Takaki Soya battles BKFC flyweight champion John Dodson in a bare-knuckle boxing bout at Super RIZIN 3 on July 28, 2024.
After nearly 20 professional MMA fights, Soya is making his bare-knuckle debut here. He will be diving into the deep end of the proverbial pool here by taking on a BKFC titleholder in his first foray within this sport.
The training work has obviously shifted for Soya in the lead-up to this matchup. He has had sessions with globally ranked, champion boxers and world-ranked combatants within the sweet science at Watanabe Boxing Gym.
This is a fresh coat of paint for Soya after he had a knee injury last May. On the heels of that, he only had one MMA fight last year. On social media, he targeted a championship for 2024 and with this new opportunity, the focus has seemingly shifted from RIZIN MMA hardware to wanting the BKFC strap.
This would presumably be within his crosshairs if he can win this non-title affair against the reigning Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship king of 125 pounds. That being said, Takaki Soya does want to concurrently compete in mixed martial arts along with bare-knuckle.
As far as when the veteran of Shooto and DEEP was exposed to this permutation of gloveless combat sport, Soya told us recently that “When I was first introduced to the bare-knuckle boxing sport last year in 2023, up until then I had no idea it had even existed. So I saw bare-knuckle boxing clips on social media. It just came on my feed, timeline, I just was introduced to it through social media. I thought it was extreme. I thought it was a very exciting, extreme ruleset. If you call yourself a fighter, you should be able to challenge these rules.”
“These extreme, thrilling rules sometime down the line. So the moment I saw it on my social media feed, I wanted to compete in it as an MMA fighter. So I had an offer for an MMA fight this year. It was supposed to happen, it didn’t happen, then it was supposed to happen again.”
Super RIZIN 3
Soya continued, “But there was some things with my MMA fight and I wasn’t ready for it. So for me to lose an opportunity to fight, I just wanted to fight anything, right? So once that MMA fight fell through, I got an offer for this fight and I took it without hesitation.”
For someone who has a highlight reel finish by way of a soccer kick at RIZIN 16, it says a lot that Soya touts the extreme nature of the BKFC ruleset. The gloveless nature of BKFC drew comparisons from him to Lethwei and Takaki Soya feels the considerations of bare-knuckle are way more extreme than soccer kicks.
The native of Chiba, Japan also is open about having a terminal disease. Because of this, he never knows when his last fight will be. Every time in the ring, Soya sees the moment as he’s “about to burn my life again.” This statement came from an Instagram post regarding this fight.
As he next steps into the fire, he does so versus John Dodson who is a former multi-time UFC flyweight title challenger. Also like Soya, he has also fought under MMA rules with Rizin FF. In regards to Dodson’s resume and skillset within bare-knuckle boxing, Takaki Soya quipped,
“So obviously I’ve studied his MMA fights and in both fights [MMA and bare-knuckle], his style is not too different regardless of the rules. Like his weapons, his athleticism, his speed, his footwork, and his left hand. When you look at his UFC fights, a lot of his knockouts, his finishes come from his left… He uses his strength in BKFC. Beware of his left hand.”
Takaki Soya vs John Dodson
The 29-year-old recently celebrated his five-year anniversary with the company this June. Soya now readies to compete on a card alongside names like boxing legend Manny Pacquiao. That being said, Soya tunes out the noise and tries to focus on the task at hand instead of getting lost in the magnitude of being on a massive combat sports extravaganza like this.
The gigantic event in question will transpire later this week and Takaki Soya looks to shock the world. To do so, he must take out one of the sport’s very best in his first time throwing down with the gloves off.
