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Kai Asakura to Headline Rizin 19 Against Yuta 'Ulka' Sasaki



Fresh off his huge upset win over Kyoji Horiguchi in August, Kai Asakura is taking a short-notice bout against Yuta Sasaki to headline Rizin 19 in October.

Rizin Fighting Federation sent out a press release on Friday announcing that Asakura (13-1) will be clashing with Sasaki (22-7-2) at bantamweight in the main event of Rizin 19. This event will take place at the Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium in Osaka, Japan, on Oct. 12. The card will also feature the opening round of the lightweight grand prix, with the four matchups announced earlier this month.

About the difficulty of putting this event together with a December event looming, Rizin CEO Nobuyuki Sakakibara wrote, "This card has been very tough to put together since Horiguchi is still under suspension and Tenshin injured his hand. Mikuru Asakura not being able to fight on this card due to injury also didn't help us either. So I asked Kai Asakura to see if he could step up in an emergency situation and headline the October event, and he accepted."

Asakura scored the biggest win of his career by far when he smashed Horiguchi in 68 seconds at Rizin 18. A 6:1 favorite, Asakura became the first fighter to ever knock out Horiguchi and earned the third-quickest stoppage at bantamweight in Rizin history. Victorious in all five of his Rizin appearances, Asakura is one of five fighters currently in the company that have never lost after at least five fights.

Sasaki won his Rizin debut at Rizin 14 by taking a unanimous decision against Manel Kape in December. In his sophomore effort, however, he suffered the only north-south choke loss in promotional history to Shintaro Ishiwatari. A nine-fight Ultimate Fighting Championship veteran, "Ulka" holds the unusual distinction of alternating wins and losses by rear-naked choke in four consecutive UFC fights, the longest such stretch in UFC history. All 12 of Sasaki's submission wins have come by rear-naked choke.
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