Mikuru Asakura Outpoints Juntaro Ushiku in Rizin Landmark Vol. 5 Headliner

Asakura wins a unanimous decision win over Ushiku in our main event!

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— RIZIN FF English (@rizin_English) April 29, 2023

The caged environment seems to suit Mikuru Asakura just fine.

Asakura captured a unanimous decision against Juntaro Ushiku in the Rizin Landmark Vol. 5 featherweight headliner at Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Tokyo on Saturday. While Rizin typically holds its events in a ring, its Landmark series takes place in a cage.

Former Rings two-division champion Asakura (17-3, 1 NC; 11-2 Rizin) fired the most powerful shots in the opening round, mixing punches and kicks. In turn, Ushiku (20-8, 2-2 Rizin) looked to grapple against the fence, pulling guard once he felt comfortable. Asakura couldn’t do much damage due Ushiku’s strenuous guard, forcing the referee to stand them once the action stalled. The pace stayed the same in the second frame, where Ushiku pulled guard again after Asakura had some success with his body punches. The pair spent most of the second frame on the mat before they were made to stand for lack of action. In the third stanza, Ushiku pulled guard and held his opponent close, while Asakura occasionally found openings to land ground-and-pound. Ultimately, Asakura upended Ushiku on all scorecards and took home a unanimous decision.

Former RIZIN Featherweight Champion Yutaka Saito claims a split decision victory over Ren Hiramoto

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— RIZIN FF English (@rizin_English) April 29, 2023

In the co-feature, former 145-pound champion Yutaka Saito did enough to outpoint Ren Hiramoto. Saito (21-7-2, 4-3 Rizin) relied on his wrestling and pushed the action against the fence early in the opening frame, hitting his foe with knees to the body. Hiramoto (2-3, 2-3 Rizin) resisted his foe’s attempts to take him down and scored with some dirty boxing. In Round 2, Saito’s attempts to move the action to the floor were unsuccessful, with Hiramoto bouncing back from every takedown attempt and controlling the distance with body and head kicks. Overall, Saito was the one who took the initiative more often, even though Hiramoto kept the fight on the feet and attacked with some timid punches from afar. When the relatively uneventful fight went the distance, the cage announcer revealed Saito edged Hiramoto via split decision. Judges Takashi Hashimoto and Tomoki Matsumiya saw it in favor of Saito, while Masato Kataoka was the dissenter with the scorecard for Hiramoto.

27 SECONDS!

Shinobu Ota absolutely floors Kazuma Kuramoto with a clean right hand on the break!

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— RIZIN FF English (@rizin_English) April 29, 2023

Elsewhere, Shinobu Ota (3-2, 3-2 Rizin) wobbled Kazuma Kuramoto (9-4, 3-4 Rizin) with a punch followed by a soccer kick 27 seconds out of the gate in their 135-pound affair; Luiz Gustavo (13-2, 4-3 Rizin) edged Koji Takeda (15-6, 5-6 Rizin) via split decision at lightweight, with Takaya Ishikawa being the dissenting judge; Kanna Asakura (20-7, 13-6 Rizin) cruised past One Championship alum Mei Yamaguchi (21-15-1, 0-1 Rizin) to score a unanimous decision victory at super atomweight; Claire Lopez (8-4, 1-0 Rizin) upset Rena Kubota (13-5, 12-4 Rizin) thanks to a remarkable kneebar submission at 4:21 into Round 3 in their 113-pound catchweight bout; former heavyweight professional sumo wrestler Tsuyoshi Kamiyama (7-2, 7-2 Rizin) manhandled Roque Martinez (16-9-2, 3-3 Rizin) for three rounds before the judges rewarded him with a unanimous decision; Masanori Kanehara (28-12-5, 3-1 Rizin) outpointed Sora Yamamoto (12-7, 3-3 Rizin) en route to a unanimous decision victory in their 145-pound clash; and lightweight Ali Abdulkhalikov (12-2, 1-1 Rizin) crushed Tatsuya Saika (9-4, 0-2 Rizin) with punches at the 3:30 mark of Round 1.