The CEO of Rizin is willing to entertain the idea of a K-1 HERO'S cross promotional event if the latter can boost their brand among recent restructuring and he also worked in a laugh directed toward ONE Championship's Chatri Sityodtong. Nobuyuki Sakakibara was asked at a recent Rizin media event by X user @majan_saitou of Dropkick Pro wrestling and martial arts about the recent addition of Genki Sudo to K-1 fold with the distinction of a producer role within that promotion.
Sudo is a massive figure from the glory days of K-1 with him holding the iconic "we are all one" flag being an emblazoned image in the minds of fans from that era. In July of this year, Sudo took part in the Upper House elction and ran for a seat which did not pan out. Now the massive Japanese combat sports figure has now redirected his focus on prizefighting with a professed aim to book unique and creative K-1 matches going forward.
In a translated post on X from the aforementioned @majan_saitou when asking the Rizin CEO about Sudo's inclusion into the K-1 fold, Sakakibara said,
"It's different from Chatri [Sityodtong], so welcome [laughs], but who knows about HERO'S now? If the brand gets polished, there might be an inter-promotional event. As a producer, I wonder how much resolve he has to take on."
The Rizin and ONE Championship bad blood rooted in disrespect
Chatri Sityodtong has made himself some enemies in Japan with past comments toward organizations like RISE and Glory being representative of "small promotions" when someone asked about potential co-promotion opportunities with those federations. ONE Championship has also ventured into the Japanese market several times with a looming card in November as the promotion is seemingly trying to stack ONE 173 as deep as possible for their Tokyo-based card.
The former Pride FC figurehead was asked about multiple instances of Sityodtong being disrespectful to fighters and promoters alike on the Japanese scene and to that, Sakakibara stated,
“If you want to come to Japan and do business in the Japanese martial arts world, you must properly respect Japan’s martial arts organizations. Whether they are small or large doesn’t matter.”
In a separate instance, the ONE Championship figurehead made disparaging comments about Shoot Boxing champion Kaito Ono which spoiled a budding cross promotional releationship being built with ONE and Shoot Boxing. As the Rizin CEO offered up his own responses to that particular situation, Sakakibara quipped,
"An apology has been made, hasn’t it? So I think the situation has shifted a bit... You need to understand that there is Chairman Takeshi Caesar, there is Shoot Boxing (SB), and these are connected to where we are now. Without that understanding, I don’t think you qualify as a promoter to do business in this country."
"If you want to apologize, you should step forward and do it in the Japanese way … If you claim to be half-Japanese, you should learn about Japanese etiquette, manners, and how to behave towards seniors, not just as a promoter, but as a human being. If you want to do business in Japan, that’s the most important thing. Other emotional issues are already being addressed with apologies, and it will lead to better rule-making."
