rely on the stars of yester-year forever. i'm glad they were able to procure talent, and get a few resonator 1000s in the form of the Asakura bros, Horiguchi, Tenshin when they had him, that Ren guy, Ougikubo types, etc, etc, so many more. They needed to be able to build up a stable of japanese fighters and they were able to, luckily. It was shaky for a few years, but they were able to find their footing now and I think they're going to be OK. I will continue to support, purchase every PPV off of fite.tv/triller and will enjoy. Rizin from here on out. If they fold, then JMMA folds.
 
JohnMandick said:
They need a national star. I guess the Asakura bros are it now.

Too bad it couldn't be Kyoji.

I don't follow mma like I used to be, but in the peak mma days in japan, so many casual were brought in by guys like Ogawa or Sexyama... stars from other sports like judo and pro wrestling.
Click to expand...
Kyoji is still popular amongst Japanese mma fans, but the Asakura bros transcend mma fans and its popular amongst normal folks. Like Conor was for the UFC
 
TheBrownRanger said:
Mirko winning the 2016 RIZIN Openweight GP was the peak of RIZIN.
mirko.png


RIZIN can't make these moments with Juan Archuleta and they know that. Just to parrot off what posters have already said, It's a Japanese regional promotion now. Their current roster doesn't even compare to ONE's or KSW's rosters. Us western people just aren't the target audience anymore. Nobody is going to fuck up their circadian rhythm to watch flyweights.

The current product of RIZIN has it's place in MMA now and it's not for me.

But it's MMA, who knows? Maybe the PFL could reignite things over in Japan.

Click to expand...


You think CroCop was in Rizin to attract Western fans?
 
Doctor Grudge said:
You think CroCop was in Rizin to attract Western fans?
Click to expand...
DUNKS said:
Anymore? The western audience was never their target audience. It has always been about the locals. That's why they didn't even bother streaming some of their events overseas.


They're doing perfectly fine business in Japan. They have a solid audience and they have fighters who appeal to that audience like the Asakura brothers.
Click to expand...
Compare the flags from the upcoming NYE card to the flags from any card in the 2015-2017 time period. They were going for some kind of international appeal. This is especially true considering they wanted to do the "Super Bowl of MMA" thing with Bellator, KSW, Jungle Fight, ROAD FC, etc. My point is, they're not doing that anymore.
 
Seems like covid ruined Rizin.

Nothing against Japanese talent -just seems the events lost their aura to me.
 
sonhow said:
Seems like covid ruined Rizin.

Nothing against Japanese talent -just seems the events lost their aura to me.
Click to expand...
Upcoming 45 on NYE is gonna be fun.
Lots of good fights but yeah other thsn that meh.
 
Agreed, the open weight GP was so fun, it had a lot of names and interesting style match ups plus a few freakshows, it was a true JMMA throwback I wish they had carried that momentum.
 
I can't justify purchasing the NYE event with the fights that are on it, they couldn't even give Sudario are legit fight yet even after he's been competing for 3 years now they are still throwing nobodies at him pathetic, very lazy of them to not have even tried crowning champs in the HW or MW divisions either shows they don't really care and all the recycling of the lighter weight fighters card after card is ridiculous. There is nothing here that stands out to me as exciting or that I should order this, point is they have to do better they can do better.
 
Royce Greasy said:
I can't justify purchasing the NYE event with the fights that are on it, they couldn't even give Sudario are legit fight yet even after he's been competing for 3 years now they are still throwing nobodies at him pathetic, very lazy of them to not have even tried crowning champs in the HW or MW divisions either shows they don't really care and all the recycling of the lighter weight fighters card after card is ridiculous. There is nothing here that stands out to me as exciting or that I should order this, point is they have to do better they can do better.
Click to expand...
That Hiramoto vs YA-MAN fight is gonna be good
 
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