A quick snapshot at the weekend that was.
Biggest Upset: Tofiq Musayev over Patricky Freire
Notable New Champions:
- WBO Asia Pacific Junior Featherweight Championship: Jhunriel Ramonal
- Rizin Women’s Super Atomweight Championship: Seo Hee Ham
- Rizin Bantamweight Championship: Manel Kape
- 2019 PFL Women’s Lightweight Championship: Kayla Harrison
- 2019 PFL Welterweight Championship: Ray Cooper III
- 2019 PFL Heavyweight Championship: Ali Isayev
- 2019 PFL Lightweight Championship: Natan Schulte
- 2019 PFL Featherweight Championship: Lance Palmer
- 2019 PFL Light Heavyweight Championship: Emiliano Sordi
A Few Storylines Going Forward:
- Tenshin Turns Away Another Challenge: The poor execs at Rizin thought they were giving Tenshin Nasukawa a real challenge in Rui Ebata. Oh, you sweet innocent babies.
- Keeping it Warm For Kyoji: With Kyoji Horiguchi sidelined with a knee injury until well into 2020, his title was vacant with Manel Kape and Kai Asakura battled for it in the main event of Rizin 20 on New Year’s Eve from Saitama, with Kape earning the win and the title with a second-round TKO.
- New Money: PFL crowned seven champions on New Year’s Eve, and gave a cool million bucks to boot. For Lance Palmer and Natan Schulte, it was their second title in the league. For Ray Cooper III, it was redemption for coming so close in the finals last year. And for Kayla Harrison, it felt like a coronation, an inevitability of the division they created specifically to suit her.
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