Inaugural Rizin vs. Bellator event could start new MMA tradition – with pride on the line

For A.J. McKee, it was watching “Rampage” Jackson kick ass in PRIDE back in the day. For Patricio Freire, it was Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Wanderlei Silva doing the same. For Juan Archuleta, “Dragon Ball Z” is what got him.

Since they were young, each of those three Bellator champions past and present have dreamed of fighting in Japan, hallowed ground for martial arts. They’ll soon have the chance after Rizin president Nobuyuki Sakakibara and Bellator president Scott Coker on Wednesday jointly announced Rizin 40 as a Rizin vs. Bellator New Year’s Eve event at Saitama Super Arena just outside of Tokyo.

Five Rizin and Bellator standouts each will square off. McKee will take on Rizin lightweight champion Roberto de Souza; Bellator featherweight champion Freire will face Rizin champ Kleber Koike; Archuleta will meet Kim Soo Chul at bantamweight; and Bellator’s Kyoji Horiguchi and Rizin’s Hiromasa Ougikubo will fight for a third time. A fifth matchup is still to be announced.

“Being here now in this moment, it’s phenomenal,” McKee said during Wednesday’s news conference.

Rizin and Bellator have cross-promoted several individual fights in the past few years but never have they co-promoted a full Rizin vs. Bellator-branded card – until now. It’s all possible thanks to the friendly relationship between Sakakibara and Coker, who’ve known each other for 16 years and decided to start working together in 2015.

For Rizin vs. Bellator, the idea wasn’t just to pick any fighters from each organization to compete. It was to pit some of the best against the best.

“The Bellator all-star team vs. the Rizin all-star team,” Coker said. “This is something I wanted to see; this is something he wanted to see. When I asked Sakakibara about this event, ‘What are you looking to do?’ Because he brought it up about six months ago. And he said, ‘I want you to bring your best fighters in these weight classes. I don’t want any journeymen. I want the best fighters you have.’ So that’s what we did. Every fighter we’re bringing is either a champion in Bellator or a former world champion in Bellator. And we’re ready to fight the Rizin all-star team on December 31st.”

Rizin 40 will mark the 22nd consecutive year that Saitama Super Arena will host New Year’s Eve MMA action. As it’s taking place in Japan and a de facto home game, this first iteration of Rizin vs. Bellator will be contested in a ring – not a cage – and under Rizin rules.

The hope, Sakakibara said, is for this to become a tradition.

“I think this will be the first time in the history of MMA where two promotions will fully go at it with their best guys,”Sakakibara said through an interpreter. “… We do not want to make this event a one-shot deal. We want to make it a consecutive thing, maybe an annual thing, maybe a bi-annual thing.”

Sounds like a win for MMA fans.