Rizin FF 20 faceoffs: Intense Manel Kape chews up cardboard cutout of Kai Asakura

Manel Kape is fired up.

Prior to facing off with Kai Asakura at the Rizin FF 20 weigh-ins, Kape sent an early message to his opponent by tearing his cardboard cutout to pieces and declaring, “Nanda yo omae,” which translates to “You are already dead.”

The two meet in a rematch for Rizin’s vacant bantamweight title Tuesday at the promotion’s New Year’s Eve show at Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan, near Tokyo. Monday, they engaged in an intense faceoff at the weigh-ins ahead of their title fight.

Akamura (14-1 MMA, 6-0 Rizin FF) narrowly edged Kape (14-4 MMA, 5-3 Rizin FF) in 2018 with a split decision at Rizin FF 10.

Currently riding a six-fight winning streak, Akamura may have 2019’s biggest upset. He shocked the MMA world by taking out two-promotion bantamweight champion Kyoji Horiguchi in a little more than a minute in a non-title bout in August. He followed that with another first-round finish over UFC veteran Ulka Sasaki, breaking his jaw in 54 seconds.

That set up the highly anticipated rematch between Akamura and Horiguchi, this time for the title. But Horiguchi was forced out due to a knee injury that required surgery. He decided to relinquish the belt, which set up the bout between Akamura and Kape for the vacant 135-pound title.

Kape is coming off back-to-back second-round finishes over Seiichiro Ito and UFC veteran Takeya Mizugaki. He is looking to avenge his loss to Akamura and capture the bantamweight title.

The Blue Corner is MMA Junkie’s blog space. We don’t take it overly serious, and neither should you. If you come complaining to us that something you read here is not hard-hitting news, expect to have the previous sentence repeated in ALL CAPS.