In one of the craziest stories of 2018, Rizin has just announced that Floyd Mayweather Jr. will be fighting for the group on their New Year’s Eve show at the Saitama Super Arena.
A press conference was held Sunday night (Monday morning in Japan) with Mayweather Jr. in attendance to announce a fight with kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa for the New Year’s Eve event.
The press conference also featured Rizin chairman Nobuhiko Sakakibara and general manager Nobuhiko Takada.
They were vague on details with Mayweather stating that the rules have not been worked out yet but is confident his team will work with Rizin and take care of that element of the fight.
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There are so many questions regarding how this fight is happening, where Rizin has the financing to pull something like this off, and obviously whether the fight takes place given that the rules have not be settled upon.
The idea of Mayweather fighting Nasukawa in anything, but a boxing fight seems impossible. Nasukawa is a 20-year old with a very impressive record of 27-0 in kickboxing, with his last win over former UFC flyweight title challenger Kyoji Horiguchi at the Rizin 13 card in September. He has also had four mixed martial arts fights with a 4-0 record. He had his first pro kickboxing fight at age 15.