The undercard accompanying a Floyd Mayweather return to Japan is taking shape for September 25th at Saitama Super Arena.
Five fighters saw their names added to the bill for next month, which sees Mayweather fight at RIZIN 38.
Floyd Mayweather at RIZIN 38
Mayweather’s last appearance on a RIZIN bill was New Year’s Eve of 2018. Tenshin Nasukawa got taken care of in less than a round.
This time, the American battles another kickboxer in Mikuru Asakura. He begins a big favorite to win once again.
Sharing the bill with Mayweather will be Kota Miura, Ren Hiramoto, Kyohei Hagiwara, Luiz Gustavo, and Anastasiya Svetkivska.
A previous announcement confirmed that Kyoji Horiguchi also has a spot on the card.
RIZIN boss Nobu Sakakibara revealed the news over the weekend.
Undercard
“Horiguchi will participate in the RIZIN 38 Saitama Super Arena tournament on 9.25!
“Please come and watch Kyoji’s match in Japan for the first time in one year and nine months!
“I’m looking forward to it,” said Nobu.
In an update on the show’s timing, World Boxing News understands that Floyd Mayweather will participate in the broadcast early. The rest of the card will take place later to fall in line with international broadcasting.
Pacquiao meeting
The swelling of the card comes just days after Nobu traveled to the Philippines to meet Mayweather’s big rival, Manny Pacquiao. It led to speculation that RIZIN may want to be involved in a potential rematch between the pair of boxing legends.
Mayweather and Pacquiao fought in 2015. However, every year since then, a rematch has brought strong rumors.
The event broke box office records worldwide and still holds the most Pay Per View sales in history.
A May vs Pac 2 second fight would still be worth at least 30% of the original, which netted both men a career-high purse seven years ago.
Whether Manny Pacquiao got an invite to attend is yet to be outlined by the promoters.
WBN Editor Phil has over ten years of boxing news experience. Follow WBN on Facebook @officialworldboxingnews and Twitter @worldboxingnews.
