Igor Tanabe just improved his professional MMA record to 3-0 at Super RIZIN 2 on July 30th, 2023 with yet another first round submission finish. He began his career back at the end of 2021 and took less than a minute to secure a triangle choke against Hiroyuki Shimizu on the regional MMA circuit in Japan. It was over a year before he returned to the sport, and he took on a significantly bigger challenge in the annual new year’s eve event in 2022. He faced MMA veteran Melvin Manhoef and he left with another quick submission win, this time by locking up a heel hook in a little under 2 minutes.
Super RIZIN 2 was set to be the first time that Igor Tanabe competed for RIZIN FF, and the promotion didn’t do him any favors with the matchup they gave him. He was facing another MMA veteran in Daichi Abe and although the fight didn’t go entirely his way this time, he still managed to outwork his opponent on the ground. Abe almost became the first of Tanabe’s opponents to actually make it out of the first round too, but he was caught with a beautiful heel hook after a little over 4 and a half minutes.
Super RIZIN 2 Full Results
Vugar Keramov defeats Mikuru Asakura via Submission – Rear-naked Choke (Round 1, 2:41)
Keramov becomes the new RIZIN Featherweight world champion
Juan Archuleta defeats Hiromasa Ougikubo via Decision – Unanimous (Round 3, 5:00)
Archuleta becomes the new RIZIN Bantamweight world champion
Seika Izawa defeats Claire Lopez via Submission – Ninja Choke (Round 1, 1:06)
Izawa defends the RIZIN women’s Super Atomweight world championship
Preliminary Card
Chihiro Suzuki defeats Patricio ‘Pitbull’ Freire via Knockout – Punch (Round 1, 2:32)
Tofiq Musayev defeats Akira Okada via Knockout – Punches (Round 2, 1:11)
Shinobu Ota defeats Kenta Takizaqa via TKO – Punches (Round 1, 4:54)
Igor Tanabe defeats Daichi Abe via Submission – Heel Hook (Round 1, 4:34)
Yuki Ito defeats Hiroya Konda via Decision – Split (Round 3, 5:00)
The full Super RIZIN 2 event replay, including all of the above results, is available to watch on FITE TV.
