Floyd Mayweather will return on New years eve to square off against Tenshin Nasukawa in a combat sport to be announced.
Mayweather and Nasukawa appeared at a news conference in Tokyo on Monday (Sunday night United States time) that was streamed worldwide on YouTube to announce the fight with officials from the Rizin Fighting Federation, a Japanese promotional company founded in 2015 that puts on MMA and kickboxing events.
“As far as the weight class and the rules, we’ll talk about that,” said Mayweather, who was dressed in a red, white and blue sweat suit and flanked by One Entertainment’s Brent Johnson, who represented him in making the deal with Rizin. “We’ll get that situated within the next couple of weeks. This particular bout is a special bout as far as we’re giving the people something they’ve never seen before. The world has never seen Mayweather compete live in Tokyo. Throughout the years, I’ve seen a lot of fans from Japan come to Las Vegas and come to the U.S., but me and my team said let’s do something different. Let’s go over to Japan.
“As far as the weight class, we’re not really worried about that. It’s all about me going out there and displaying my skills against another skillful fighter. So we both want to go out there and display our skills and give people excitement. I just want to entertain. I will speak with my team and I will let my team get with Rizin and I’m pretty sure they’ll come up with a great idea, but it’s all about entertainment and that’s what we want to do for the people.”
Rizin chairman Nobuyuki Sakakibara, who used to run the now-defunct Pride Fighting Championships promotional company, said they were still working out some of the details.
“We still have more work cut out for us, but we think it will be a great fight everyone will be excited to see,” Sakakibara said through a translator.
“When I was offered this, I accepted right away without any delay whatsoever,” he said through a translator. “I would probably say this is my biggest event in life so far, and I’m very happy this is going to materialize. I’m a little surprised myself. Nobody has defeated my opponent in the past, and I’d like to be the man who makes history. My punch can change history. I will show that to you, so please stay tuned.”
“I’m not particular about the rules, with or without kicks,” he said. “Boxing rules I wouldn’t mind. My opponent looks taller than he actually is, but I think I could hit him.”
“He’s undefeated, so it’s obvious he’s been doing something right to be where he’s at,” Mayweather said. “He’s young, fast, [has] youth, undefeated like myself, and what the people want is excitement, and that’s why I chose Japan. You guys know about boxing, you guys know about fighting. I’m not really worried about the rules. I’m pretty sure that will get sorted out in the next couple weeks. My thing is just coming over here to display my talent and put on a show for the people.
“It’s always been a goal of mine to go outside the U.S. and go into another arena and display talent as a professional because I did it as an amateur.”
