On Sunday, the most anticipated kickboxing fight in years arrived — at least if you were situated in Japan. While there was no international stream, former RIZIN and current RISE star Tenshin Nasukawa went up against K-1 star Takeru Segawa, the culmination of over seven years of build-up.
Tenshin, an undefeated sensation in kickboxing since his teens, had called out Takeru as early as 2015. But with the fighters competing for different promotions, a fight never transpired. That led to a stalemate: K-1 was only willing to make the fight happen if they could sign Nasukawa to an exclusive deal. RISE were willing to lone out their star, but not willing to lose him entirely.
By 2016, with Tenshin fighting in RIZIN, a promotion willing to cross-promote and who had worked with K-1, the fight seemed close to happening. But K-1 then ended their partnership with the successor to PRIDE, and once again, hopes were dashed.
But all these years later, a cross-promotion, with RIZIN chief Nobuyuki Sakakibara taking part, finally managed to get a deal done. End result, The Match 2022. 43-0 Tenshin would finally face three-division K-1 champ Takeru.
Full results from The Match 2022, which took place at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan on June 19, 2022 can be found below.
Tenshin Nasukawa def Takeru Segawa by unanimous decision
Kaito def. Masaki Noiri by unanimous decision (in extra round)
Kento Haraguchi def. Hideaki Yamazaki by TKO, Round 2
Rukiya Anpo def. Kosei Yamada by unanimous decision
Kongnapa Weerasakreck def. Taiju Shiratori by KO, Round 1
Kan Nakamura def. Leona Pettas by majority decision
Ya-Man def. Ryusei Ashizawa by knockout, Round 1
Hiromi Wajima def Bey Noah by unanimous decision
Sina Karimian def Rikiya Yamashita by unanimous decision
Mahmoud Sattari def Yuta Uchia by knockout (punch), Round 1
Yuki Kasahara def Chihiro Nakajima by unanimous decision
Kazane def Toma Kuroda by unanimous decision (in extra round)
Mutsuki Ebata def Riamu by split decision (in extra round)
Masashi Kimura def. Shiro by unanimous decision
Masahiko Suzuki def Akihiro Kaneko by majority decision
Rui Okubo def. Ryujin Nasukawa by unanimous decision
