Tsukasa Mizoguchi barely gave Taichi Nakajima time to settle into his stance at RIZIN 55. The bout ended at 0:22 of Round 1, with Mizoguchi credited with a technical submission via rear-naked choke on Saturday’s card at LaLa arena TOKYO-BAY in Funabashi, Chiba. MiddleEasy described it plainly: Mizoguchi choked Nakajima out in 22 seconds.
The official wording matters. A technical submission means the referee stopped it because Nakajima couldn’t continue, not because he tapped. That’s how fast this one got away from him. RIZIN’s own broadcast account highlighted the setup on X, writing “What incredible speed from @tsukasa_mma67 in setting up that rear-naked choke!!” The fan account samaroont, which clipped half the card, went with “i love transitional submissions and i love tsukasa mizoguchi.” The word “transitional” is the useful one there. Mizoguchi found the back on the move rather than grinding his way to it, which is how a choke gets locked up before the first scramble is even over.
The fight was booked at bantamweight, listed at 134.5 pounds on MMA Mania’s card rundown, and it sat in the middle of a 13-fight main card streamed on RIZIN.tv. The available coverage didn’t include either man’s record, so I won’t guess at what this does to their résumés.
The rest of RIZIN 55
Mizoguchi’s 22 seconds edged out the night’s other blink-and-miss-it finish. On the prelims, Masachika Takahashi stopped Naohiro Matsumoto by TKO (punches, knees, soccer kicks) at 0:25 of Round 1.
Up top, Canada’s Tony Laramie took the RIZIN flyweight title from Makoto Takahashi by split decision over three rounds, surviving an early knockdown in Round 1 to do it. Cageside Press noted Laramie came in on three straight wins and 4-1 in RIZIN, while Takahashi was making his first defense after winning the belt in June. In the co-main, Yrysbek Tilenov beat Naoki Inoue by unanimous decision in a bantamweight title eliminator, which MMA Mania reported sets up a shot at 135-pound champion Danny Sabatello.
The grapplers ate well elsewhere, too. Jinnosuke Kashimura submitted Shinobu Ota with an Ezekiel choke from full guard at 1:51 of Round 3, and Takumi Hamada flattened Sho Sekihara with a slam and punches at 4:56 of Round 3. Kaleo Meheula’s ground-strike stoppage of Kazuki Aimoto at 4:58 of Round 2 was overturned to a no contest because Meheula missed weight. That one stings. You can do everything right in the cage and still hand the result back because the cut went wrong in the hotel bathroom.
No follow-up bout for Mizoguchi had been announced as of Sunday.
My take: speed finishes like this get filed under highlight reels and forgotten, and that’s a mistake. A choke that lands at 0:22 off a transition tells you the back take was drilled to the point of reflex, and that kind of skill travels against better opposition. In a bantamweight division where Tilenov and Sabatello now sit at the top of the queue, RIZIN should hand Mizoguchi a ranked name next instead of another tune-up, because a man who finishes this quickly has already shown he’s ready for one.
