The Rizin fight with Tenshin Nasukawa is officially on, again.
The will he or won’t he drama of Floyd Mayweather Jr’s return to the sport in Japan for New Year’s Eve is over. The all time great will indeed be meeting local kickboxing and MMA star Tenshin Nasukawa in a boxing match. It won’t count on their records, however, as it will only be a three round exhibition fight. As weird as this fight is on its own, the route here has been even more bizarre.
The rumors that Floyd would be returning to the sport for a tune up in Japan before rematching Manny Pacquiao in 2019 have been swirling for some time. We still can’t speak to the second half of that potential plan, but today the New Year’s Eve exhibition was announced officially. It is traditional in Japanese combat sports for the last day of the year to be the biggest show. Plus, the strong nation has a long history of hosting what could be called freak show fights in its combat sports as well.
This fight qualifies too thanks not only to the experience difference, but the size contrast as well. The exhibition will have is contracted at welterweight. That is 147 lbs, of course. Nasukawa likes to bounce around between 122 and 126 lbs. Floyd is going to dwarf him. Not only that, but this will also be Nasukawa’s pro boxing debut. He holds unbeaten records in MMA and kickboxing at 27-0 and 4-0 respectively at least.
Of course, we probably still shouldn’t count the chickens until they hatch at the opening bell. Mayweather and his team had already traveled once to Japan to announce this bout. When he returned stateside, however, the former pound for pound king retracted everything he had said abroad. Rizin apparently still correctly felt the fight could be salvaged, however, and in the end they succeeded in doing so if this time the announcement can be believed.
As an exhibition, this fight will have no judges for scoring as it won’t count on any records anyway. The rounds will be three minutes long and the fighters will wear eight ounce boxing gloves. Floyd last fought in August of 2017 against UFC star Conor McGregor and won by stoppage. The last time he fought an actual professional boxer was in 2015. If he does rematch Pacquiao in early 2019 as rumored, it will have been almost four years since Floyd Mayweather Jr competed in the ring against a boxer.
