Rizin and ONE Championship have had situations of participating in a quasi-turf struggle over time, with the previous intimating lately that the latter is reaching out to raid their expertise roster. This was mentioned throughout a current press convention involving Rizin Combating Federation figurehead Nobuyuki Sakakibara, who referred to as out Chatri Sityodtong’s group for reportedly questionable practices however but, Sakakibara remains to be indicating an curiosity in collaborating with ONE Championship sometime.
ONE Championship has made extra of a targeted effort to increase into Rizin’s home market of Japan, with the Singapore-based promotion ramping up their schedule within the land of the rising solar. Recapping Sakakibara’s sentiment concerning ONE, in addition to a number of Rizin-related developments which are on the go, freelance journalist Daniel Dziubicki, by way of his X account @DDziubicki, Dziubicki translated,
“In response to [Nobuyuki] Sakakibara, ONE [which is starting doing monthly events in Japan] is attempting to poach a few of their fighters, however he doesn’t assume they are going to go there. He want to cooperate with ONE however Chatri gained’t meet with them. Hiroshima present will likely be bought out. ME is Sabatello vs. Kashimura, however there’s an opportunity they are going to add one thing extra. Satoshi can doubtlessly battle there.”
“They’re in search of new options of PPV promote. Month-to-month exhibits are will need to have by way of worldwide curiosity. He’s seeing some sort of disaster of MMA within the US. They want to do only a totally different MMA than UFC.”
Rizin and ONE have shared sharper phrases beforehand
That is the newest chapter inside the back-and-forth but considerably tempered rivalry that has existed over time with Rizin and ONE Championship. A notable occasion of the 2 crossing paths got here in late-Q1 of 2025 noticed many giving Chatri Sityodtong unfavourable suggestions for what had been interpreted as disrespectful slights to Shoot Boxing titleholder Kaito Ono. Responding to the ONE-Shoot Boxing controversy of that point interval, Sakakibara acknowledged [via Tokyo Headline],
“An apology has been made, hasn’t it? So I feel the state of affairs has shifted a bit. Nonetheless, if you wish to come to Japan and do enterprise within the Japanese martial arts world, you could correctly respect Japan’s martial arts organizations. Whether or not they’re small or massive doesn’t matter. You might want to perceive that there’s Chairman Takeshi Caesar [Shoot Boxing leader], there’s Shoot Boxing (SB), and these are linked to the place we are actually. With out that understanding, I don’t assume you qualify as a promoter to do enterprise on this nation.”
“If you wish to apologize, it is best to step ahead and do it within the Japanese means … When you declare to be half-Japanese, it is best to find out about Japanese etiquette, manners, and find out how to behave in direction of seniors, not simply as a promoter, however as a human being. If you wish to do enterprise in Japan, that’s a very powerful factor. Different emotional points are already being addressed with apologies, and it’ll result in higher rule-making.”
