The UFC may have put a bow on their 2025 and have closed up shop for the next month, but that doesn’t mean the MMA world has gone completely dark. There are still plenty of promotions around the world that we can get our MMA fix from this calendar year. For my MMA Underdog Pick of the Week: RIZIN New Year’s Eve, I’ve got a live dog in a featherweight fight. Let’s get it on, c’mon!
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MMA Main Card Pick of the Week: RIZIN New Year’s Eve
RIZIN SHIWASU NO CHO TSUWAMONO MATSURI
Main Card Start Time: 11:00 PM EST Tuesday (RIZIN TV)
Japan has a rich history of hosting large-scale combat sports events on New Year’s Eve, and MMA promotion RIZIN has continued this tradition. This year, they are in the Saitama Super Dome with RIZIN Shiwasu no Cho Tsuwamono Matsuri (Year-End Superpower Festival), which starts late night Tuesday for us in North America.
My underdog play for the night comes from a featherweight fight, pitting Brazilian-Japanese grappler Kleber Koike Erbst against Azerbaijan’s Vugar Karamov. The key word in that last sentence is ‘grappler’, because Erbst is a world-class one, with 29 of his 34 pro MMA wins coming via submission. With Karamov wanting to grapple as well, and not being too dangerous on the feet, this looks like a favorable matchup for Koike.
RIZIN BYE Underdog Pick: Kleber Koike Erbst ML (+150)
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