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Shinya Aoki Focused on Legends Fight with Kazushi Sakuraba at Rizin FF
Shinya Aoki has got a busy week coming up. On Tuesday night, he faces Kazushi Sakuraba at Rizin FF’s inaugural show. Then, three days later, the Japanese lightweight participates in a pro wrestling bout at IGF’s New Year’s Eve extravaganza.
The latter assignment is not a serious one, so Aoki’s attention for the last couple of months has been firmly fixed on Sakuraba. The Pride, Dream, and UFC veteran hasn’t fought since 2011 and will be coming out of retirement for this fight, but his opponent won’t be taking the contest lightly.
“I already spent six weeks in Singapore training very hard at Evolve MMA. The Saitama Super Arena is a nostalgic venue for me and it is fun to be fighting there again.”
Aoki hasn’t fought at Saitama since Dream 18 at the end of 2012. For the past two years, he has spent New Year’s Eve on the opposite side of Tokyo, competing for IGF at the Ryougoku Sumo Hall. He will be there again this Dec. 31, but this time it won’t be for an MMA fight.
“At IGF on the New Year’s Eve, I will be doing a professional wrestling show. The fans always enjoy watching, so I am happy to do this.”
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While he was in Singapore, Aoki had a chance to work with one of the most successful practitioners from the sport of wrestling, not the entertainment side of things. He was training at Evolve MMA while Ben Askren prepared for his aborted fight with Luis Santos and described it as an eye-opening experience.
“I had the opportunity to train with Ben Askren and seeing his technique every day at Evolve MMA had a significant impact on me. His style is something I would like to try and emulate.”
Sakuraba retains legendary status in the sport after his battles with Royler Gracie, Royce Gracie, and Renzo Gracie. He’s also shared a ring with the likes of Igor Vovchanchyn, Quinton Jackson, Wanderlei Silva, Mirko Filipovic, Antônio Rogério Nogueira, and Ken Shamrock, but the Japanese veteran turned 46 earlier this year.
At 32, Aoki is still in his athletic prime. He’s riding an eight-fight winning streak and is the reigning lightweight champ with Asia’s leading MMA promotion, ONE Championship, so he isn’t contemplating retirement right now. Whether or not he will still be going strong at Sakuraba’s age remains to be seen, but he plans to play it by ear.
“I will see how I feel at the end of every year and decide about fighting. At the moment, I feel very good.”
Once his fight with Sakuraba is out of the way, Aoki can start thinking about his next ONE Championship title defense. There are a number of contenders emerging with Adrian Pang and Lowen Tynanes leading the way, while Ariel Sexton is also coming off back-to-back wins.
Aoki outpointed Koji Ando in his most recent defense, and thinks that next in line is the Australian.
“My next opponent I think will be Adrian Pang.”
The last time Aoki fought at welterweight was in 2009, and he even dropped to 145 pounds for a one-off bout two years ago. However, for Rizin FF, the former Dream, Shooto, and WAMMA champion will be tipping the scales at possibly the highest weight of his entire career.
“The fight with Sakuraba-San is a catchweight, 78 kilograms (172 pounds).”
ONE Championship recently released its 2016 schedule, which involves shows in ten different cities across Asia. Tokyo wasn’t one of the destinations and Aoki is unsure when Asia’s biggest MMA promotion will be heading to his homeland.
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“I would be happy if ONE could do an event here, but there are a lot of serious things that need to be done in Japanese MMA first.”
Rizin FF was founded earlier this year by former Pride Fighting Championship president Nobuyuki Sakakibara. Fedor Emelianenko is on board and the organization has aspirations to recreate the glory days of Japanese MMA. Aoki doesn’t know whether or not this is possible, but he’s happy for the promotion’s effort.
“I do not know whether Rizin will be able to make Japanese MMA great again, but I do believe it is a good thing that they are trying.”
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