The fighting woes continue for former Bellator MMA kingpin Patrick “Patchy” Mix.

Just one day before his 20th birthday, Kyoma Akimoto earned the biggest victory of his burgeoning MMA career in Friday’s Rizin Fighting Federation 52 main event in Tokyo. Akimoto clobbered -450 betting favorite Mix early in the second round of their featured featherweight clash.

In the opening seconds of the fight, Akimoto (12-1, 7-1 Rizin) stuffed a takedown attempt from Mix (20-4, 1-1 Rizin), and the fighters traded jabs until Akimoto stunned Mix for the first time with a crisp combination that backed him to the corner. Mix recovered, but Akimoto attacked his body with more punches and then dropped him with a salvo to the face.

During the final 30 seconds of the round, Akimoto notched two more knockdowns and punished Mix with knees and soccer kicks on the ground. Mix narrowly made it to the bell, but his cornermen delayed the start of the second round by not leaving the ring in a timely manner following the one-minute break. Mix was given a yellow card for stalling.

KYOMA AKIMOTO NEARLY STOPS PATCHY MIX AT THE END OF ROUND 1!!!

[ #RIZIN52 | Watch on #RIZINtv ] pic.twitter.com/KI1S0dDxgs— RIZIN.tv (@RIZINTV_) March 7, 2026

Seconds into the second stanza, Akimoto dropped Mix with two left hooks flush on the temple. Mix scrambled to his knees, only for Akimoto to punt his heavily favored foe with a pair of brutal soccer kicks to the face. Referee Naoya Uematsu had no choice but to wave things off at that point, rescuing a bloodied and battered Mix from his own toughness at the 37-second mark of the second round.

Since suffering a deflating decision loss at the end of 2024, Akimoto has racked up five straight victories including four consecutive stoppages. He became the first man to ever finish Mix inside the distance, placing himself in prime position for a potential featherweight title shot.

In the 155-pound co-main attraction, Luiz Gustavo (15-4, 7-4 Rizin) followed in the footsteps of mentor Wanderlei Silva by knocking out Taisei Sakuraba (2-2, 2-2 Rizin), the son of Pride Fighting Championships legend and former Silva rival Kazushi Sakuraba. Gustavo rebounded after a slow start in the opening round and melted Sakuraba with a right hook in the second stanza.

Sakuraba held the advantage early into the bout, landing a series of kicks to Gustavo’s ribs and evading the majority of the counters. As Gustavo began to load up, Sakuraba could not get out of the way in time of a thudding body kick that took some of the wind out of his sails. The 27-year-old recovered well enough to fire back, even getting off some of his own offense, but the tide began to turn.

Coming out of his corner in the second round red-hot, the ultraviolent Gustavo shredded open a cut above Sakuraba’s right eye with knees. Soon after, he finished a combination with a head kick that put the Japanese athlete on high alert. Sakuraba blocked the worst of what came at him, only for Gustavo to follow up with a clubbing right hook that shut Sakuraba’s lights out and sent him crashing to the mat. The impressive knockout for Gustavo officially came at 2:32 of Round 2.

A striking battle between featherweights Ryo Takagi (10-3, 4-2 Rizin) and Shuya Kimura (5-3, 1-3 Rizin) came to an unfortunate end due to a doctor stoppage after the first round, though it appeared that Kimura had been poked in his right eye which may have caused some of the fight-ending damage.

Takagi wobbled Kimura with a right cross during the opening 90 seconds, but Kimura recovered and grazed his foe with an overhand right to back Takagi into a corner. Takagi kicked Kimura’s left leg and landed two right hands late in the round, but he appeared to poke Kimura in the eye in the process. Kimura indicated that he had been poked in the eye, but referee Tatsuro Nagase told him to fight on. At the conclusion of the round, the ringside doctor determined that Kimura could not continue. The broadcast showed multiple replays, but no video displayed the sequence when Kimura appeared to suffer the eye poke. With Kimura unable to continue, Takagi was awarded the doctor stoppage TKO victory.

Opening up the main card, Koji Takeda (19-8, 8-8 Rizin) put forth a valiant effort on just two days’ notice to upset recent Rizin featherweight title challenger Viktor Kolesnik (27-6-1, 4-2 Rizin). The bout took place at lightweight due to Takeda’s very late participation, with Takeda stepping in for Kolesnik’s original opponent, Kazuki Aimoto.

Kolesnik easily won the first round with relentless kicks to any target he could find, which rarely slowed until Takeda countered a flying switch kick attempt chained into an unorthodox standing arm-triangle choke. From there, the fight changed drastically, as Kolesnik slowed while Takeda rallied. The Japanese athlete pinned Kolesnik in the corner for prolonged periods of time and hopped on his back in search of a rear-naked choke. Takeda’s clinch control continued in the final round, with the 30-year-old inflicting enough damage to sway the judges in his favor. Three matching scores of 29-28 came down in favor of Takeda, who took home the unanimous decision win as a shocked Kolesnik looked on.

Earlier on the card, Deep and Deep Jewels microweight champion Saori Oshima (16-7, 5-1 Rizin) picked up a much-needed victory by outpointing Keito Oyama (9-8, 2-2 Rizin) in a women’s super atomweight contest at 108 pounds. Oshima, who had dropped three of her past four fights including an unsuccessful Rizin title bid in November, put the popular “Kate Lotus” on the ground and kept her there for most of the match. While active on top for the first 10 minutes, Oshima took her foot off the gas the final five but maintained enough control to pull through. Oyama struck back with a plethora of elbows from the bottom and even tried a pair of gogoplatas, to no avail. Oshima prevailed via unanimous decision with a trio of 29-28 scores, and the woman known as “Little Giant” has now gone the distance in five consecutive bouts.

The judges were not needed for any of the other seven preliminary tilts. At 130 pounds, Yuki Ito (20-7, 10-3 Rizin) annihilated former Legacy Fighting Alliance champ Carlos Mota (8-3, 0-1 Rizin) in the first round. Punches were traded during the opening 90 seconds, and Mota was aggressive moving forward, but Ito floored him with a head kick and finished him off with a barrage of punches to secure the finish at the 2:27 mark.

Jinnosuke Kashimura (11-5, 2-1 Rizin) spoiled the Rizin return of legendary Japanese competitor Hideo Tokoro (36-34-1, 4-6 Rizin) at bantamweight. Kashimura scored an early takedown and passed Tokoro’s guard. He then rolled into an anaconda choke that rendered Tokoro unconscious just 66 seconds into the fight.

Kyung Pyo Kim (15-5, 4-1 Rizin) beat down Rizin lightweight staple Yusuke Yachi (28-16, 12-9 Rizin) en route to a second-round doctor stoppage. Kim cut Yachi with an elbow in the first round, then hurt him with a knee and followed up with punches on the ground. A bloodied Yachi made it to the bell, and Kim make sure when the next round began to target those wounds to further paint the canvas red. Time was eventually called, and the doctor could not stem the bleeding, which resulted in the bout being waved off at 4:25 of Round 2.

Shoko Sato (38-17-2, 1 NC; 4-2 Rizin) bounced back from his narrow decision loss to current Rizin champ Danny Sabatello in September by demolishing LFA’s John Sweeney (14-4, 0-1 Rizin) in an extremely lopsided bantamweight bout. While the opening minutes proved uneventful, Sato took Sweeney down midway through the round and immediately went on the attack. He bloodied Sweeney with two knees, mounted his foe and brutalized him with vicious punches and elbows that came close to meriting referee intervention. When a stoppage did not materialize, Sato transitioned to a mounted triangle choke, forcing Sweeney to hastily tap out at 4:49.

In what was easily his most impressive Rizin performance to date, Tony Laramie (12-3, 3-1 Rizin) picked apart Takaki Soya (13-8-1, 4-4 Rizin) with leg kicks for two rounds before finishing him with punches and hammerfists in Round 3. Soya could not put much weight on his lead leg after absorbing a ton of damage from Laramie’s kicks, and Laramie dropped him with a right hook and put him away for a TKO win exactly two minutes into the third frame. Laramie campaigned for a flyweight title shot following his triumph.

Road FC champ Jung Hyun Lee (8-3, 1-2 Rizin) prevailed against Shooto titleholder Jo Arai (14-13-1, 0-3 Rizin) in a flyweight scrap between two competitors each seeking their first Rizin victory. Arai started well with flurries of punches to Lee’s body in the opening round, but the tides turned as soon as Lee got back at him by spamming knees in clinch situations. The body work wore Arai down as the fight progressed, and Arai held on to get out of the rounds. At 3:44 of the final frame, an onslaught of knees and punches drove Arai to the corner and ultimately out of the fight.

Rizin 52 kicked off with a women’s super atomweight bout between “Noel” Noeru Narita (4-2, 2-1 Rizin) and Korean prospect Bo Mi Lee (3-2, 0-2 Rizin). Early on, Lee reversed a takedown and held top position in the scarf hold position. Narita scrambled out from the bottom and trapped a kneeling Lee in a tight guillotine choke. “Noel” pulled guard with the choke, and Lee was forced to submit 2:07 into the first round.