A Sitdown with Rizin Fighting Federation’s Shingo Kashiwagi, Part 1

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MMA’s social media community took note of a unique fact on Oct. 27, when Bruno Henrique Cappelozza won the 2021 Professional Fighters League heavyweight championship. Cappelozza had participated in the Rizin Fighting Federation 100-kilogram grand prix in 2015, along with reigning Bellator MMA light heavyweight champion Vadim Nemkov and current Ultimate Fighting Championship light heavyweight contender Jiri Prochazka.

Since its inception, Rizin has paid more attention to English-speaking fans than Japanese promotions from the past. The YouTube video series “Rizin Confessions” includes English subtitles; Rizin pay-per-view streams have English commentary; and fight stats that have long been popular in North America and other countries around the world are now displayed and discussed at Rizin events. One man stands behind Rizin’s intentional international push: Shingo Kashiwagi.

Kashiwagi entered mixed martial arts with King of the Cage and has worked as a matchmaker for a number of other organizations, including Shark Fights and Vale Tudo Japan. He knows a great deal about the business. When people think about that side of the Rizin promotion, they often turn to RFF President Nobuyuki Sakakibara, who once ran Pride Fighting Championships. Backstage, a new generation of talent—Kashiwagi included—focuses on restoring recognition of MMA in Japan, and his success becomes evident through the fact that current headliners in the UFC, PFL and Bellator have all competed in Rizin.

A visit to Rizin’s executive office yielded a sitdown conversation with Kashiwagi, who brings passion and a deep obsession with MMA to his work as he aims to create the best experience for fans around the world. He broke down what factors into Rizin Fighting Federation matchmaking, reaching English fans, statistics, the pay-per-view business, tournaments, divisions and scandals while talking about the happenings on the frontlines in Japanese MMA.

Sherdog: I would like to start by asking you about your background and your experience as a matchmaker in King of the Cage, Shark Fights, Vale Tudo Japan and “Road to UFC: Japan” and how that experience impacts your work today. Also, can you discuss your exposure to famous fighters in each organization.

Shingo Kashiwagi: Where do I begin? My start in the industry began when I became acquainted with [KOTC founder] Terry Trebilcock, and I started out doing KOTC’s operations, but then I was put in charge of matchmaking and events. I did that for three to four years and got to know how those jobs worked. KOTC is a promotion that operates on a business model of bringing events to Indian casinos, with a policy of not getting bigger but also not getting smaller. I learned how to negotiate and how to get close to the competitors, and I really learned the know-how from the beginning. There were many famous fighters like Diego Sanchez and Urijah Faber when I joined KOTC. Faber fought Bibiano Fernandes, and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson was fighting for both Pride and KOTC at the time. After I became a matchmaker, I put together T.J. Dillashaw’s debut match, as well as a fight between Tony Johnson and Daniel Cormier. Carlos Condit also had fights in KOTC. I booked fights for Bobby Green and Sean Strickland, as well, back when Strickland was only 17 years old. Now, he has become controversial because of his flamboyant statements.

Sherdog: What work did you do for Vale Tudo Japan? Did you book Kyoji Horiguchi-Shintaro Ishiwatari in 2013?

Kashiwagi: When I was in the United States, Tachi Palace Fights wanted Mamoru Yamaguchi to come over, even though the transportation was expensive. However, fighters like Takanori Gomi and Norifumi Yamamoto could not win in the UFC at the time, so the treatment of Japanese fighters changed within a year or two. They began to need to cover their own expenses for flights in order to compete. The value of Japanese talent had gone down in the industry. I thought it was frustrating. I was sending fighters to Dream at that time. However, in 2009, Kazuhiro Sakamoto restarted VTJ. I sent over Tony Hervey, who was KOTC champion, and that began a relationship with Sakamoto. When KOTC organized its first Okinawa event in Japan, we invited Shooto fighters. Yamaguchi and Kotetsu Boku both fought at that event. From that connection in 2012, Sakamoto wanted to create an environment where Japanese fighters could win and succeed even if they went abroad. At that time, Shooto still used a ring and the Unified Rules weren’t adopted in Japan. Sakamoto said that VTJ would be reborn with a cage and Unified Rules, so he invited me to work for VTJ and I agreed. As for my role, I translated the Unified Rules into Japanese and introduced them to Japan. I also invited world-class foreign fighters who would be meaningful if Japanese fighters won against them. The fight between Horiguchi (Shooto) and Ishiwatari (Pancrase) had a similar concept to today’s Rizin, where fighters don’t feel trapped or tied to one organization, so there is meaning to that fight.

Sherdog: That leads to your time now with Rizin. When MMA journalists in Japan first saw Rizin, there were light heavyweight fighters that we weren’t yet familiar with, but they were highly skilled and we were pleasantly surprised. How did you go about signing those fighters? Was there any methodology to it?

Kashiwagi: When Rizin was launched, the return of Nobuyuki Sakakibara to the martial arts world was a major event in this industry. There was quite a buzz among promoters around the world that Sakakibara, who had sold Pride and was unable to return to the martial arts world due to non-compete clauses, was coming back to MMA. Sakakibara and [Sotaro] Shinoda had been laying the groundwork with promoters around the world before Sakakibara came back. We asked for promoters’ cooperation, as we hoped to hold the World Grand Prix at the first event. The concept was that the champions from all over the world would gather in Japan and compete for the number one spot. That was Rizin’s 100-kilogram grand prix in 2015. Ideally, we wanted to invite the champions from each organization, but each one had its own reasons and politics, and not all were able to send their own champions, so we aimed for a win-win situation for us and for them. We asked each organization to send out a fighter who was not a champion but who was a representative of the organization in his own right. First, we had “King Mo” (Muhammed Lawal) from Bellator. From KSW, [we had] the Croatian Goran Reljic, a former champion who was recommended by KSW founder Martin Lewandowski. From Jungle Fight, Bruno Cappelozza was recommended by Wallid Ismail. Then there was Russia. At that time, one of the main draws was the comeback of Fedor [Emelianenko]. Sakakibara and Jerry Millen were working to bring Fedor back to competition. One of the conditions of Fedor’s comeback was the participation of fighters he had trained, and those men were Vadim Nemkov and Valentin Moldavsky. Nemkov was the champion of the MMA Russian Federation at the time. Then there was Lithuania’s Bushido KOK event. Teodoras Aukstuolis was recommended by the promoter there, Donatas Simanaitis. Brett McDermott was endorsed by [the British Association of Mixed Martial Arts] and its founder, David Green. For that first grand prix, we had a lot of help from various organizations in order to bring the fighters together. We couldn’t fill it with just the promoters’ help, though, so we had to decide what to do with one final slot, and I looked to fill that one myself. Then I found Jiri Prochazka.

Sherdog: That was quite a find.

Kashiwagi: I went through various sources and looked around. When I found the video of Jiri, I was very excited. The UFC, Bellator and WSOF had a lot of light heavyweights and heavyweights, but I still found him. I was a little torn between Prochazka and Ion Cutelaba, but I decided to go with Prochazka, and then we found out that he is a fighter who really respects Japanese culture. He was a Gladiator Championship Fighting champion, so I asked him if he would be interested in competing as a GCF representative.

Sherdog: Looking ahead, I would like to discuss the future of Rizin tournaments and weight classes. Since we are still dealing with the coronavirus situation, it is unknown when foreign fighters will be able to travel to compete for Rizin. New Bellator lightweight champion Patricky Freire has past Rizin experience, and it will also be interesting to see how Japanese featherweights from Rizin can compete with Bellator featherweights like A.J. McKee, whom I see as the strongest talent outside of the UFC. Undefeated flyweight prospect Tatsuro Taira has also just partnered with an agent in the United States. It would be interesting to have a tournament in the flyweight division with many of the Japanese prospects, and Sakakibara has mentioned featherweight and flyweight tournament plans, so what kind of fighters do you look out for in each weight class and how do you plan to put together matches?

Kashiwagi: The World Grand Prix is a unique culture from Japan, and it’s exciting. Many martial arts fans want to see elite talent from around the world, so I really want to invite foreign fighters again, but it’s up to the coronavirus now. I feel that it is very rewarding to see the fighters we discover during the World Grand Prix grow and become known on an international level. The featherweight and bantamweight divisions in Bellator are both very strong. Featherweights would all be threats, no matter who came in, even if it wasn’t McKee. Adam Borics, Jeremy Kennedy, Patricio Freire and Aaron Pico all have popular fighting styles, as well as strength, and I’m quite looking forward to potentially working with them. I really want KSW’s French champion, Salahdine Parnasse, who is young and strong, to come to Rizin. However, we need Japanese talent when we do events here in Japan, so featherweight and flyweight. I think that flyweight is where I can find the strongest Japanese prospects. Of course, there is Taira, but Yuto Uda is very skilled, as well. Deep champions Makoto Takahashi and Yamato Fujita are also very strong. I am making a flyweight prospects list now.

Sherdog: If only Japanese fighters can compete in the tournament, flyweight may have the most potential.

Kashiwagi: I had really wanted to do a World Grand Prix in the featherweight division, and I put together featherweight fights to create a storyline, so I think the division is still a good choice. I’ve been thinking that the flyweight division would be interesting, as well, though. [Hiromasa] Ougikubo can drop down to flyweight. If he became a two-division grand prix champion, that would be an unprecedented story.

Sherdog: Now that Ougikubo has won the bantamweight grand prix, a rematch against Eduardo Dantas could also be good.

Kashiwagi: I find that idea interesting, but Ougikubo is still angry about the fact that he was not signed by the UFC even though he was the runner-up on “The Ultimate Fighter.” Ougikubo never mentions it, but he has a win against Alexandre Pantoja, who later defeated Brandon Moreno. I think that fact has become a part of Ougikubo’s motivation.

Sherdog: For English-speaking fans of Rizin, the “Rizin Confessions” series has English subtitles that are provided by Daisuke Sato, who is famous for his pre-fight videos for Pride. That is great for foreign fans, but I believe that’s the only Rizin video that is available in English right now. Are there any other event trailers or pre-fight videos that could be translated?

Kashiwagi: As the person in charge of overseas, I’m trying to make sure that people can enjoy a variety of content in English, but I’m the only staff member working on it and so I can’t do everything. As for the pre-match VTR, there are many things to figure out. It’s a piece of art that Daisuke has created, and if we put subtitles on it, it would destroy the art. He has been very particular about where to place the text, so we have to be creative in order to translate it, but we really want to let our overseas fans enjoy the world of Rizin even more. I think that the best we can do right now is to put subtitles on “Rizin Confessions,” which is one of our best types of content, and let people enjoy it. If fans have any other ideas, please let me know.

Sherdog: Several Rizin fighters have large subscriber counts on YouTube, led by Mikuru Asakura’s 2.17 million. Kai Asakura has 1.05 million, Tenshin Nasukawa has 820,000 and the Rizin organization has 720,000. The UFC is exceptional with 12.9 million subscribers, but even its [middleweight] champion, Israel Adesanya, has 650,000. The YouTube activities of the athletes are leading to an increase in exposure for Rizin. I was wondering if there is anything that the athletes can do to appeal more to the rest of the world. For example, is there a possibility that Mikuru Asakura’s famous videos could be translated into English?

Kashiwagi: I think there is a possibility, and he is probably thinking about it. In the end, it all comes down to money. Since it’s his YouTube channel as a professional and as an individual, I think Rizin would like to promote it as a commercial venture. The possibility would become greater if we can talk about it with him and find out how he feels and then determine a win-win situation for everyone in the end.

Sherdog: Another way to broaden appeal is highlight videos. Jiri Prochazka’s Rizin highlight has 200,000 views.

Kashiwagi: That’s right. Basically, Sakakibara and Rizin are not going to stop a fighter who has done his best in Rizin from going on to the next level. We want to support and encourage those fighters who are going to that next level. I would like to continue working on that. If Jiri is allowed to fight for the UFC title in the future, we’d like for everyone to see his performances in Rizin at that time. We think there are a lot of fans around the world who got to know Jiri after he went to the UFC, so we want them to know what he was doing before that. We think that his success in the UFC will lead to more worldwide recognition for Rizin, so it’s really a win-win situation for us and for Jiri.

Continue Reading » A Sitdown with Rizin Fighting Federation’s Shingo Kashiwagi, Part 2