På nyårsafton kommer Bellator MMAs toppnamn ställas mot några av Rizin FFs bälteshållaren. Under en presskonferens uttalade sig respektive organisations president inför eventet.
Scott Coker – ”Målet är att gå 5-0 i samband med galan”
Under veckan anordnade Bellator MMA och Rizin en gemensam presskonferens. Bellators president Scott Coker delade med sig av sina tankar inför eventet. Transkribering via BJPenn.com
I’m really excited and honored to be a part of New Year’s Eve at this level. Meaning a fight where we’re going to bring five of our top guys against five of RIZIN’s top fighters and champions. As you guys know the history of this arena having fights on New Year’s Eve, I believe it goes back 20 years now and even when I was working for K1 at the time and then I stopped working for K1 around 2006, 2007 but I still went back to Japan to see the New Year’s Eve show because it was such a big spectacle. If you’ve never been there or never seen it, you have to tune in and watch it because it is something spectacular.
Fem fighters från Bellator MMA kommer försvara organisationens färger i samband med eventet. Däribland A.J. McKee Jr. och Patricio Pitbull. Coker hoppas på att Bellators utövare ska dominera i samband med det kommande eventet.
I’ll tell you: we want to go 5-0. That’s my goal, to win every fight. But in MMA, it’s going to be very hard to do. The goal is to go 5-0, but one wrong punch, one wrong kick, or one takedown — one mistake could change the outcome of the fight. In MMA, things can change extremely quickly. It’s hard to predict an outcome. I’m sure Sakakibara wants to go 5-0 against us, too. I think that’s why it’s such a great promotion. Let’s let the fighters fight, and we’ll see what happens.
Galan kommer toppas av en fight mellan den ovannämnda McKee och Rizins lättviktsmästare Roberto de Souza.
Nobuyuki Sakakibara – ”Inte en engångsgrej”
RIZIN FFs president Nobuyuki Sakakibara hävdade att den kommande galan kommer representera någonting nytt inom industrin. Det pågår även diskussioner om att genomföra ett liknande event på amerikansk mark.
We don’t want this to be a one-time thing. We know the top versus the top is what everyone wants to see. We hope this can be the beginning of something new in our industry. You can only go so far when you do the rankings within your own promotion. We believe this is the next step for our industry. We’ve been talking with Scott about this, and we think it’s only the next step that we take our athletes to the US and fight under BELLATOR rules. We think this makes sense.
Bellator MMA vs. Rizin går av stapeln på årets sista dag. Eventet äger rum på Saitama Super Arena, i Saitama, Japan
Bellator MMA vs. Rizin: Matchkort
Huvudkort
- A.J. McKee (19-1) vs. Roberto de Souza (14-1)
- Patricio Pitbull (34-5) vs. Kleber Koike (31-5-1)
- Juan Archuleta (26-4) vs. Soo Chul Kim (18-6-1)
- Kyoji Horiguchi (30-5) vs. Hiromasa Ougikubo (25-6-2)
- Gadzhi Rabadanov (18-4-2) vs. Koji Takeda (15-3)
Underkort
- Seika Izawa (8-0) vs. Si Woo Park (9-4)
- Naoki Inoue (15-3) vs. Kenta Takizawa (13-8)
- Tsuyoshi Sudario (6-1) vs. Junior Tafa (2-0)
- Yuki Motoya (32-9) vs. Rogério Bontorin (16-4)
- Johnny Case (27-9-1) vs. Luiz Gustavo (12-2)
- John Dodson (22-13) vs. Hideo Tokoro (35-31-1)
- BeyNoah (1-2) vs. Sho Patrick Usami (5-1)
