RIZIN 38 Aftermath: All Hail King Kyoji
Kyoji Horiguchi bounced back from 2 straight losses at RIZIN 38 last night.
Last night, everyone’s favorite non-UFC bantamweight made his return to the RIZIN stage after losing two straight in Bellator. Horiguchi and Sergio Pettis had a banger of a fight but Patchy Mix just beat the Japanese title contender. Horiguchi returned to RIZIN after nearly two years away and took on Kinataro in a exciting back and forth fight. So today, we’re talking RIZIN on this week’s Aftermath!
Floyd Mayweather looked old
The big story of the event was Floyd Mayweather taking on Mikuru Asakura in a boxing exhibition. Mayweather started his boxing exhibition spree in RIZIN and this marked his return.
The fight was pretty standard except when Asakura landed clean on Mayweather in the first, forcing the undefeated boxer to back up. Conor McGregor and Tenshin Nasukawa couldn’t land clean and Asakura did. Let that sink in.
I was excited to make a diagram like we do with Before/Aftermath fights on Mayweather for this fight but in all honesty, it looked like he didn’t train for this fight one bit. He was slower, threw wild punches, and dipped his head around not like the old Floyd Mayweather. Instead, this Mayweather looked old.
There’s no way Mayweather takes a pro fight again with Conor McGregor, like McGregor obviously wants. Mayweather is better off fighting YouTubers and MMA fighters from now on. Have fun, make money, don’t get hit.
King Kyoji Is Back
Kyoji Horiguchi is a cult fan favorite. The Japanese fighter is a karateka and brings very fun techniques to the ring or cage when he fights. He’s not been a UFC champion but he’s put on fun fights both in and out of the top promotion in the world. He was 7-1 in the UFC, his only loss: Demetrious Johnson in a title fight.
Horiguchi returned against Kintaro, a 14-12-1 regional MMA fighter who fights like a bull in a china shop. Kintaro has fought for RIZIN, DEEP, and Pancrase but never found his way to the top promotions. What Kintaro does well is brawl. But with Horiguchi’s striking pedigree, that skill should be borderline useless. Except it wasn’t. In the first round, Kintaro landed the cross counter off Horiguchi’s low kicks. He even caught Horiguchi off guard early and knocked him down with a big left. But Horiguchi popped back up.
To neutralize this, Kyoji Horiguchi took the fight to the ground where he had the clear advantage. Near the end of the first, Horiguchi has seen Kintaro throw the step up knee and roundhouse kick a couple times. To get the takedown, he needs to (1) beware of that knee coming from Kintaro’s left, Horiguchi’s right. To do that, Horiguchi (2) will put his head to his left away from the incoming knee of Kintaro. During the entry, you can see in red that Kintaro would, in fact, throw the knee. Horiguchi got his head out the way and used the overhand right to do so.
On 2A, Kyoji Horiguchi has his lead hand around the back of Kintaro’s knee. He will pull the knee to him, out from under Kintaro. In 2B, we see the overhand right across the chest of Kintaro which Horiguchi will use to push the top half of Kintaro down. It’s these opposite motions that make the takedown that much more successful for Kyoji Horiguchi. (3) As he finishes, you can see the right arm pushing down the torso of Kintaro and the left hand corraling the knee.
Kintaro had success on Horiguchi with countering the low kick. The best way to do this is timing it with a cross. Several times in the fight this is exactly what he did. Kintaro caught Horiguchi a couple times and against a more powerful puncher like Figueiredo, that could be dangerous. But Horiguchi did what he needed to do and stayed up.
To get the fight to the ground again, Horiguchi would feint the level change while creeping up on Kintaro. (1 & 2) As he prepares to take the shot you can see Kyoji Horiguchi go high with his lead hand, crouch down and lower his lead hand and make Kintaro think both strike and takedown at the same time.
(3) Just before the takedown, as we talked earlier, Horiguchi needs to be aware of the step up knee that Kintaro has shown too many times. If his head doesn’t go to the outside leg, it’s good night, Irene. Horiguchi shows his opposition high one more time and will shoot. Notice on the takedown that (4) his head is to the outside and he corrals both the legs of Kintaro and will complete the takedown.
On the ground, Horiguchi did great work from the half guard, where most fighters want to be in today’s MMA meta. Looking for the submission, Horiguchi wants to get out and to side control where he can find a choke there. To do this, as we see in the image above, Horiguchi, with all the coolness of James Bond, locks his hands and fakes a forearm choke, pressing into the side of Kintaro’s face, making life just miserable. It’s “tap to this” (Kintaro isn’t really in any danger of being finished here, the sub is purely for the guard pass) or “let me pass.” Horiguchi does this a couple times and eventually, he sinks in the arm triangle to put Kintaro out cold.
As a cult fan favorite, Kyoji Horiguchi continues to do really rad stuff. He’s been around for forever. He made his UFC debut at 23 and has been nothing but incredible fun since then. Let’s just hope he makes his return to the UFC one day. Horiguchi versus Brandon Moreno, Kai Kara-France, and Deiveson Figueiredo are all crackerjack fights to me!