Bellator and Rizin are ending the year with a bang.
5-on-5
On Monday, the two promotions announced a cross-promotional event which will take place on New Year’s Eve. The main card will feature five Bellator fighters going against five Rizin fighters inside the Rizin ring at the Saitama Super Arena in Japan.
Matchups have not yet been announced, but four stars have been confirmed to represent the Bellator banner. Team Bellator will include current featherweight champ, Patricio ‘Pitbull’ Freire and former kings AJ McKee, Juan Archuleta, Kyoji Horiguchi. The fifth and final fighter will be revealed at a later date.
As for Rizin’s five-fighter roster, that remains to be a mystery. However, all should be known later this week.
Several matchups will be announced on Wednesday along with rulesets at a special kickoff press conference on Wednesday. You can catch the livestream at 6 p.m. JST/5 a.m. ET on the Bellator MMA YouTube channel.
Bellator and Rizin have cross-promoted before, but never an event quite like this. This will be the first time the two promotions have had their top fighters challenge one another over the course of an entire event.
The highly-anticipated main card is scheduled to air at 8pm ET on Dec. 31 on Showtime in the United States.
