Juntaro Ushiku vs. Shinobu Ota, Six Other Bouts Added to Rizin 46 Lineup

A bantamweight showdown pitting former featherweight champion Juntaro Ushiku against Olympic silver medalist Shinobu Ota is one of seven new contests addded to the Rizin Fighting Federation 46 card.

The Japanese promotion recently announced the bouts. The other six matchups are as follows: Taichi Nakajima vs. Soo Chul Kim at bantamweight; Makoto Takahashi vs. Jung Hyun Lee at flyweight; Kazuma Kuramoto vs. Ji Yong Yang at bantamweight; Yoshiki Nakahara vs. Viktor Kolesnik at featherweight; Sora Yamamto vs. Ilhom Nazimov at featherweight and Ryo Takagi vs. Taisei Nishitani at featherweight.

Rizin 46 takes place on April 29 at Ariake Arena in Tokyo and is headlined by a featherweight championship tilt between Chihiro Suzuki and Masanori Kanehara.

Ushiku snapped a two-fight skid in his last outing, when he took a unanimous decision over Kyohei Hagiwara at Rizin 44 this past September. The 29-year-old American Top Team representative owns a 21-8 career mark that includes stints in Deep and Pancrase.

Ota, who medaled in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 2016 Olympic Games, has compiled a 5-3 mark while competing exclusively under the Rizin banner. He is coming off a first-round knockout of Ryusei Ashizawa at Rizin 45 on New Year’s Eve.Noah Bey vs Yusaku Inoue Hiroaki Suzuki vs Ren Sugiyama