Rizin FF Results: Shinya Aoki demolishes Kazushi Sakuraba, King Mo advances in tourney on night one

The first of two events from the new Rizin Fighting Federation promotion took place in Japan today, topped by an absolute bludgeoning from Shinya Aoki on Kazushi Sakuraba.

Aoki took Sakuraba down immediately, quickly passed to mount, and spent about six minutes throwing strikes from mount and back mount as Sakuraba did nothing more than try unsuccessfully to cover up. It was a bit of a disgraceful fight, and the result could have been expected from the moment the fight was announced. See for yourself below:

In other action on the card, Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal advanced in the light heavyweight tournament, knocking out Brett McDermott in his first bout. It was a night of finishes, with 11 knockouts or TKOs joined by a couple of submission wins as well.

Night two of Rizin FF’s debut comes on New Year’s Eve with the return of Fedor Emelianenko. Spike will air a morning broadcast on Thursday of the event.

Full results for night one are below:

-Shinya Aoki def. Kazushi Sakuraba via TKO in the first round

Heavyweight Grand Prix:
-Vadim Nemkov def. Goran Reljic via TKO in the first round
-Jiri Prochazka def. Satoshi Ishii via KO (punch and grounded knee) in the first round
-Teodoras Aukstuolis def. Bruno Cappelozza via KO in the first round
-Muhammed Lawal def. Brett McDermott via KO in the first round
-Valentin Moldovsky def. Yuta Uchida via submission (rear-naked choke) at 2:20 of the first round – (tourney reserve bout)

Featured fights:
-Hiroyuki Takaya def. Dalki Hata via unanimous decision
-Hideo Tokoro def. Kizaemon Saiga via submission (armbar) in the first round
-Anatoly Tokov def. A.J. Matthews via KO in the first round
-Felipe Efrain def. Yuki Motoya via KO in the first round (Deemed no contest due to Efrain missing weight)
-Kirill Sidelnikov def. Carlos Toyota via TKO in the first round
-Tsuyoshi Kohsaka def. James Thompson via TKO in of the second round
-K-1 rules bout: Hiroya Kawabe def. Akiyo Nishiura via KO in the third round
-Mixed rules bout: Hinata Watanabe def. Kazuyuki Miyata via TKO (knockdowns) in the first round