Igor Tanabe has just been booked for his fourth professional MMA fight at RIZIN Landmark 6 on October 1st, 2023, where he will face a tough challenge from Koji Shikuwa. Although he’s only three fights into his professional MMA career, Tanabe has consistently put in great performances and been able to use his elite grappling to beat vastly more experienced fighters. This will actually be Tanabe’s second fight for RIZIN FF after he made an impressive debut for the promotion in his last outing.
Tanabe started out his MMA career slowly at first, only having one fight in both 2021 and 2022. He fought another debuting fighter first of all, submitting him in less than a minute and immediately recognizing that he could face a higher level of opposition. That led to his second fight with elite striker and veteran MMA fighter Melvin Manhoef and although it took him almost twice as long, he still locked up a submission to force the tap in the first round.
That’s when RIZIN took notice of Tanabe’s meteoric rise and they signed a contract for him to make his debut earlier this year. They booked him against another MMA veteran with a lot of high-level experience in Daichi Abe, a popular Japanese fighter who has competed for both the UFC and ONE Championship in the past. It was another first-round submission finish for Tanabe, although Abe did make it further into the fight than any of his past opponents. Koji Shikuwa is another tough striker with a lot of kickboxing experience who might give Tanabe some trouble on the feet, but it’ll be interesting to see if he can overcome that to register another quick submission finish.
RIZIN FF announced the news that Igor Tanabe was going to compete against Koji Shikuwa at RIZIN Landmark 6 in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
