Naoki Inoue won a split decision over Yuki Motoya to defend his bantamweight title in the main event of RIZIN’s 50th card Sunday in Kagawa, Japan.
Inoue put his belt on the line for the first time after winning it with a quick stoppage over Soo Chul Kim in September, and controlled Motoya with quick and precise combinations on the feet, using mostly jabs. Motoya tried to exact revenge with a guillotine choke, but Inoue escaped to go back to his feet and again control the stand-up.
Inoue, who tapped Motoya with a rear-naked choke in just three minutes when they met back in December of 2020, open a cut right next to Motoya’s left eye. Motoya needed a finish in the third round and went for a single leg takedown, managing to get Inoue on the ground to work on ground and pound and multiple submission attempts. With seconds left on the clock, Motoya let go of the submission to rain down punches before the final bell rang.
In the end, the brother of UFC strawweight Mizuki Inoue retained his belt despite having his right eye shut in the end, and apologized to the crowd for his performance during his post-fight interview.
“I’m sorry for the subpar performance,” Inoue said through a translator after the victory. “As you can see I couldn’t see out of my eye. I will continue to evolve and be a champion who can finish fights.”
In the co-main event, Kazakhstani featherweight improved his winning streak to 10 with a close, hard-fought split decision victory over former RIZIN champion Chihiro Suzuki.
The previous match had Shunta Nomura win a technical decision after an unintentional clash of heads with Luiz Gustavo. The cageside doctor decided to end the bout halfway through the final rounds due to the cut and bleeding, going to the judges’ scorecards.
The early portion of the card had several violent finishes, like King Edkpolo smashing Ryo Sakai from back mount and a pair of sub-minute knockouts for Shuya Kimura and Kyohei Hagiwara.
Check the complete RIZIN 50 results below.
- Naoki Inoue def. Yuki Motoya via split decision
- Karshyga Dautbek def. Chihiro Suzuki via split decision
- Shunta Nomura def. Luiz Gustavo via technical decision — Round 3, 2:29
- King Edkpolo def. Ryo Sakai via TKO (punches) — Round 2, 2:32
- Kyohei Hagiwara def. Toby Misech via TKO (punches) — Round 1, 0:26
- Shuya Kimura def. Takeji Yokoyama via KO (punches) — Round 1, 0:54
- Yuki Ito def. Tony Laramie via unanimous decision
- Yoshiro Maeda def. Sanou Yokouchi via submission (rear-naked choke) — Round 3, 2:55
- Takeshi Izumi def. Spike Carlyle via unanimous decision
- Machi Fukuda def. Seo Young Park via TKO (punches) — Round 2, 4:04
- Haruo Ochi def. Nobuyoshi Nakatsukasa via submission (guillotine choke) — Round 3, 1:23
- Mamoru Uoi def. Koki Akada via split decision
- Hiroki Takaoka def. Seiya Ameyama via submission (rear-naked choke) — Round 2, 3:04
