Sergio Pettis and Kyoji Horiguchi will meet again in a highly anticipated rematch at RIZIN 47 on June 9, the company announced Friday. The event will take place at the Yoyogi First Gymnasium in Tokyo, Japan.
RIZIN also revealed a battle of former champions Kleber Koike and Juan Archuleta in a 145-pound showdown, plus a featherweight clash between Karshyga Dautbek and Tetsuya Seki.
Horiguchi (32-5, 1 no-contest) had just won the RIZIN bantamweight title when he flew to Connecticut to challenge Pettis (23-6) for the Bellator strap in December 2021, winning all three rounds before suffering a shocking knockout in the fourth stanza. Horiguchi claimed the inaugural RIZIN flyweight belt in his most recent appearance, but moves back up to 135 pounds to rematch Pettis.
Pettis makes his return to action for his first match since losing the Bellator belt to Patchy Mix in November 2023, snapping a winning streak that lasted six fights and nearly four years. The former Bellator bantamweight champion scored victories over the likes of Patricio Pitbull and Archuleta since parting ways with the UFC in 2019, where he beat Brandon Moreno and Joseph Benavidez.
Archuleta (29-5) returns to featherweight after losing his 135-pound title to Kai Asakura at RIZIN 45 on New Years’ Eve. The 36-year-old veteran, who held the Bellator bantamweight belt in 2020 after defeating Patchy Mix, had a brief run at 145 pounds in Bellator in the past, coming up short against champion Patricio Pitbull.
Koike (32-7-1, 1 no-contest) lost his RIZIN championship on the scale in June 2023, a day before choking out Chihiro Suzuki in under three minutes — a victory automatically overturned to no-contest since he has missed weight. Koike, who dropped a decision to veteran Masanori Kanehara months later, enters RIZIN 47 off of a third-round submission victory against Yutaka Saito.
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