Updated

Updated · MMA Fighting · Aug 11

King Edokpolo Reaches RIZIN Grand Prix Final With Round-2 Knee KO as Patchy Mix Loses 4th Straight

Updated

Updated · MMA Fighting · Aug 11

King Edokpolo Reaches RIZIN Grand Prix Final With Round-2 Knee KO as Patchy Mix Loses 4th Straight

Q: How did a massive scale failure cost a fighter a guaranteed victory in Tokyo's brutal RIZIN ring?

A disastrous weigh-in effectively erased Patchy Mix’s path to victory before he entered the ring. At RIZIN 54 in Tokyo, Mix came in 63.85 kg, about 6.3 pounds over the 61 kg bantamweight limit, triggering one of RIZIN’s strictest penalties: a two-point deduction at the start of the fight and a rule that any win by the overweight fighter is automatically changed to a no contest. That made the stakes brutal. Even if Mix had done enough to win on the scorecards, he still could not have been awarded an official victory. And because he began the bout already down two points, he needed to win convincingly enough to overcome the deduction just to avoid losing outright. Instead, the penalty proved decisive. Mix fought urgently, nearly finishing Shoko Sato with a rear-naked choke in the first round and threatening again in the third. But Sato survived, stayed productive in striking exchanges, and repeatedly damaged Mix’s leg. All three judges scored it 28-27 for Sato. Without the automatic two-point deduction, those same scorecards suggest Mix would likely have taken the decision. But under RIZIN rules, the scale failure left him unable to secure an official win and turned a competitive fight into his fourth straight loss. In short, the weight miss cost him both mathematically and administratively: it changed the scoring and removed any chance of having his hand raised officially.

3 articles · Updated · MMA Fighting · Aug 11

0:47 into Round 2, King Edokpolo knocked out Mikio Ueda with a flying knee in a RIZIN 54 heavyweight grand prix semifinal, sending him to the November final.
That finish set up a title-deciding matchup with Tsuyoshi Sudario, who stopped Ryo Sakai by first-round TKO at 4:26 in the other semifinal.
Shoko Sato also scored a unanimous 28-27 win over Patchy Mix, whose two-point deduction for missing bantamweight by more than 6 pounds helped extend his skid to four losses.
In the main event, 20-year-old Kyoma Akimoto outpointed former champion Kleber Koike to earn a shot at the 145-pound belt and the inaugural PFL title bout winner in September.