Rizin Landmark 9 has been announced as a replacement for RIZIN 46. The event will take place at World Memorial Hall in Kobe on March 23rd. In the featured bout of the evening, Roberto De Souza will take on Keita “K-Taro” Nakamura in a non-title bout.
The “Landmark” series of events is based around less-known talent and typically they’re not as stacked as main RIZIN shows. For whatever reason the promotion decided to change things around and replace the RIZIN 46 fight card with a Landmark 9.
Originally RIZIN 46 and 47 were announced for March 23 and May 6 respectively. The first was set to take place in Kobe, and later in Tokyo. Now RIZIN 46 is rescheduled for April 29.
Roberto “Satoshi” De Souza vs. Keita “K-Taro” Nakamura
Roberto De Souza is a reigning RIZIN lightweight champion. He sports a record of 15 wins and 3 losses. The Japanese-Brazilian fighter captured the belt by submitting Tofiq Musayev with a triangle choke at RIZIN 28. Next, he defended it successfully by submitting both Yusuke Yachi and Johnny Case. His five-fight winning streak came to an end at the hands of A.J. McKee, who was awarded a unanimous decision win over “Satoshi” at the inaugural Bellator MMA vs. RIZIN event. However, this was a non-title matchup. De Souza bounced back by winning over Spike Carlyle by a unanimous decision at RIZIN 42. In his most recent fight, he was TKO’d by Patricio Pitbull on the second Bellator MMA x RIZIN card. The bout serves as a quarterfinal of the 2023 Bellator Lightweight World Grand Prix Tournament and once again was a non-title affair.
Nakamura is a UFC veteran, who made his RIZIN debut by TKO’ing Marcos de Souza back in 2019. At Bellator & RIZIN: Japan event he was bested by Lorenz Larkin. At RIZIN 41 he knocked out Kiichi Kunimoto.
Other matchups:
In the bantamweight scrap UFC veteran Naoki Inoue will take on ONE alumni, Shaoko Sato. Inoue won his first six fights in RIZIN, but most recently has lost two out of his last three bouts. Sato is the former Shooto bantamweight champion and currently enjoys a two-fight winning streak.
Rena Kubota will square off against Shm Yu-Ri. This will be Kubota’s return to the ring after a year hiatus. In her last fight, she was submitted by Claire Lopez at RIZIN Landmark 5.
Shim has a 6 – 3 record and most recently was crowned the ROAD FC atom weight champion. Her title win over Jeong Eun Park at ROAD FC 59 led to her signing with the Japanese promotion.
The fight card consists of 15 bouts with four of them being kickboxing fights.
RIZIN Landmark 9 card:
Roberto “Satoshi” Souza vs. Keita “K-Taro” Nakamura
Naoki Inoue vs. Shoko Sato
Rena Kubota vs. Yu Ri Shim
Koji Takeda vs. Kyohei Hagiwara
Igor Tanabe vs. Strasser Kiichi
Yuya Shibata vs. Erson Yamamoto
Yuta Kubo vs. Ryogo Takahashi
Kintaro vs. Daiki Lightyear
Takakenshin vs. Cody Jerabek
Yusaku Nakamura vs. Arman Ashimov
Ryo Takagi vs. Taisei Nishitani
Yuya vs. Masaya Jaki — kickboxing
Aoi Noda vs. Yuto Uemura — kickboxing
Shun Matsuyama vs. Shin Sakurai — kickboxing
Daichi Akahira vs. Yuki Yoshioka — kickboxing
More must-reads: