A.J. McKee-Patricky Freire, Kai Asakura-Juan Archuleta Set for Bellator vs. Rizin 2 on July 30

Rizin Fighting Federation and Bellator MMA plan to pull out all the stops for their
upcoming head-to-head showcase.

In a joint press conference Saturday morning, Rizin CEO Nobuyuki
Sakakibara and his Bellator counterpart Scott Coker, alongside a
collection of stars from their respective organizations, announced
the date, location and a partial lineup for their next
collaboration. Bellator vs. Rizin 2 will be
held on July 30 at Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan. Like the
first “Bellator vs. Rizin,” which took place on New Year’s Eve in
Saitama, the newly announced card will pit champions and top
contenders from both promotions against one another, some in the
Bellator cage under the Unified Rules of MMA and some in Rizin’s
trademark boxing-style ring, under Rizin rules. Notably, Rizin’s
rule set allows soccer kicks and stomps to grounded opponents,
while prohibiting elbow strikes.

Among the matchups announced on Saturday were former Bellator
featherweight champ A.J. McKee vs.
Patricky
“Pitbull” Freire in the last quarterfinal of Bellator’s
lightweight grand prix. A matchup of former bantamweight champions,
Kai
Asakura of Rizin and Bellator’s Juan
Archuleta, under Rizin rules was also announced, as well as a
featherweight bout featuring Mikuru
Asakura and Vugar
Karamov of Azebaijan. The Rizin portion of the card will be
topped by a flyweight title fight between Kyoji
Horiguchi and Makoto
Takahashi. Tofiq
Musayev and Kana
Watanabe were also attached to the event, with opponents not
yet finalized as of this writing.

Bellator vs. Rizin 2 is the latest installment in a string of
co-promoted events stretching back to 2019. It is also a
continuation of the “Super Rizin” series, which debuted last
September with Rizin 38, an event that featured Floyd
Mayweather in a boxing exhibition against Mikuru
Asakura, alongside an MMA card stacked with many of Rizin’s top
fighters. In addition to the matchups announced on Saturday,
Sakakibara stated that the card should contain six Bellator fights
and as many as nine Rizin bouts.