By FCF Staff

RIZIN’s annual New Year’s Eve card is in the books, and the event saw two champions retain their belts and one title change hands.

In the main event, Kleber Koike put his vaunted grappling game to work to record a unanimous decision win over Chihiro Suzuki, and in doing so, secured the featherweight belt. Koike submitted Suzuki in their first encounter back in 2023, but because he missed weight for the fight, it was ruled a no-contest.

In the co-headliner, the decorated Kyoji Horiguchi defended the flyweight title via a unanimous decision win over the dangerous, Nkazimulo Zulu. The latter stunned Horiguchi a couple of times in the bout with hard punches, but the champ’s well-rounded game delivered him the victory.

At lightweight, Roberto De Souza retained his title by quickly finishing Vugar Karamov with a beautifully executed, triangle choke.

RIZIN 49 also saw the son of the legendary Kazushi Sakuraba, Taisei, record a win in his pro-MMA debut. Sakuraba dropped Yusuke Yachi with a stinging punch not long into the fight and the bout was stopped shortly, afterward.

Here are the complete results for RIZIN 49, which was hosted by the Saitama Super Arena in Japan.

RIZIN 49

Kleber Koike def. Chihiro Suzuki via unanimous decision
Kyoji Horiguchi def. Nkazimulo Zulu via unanimous decision
Roberto “Satoshi” De Souza def. Vugar Karamov via submission (triangle choke) — Round 1, 4:45
Seika Izawa def. Lucia Apdelgarim via submission (triangle armbar) — Round 1, 2:21
Yuki Motoya def. Kyoma Akimoto via unanimous decision
Rajabali Shaidullaev def. Yuta Kubo via TKO — Round 2, 2:30
Karshyga Dautbek def. Ren Sugiyama via unanimous decision
Ryuya Fukuda def. Ryusei Ashizawa via knockout — Round 1, 0:54
Mikio Ueda def. Tae In Kim via knockout — Round 2, 2:31
Jose Torres def. Makoto Takahashi via split decision
Taisei Sakuraba def. Yusuke Yachi via TKO — Round 1, 0:26
Koji Takeda def. Suguru Nii via technical decision — Round 3, 4:09
King Edokpolo def. Satoshi Kamiyama via knockout — Round 1, 3:22
Genji Umeno def. Taiga Kawabe via unanimous decision
Daichi Tomizawa vs. Kota Miura via knockout — Round 1, 1:53
Hyuma Yasui def. Hiroaki Suzuki via split decision

Results via MMA Junkie.com.