Rizin NYE 2025 Results: Big 13 Second Upset KO Cements New Champ
Rizin Fighting Federation once again took center stage in the combat sports world, and the 2025 chapter has been added to the rich story of New Year’s Eve combat sports events in Japan. In the headliner of RFF’s year-end effort, Razhabali Shaidulloev dispatched Mikuru Asakura in less than three minutes to maintain his hold on the Rizin featherweight strap. The champion maintained his spotless 17-0 record as well as his one-hundred percent finishing rate, and Japan’s biggest MMA star left the arena on a stretcher.
In the co-main event of Rizin NYE 2025, a new champion was crowned, and the short-notice replacement title challenger came up big and in dramatic fashion. Roberto Satoshi De Souza is Rizin’s inaugural lightweight champion and has been their longest reigning titleholder overall, but his lengthy reign came to a halt in just thirteen seconds.
Shunta Nomura was initially supposed to fight for the Rizin Fighting Federation strap until he withdrew, and Ilhom Nozimov took up the vacancy. The late replacement gamble clearly paid off big with Nozimov now overseeing the 155-pound division in RFF.
Rizin NYE 2025 and the happenings across three other title bouts
Continuing the run of title bouts, Hiromasa Ougikubo authored a unanimous decision win over Yuki Motoya to win not just the belt at 125 pounds but also the Rizin Fighting Federation flyweight grand prix belt.
In yet another championship affair, former Bellator MMA star Danny Sabatello captured the RFF bantamweight belt via split decision in a dogged performance against the prior titleholder Naoki Inoue.
Seika Izawa represented another unbeaten MMA fighter on this card who maintained their spotless ledger, but she had to dig down deeper against Rena Kubota to do that. The Rizin super atomweight champion took on the massively popular Rena Kubota, with Izawa being dropped in the early stages of the fight but rallying back to author a submission win in the second stanza.
The remaining results for Rizin’s 2025 New Year’s Eve offering can be found below:
- Kleber Koike defeated Vugar Karamov by way of unanimous decision
- Ryuya Fukuda defeated Tatsuya Ando by way of a KO at 3:02 in Round 2
- Kyoma Akimoto defeated Suguru Nii by way of a KO at 3:44 in Round 1
- Karshyga Dautbek versus Yuta Kubo ends at 3:15 of R1 via no contest (eye poke)
- Makoto Takahashi defeated Hiroya Kondo by way of a unanimous decision
- Joji Goto defeated Jose Torres by way of a split decision
- Tatsuki Shinotsuka defeated Daichi Tomizawa by way of a KO at 3:22 in Round 2
- Tatsuya Saika defeated Noah Bey by way of a KO at 0:32 in Round 2
- Ryoma Shishimoto defeated Ryusei Ashizawa by way of a submission (armbar) at 0:25 in Round 1
- Enzo Massami Iamazato defeated Yuri Suda by way of a submission (armbar) at 3:15 in Round 1
