RIZIN × PFL CEOs Reveal Shaidulloev vs. AJ McKee Double-Title Fight | Super RIZIN 5
RIZIN Fighting Federation and the Professional Fighters League are putting more than promotional pride behind Razhabali Shaidulloev vs. AJ McKee. In this joint RIZIN × PFL video, RIZIN CEO Nobuyuki Sakakibara and PFL CEO John Martin explain the deal that puts both organizations’ featherweight championships into the same main event at Super RIZIN 5 on September 10 at Kyocera Dome Osaka.
The setup is unusual even by cross-promotional MMA standards. Razhabali Shaidulloev vs. AJ McKee will be contested under RIZIN MMA rules at 66 kilograms, with Shaidulloev defending the RIZIN featherweight title and the vacant PFL featherweight championship also at stake. One fight, hosted inside the RIZIN ring, will therefore produce a fighter holding both belts simultaneously.
What Sakakibara and John Martin are actually announcing
The important part of the CEO conversation is not simply that a PFL fighter is appearing in RIZIN. Fighters crossing promotional lines has happened before, including throughout RIZIN’s own history. Sakakibara’s emphasis is on the championship structure: RIZIN and PFL are each putting their own featherweight belt into the same bout rather than sending one champion to challenge only for the other promotion’s title.
That distinction explains why both executives have presented Shaidulloev vs. McKee as a landmark collaboration. The promotions retain different brands, rules and approaches to MMA, but they are allowing one result to directly affect the championship hierarchy of both organizations.
For readers less familiar with the Japanese promotion and why cooperation of this kind fits its history, MMAtown’s guide to what RIZIN is covers its ring-based rules, presentation and place in Japanese combat sports. The promotion has long been willing to build fights that do not fit neatly into the standard North American MMA template, something also reflected in MMAtown’s look at the top RIZIN fights.
Razhabali Shaidulloev brings the RIZIN title and a 19-0 record
Shaidulloev is not merely representing RIZIN because he happens to own the belt. The undefeated Kyrgyz featherweight has become one of the promotion’s most destructive champions.
He enters Super RIZIN 5 at 19-0 after an extraordinary run through RIZIN’s featherweight division. Kleber Koike Erbst, Viktor Kolesnik, Mikuru Asakura and Yuta Kubo were all stopped in the opening round during the stretch that established Shaidulloev as champion and then consolidated his place at the top of the division.
That matters to the cross-promotional story. RIZIN is not sending an aging name or a secondary contender into the partnership bout. Sakakibara is putting the promotion’s active, undefeated featherweight champion opposite one of the most accomplished fighters inherited into PFL’s roster from Bellator.
AJ McKee arrives as PFL’s No. 1 featherweight contender
McKee brings a very different résumé. The former Bellator featherweight champion enters at 25-2 and has rebuilt momentum since returning to 145 pounds. He has won three consecutive featherweight fights, defeating Akhmed Magomedov, Adam Borics and previously unbeaten Salamat Isbulaev by decision.
PFL’s current rankings place McKee at No. 1 in the featherweight division. Rather than holding the PFL belt going into Osaka, he is fighting for the vacant championship. That makes the “double title” language important to understand correctly: Shaidulloev is defending an existing RIZIN title while McKee is attempting to win both that belt and the vacant PFL championship in the same fight.
For Martin, it is also a chance to send one of PFL’s most recognizable fighters into another major promotion rather than keeping the featherweight title picture entirely within the company’s own events. The winner leaves Osaka with a direct sporting connection between the two organizations instead of a promotional partnership that exists only through press releases.
Super RIZIN 5 remains a major RIZIN card around the PFL crossover
The CEO announcement naturally revolves around Shaidulloev and McKee, but the September 10 show is still built around a distinctly RIZIN lineup.
Karshyga Dautbek vs. Ren Hiramoto brings Hiramoto back against one of Kazakhstan’s most dangerous featherweights. Mikuru Asakura vs. Shinya Aoki pairs two generations of Japanese MMA stars at 71 kilograms, while Roberto Satoshi Souza vs. Shunta Nomura puts the former lightweight champion against one of the division’s rising names.
The featherweight depth continues with Ryo Takagi vs. Vugar Karamov and Yutaka Saito vs. YA-MAN. Japanese women’s MMA star RENA also meets Olympic judo medalist Natasha Kuziutina in RENA vs. Natasha Kuziutina.
Those fights matter here because the PFL partnership has not turned Super RIZIN 5 into a joint card from top to bottom. Instead, RIZIN has inserted one genuinely consequential inter-promotional championship fight above a lineup built from its own stars and ongoing divisional stories.
The bigger RIZIN × PFL question comes after Osaka
That is where the Sakakibara-Martin conversation becomes more interesting than a normal fight announcement. If the collaboration stopped with one guest appearance, Shaidulloev vs. McKee would still be a major fight. Putting both championships at stake gives the result consequences that continue after September 10.
A Shaidulloev victory would leave RIZIN’s champion holding PFL gold as well. A McKee victory would send a PFL athlete home with both organizations’ featherweight championships. Either outcome immediately creates questions about future defenses, where the double champion competes next and whether RIZIN and PFL are prepared to exchange more elite fighters.
Martin has repeatedly spoken about making PFL more open to major fights that do not necessarily follow the old promotional boundaries. That broader approach also appears in discussions around future crossover possibilities involving Jake Paul, covered in MMAtown’s Jake Paul MMA debut and PFL plans. Shaidulloev vs. McKee is different because it is already signed, championship-level MMA rather than a hypothetical attraction.
PFL’s own schedule continues after Super RIZIN 5
The Osaka partnership also lands between major stretches of PFL’s global schedule. After Super RIZIN 5, the promotion returns to Riyadh for PFL MENA 11 on October 2, followed by PFL Africa Morocco in Casablanca on October 10.
The U.S. schedule then resumes with PFL Chicago on October 16, headlined by Liz Carmouche vs. Jena Bishop for the inaugural PFL women’s flyweight championship.
That calendar helps explain why the Super RIZIN 5 announcement is notable. PFL is not replacing its own regional and championship events with crossover shows. Instead, Martin is using the organization’s roster alongside that existing schedule to create an additional route to significant fights.
Two promotions putting something real at risk
Cross-promotion is easy to discuss and notoriously difficult to execute once rankings, contracts and championships become involved. Super RIZIN 5 goes further than simply booking AJ McKee for a one-off appearance in Japan.
Sakakibara is risking RIZIN’s featherweight championship against an outside challenger. Martin is allowing the vacant PFL featherweight title to be decided inside another promotion’s ring, under RIZIN rules, against RIZIN’s champion.
That is the central point of this CEO announcement and the reason the video has value beyond normal Super RIZIN 5 promotion. On September 10, Razhabali Shaidulloev and AJ McKee will not just represent two different organizations. The result will determine who can legitimately leave Kyocera Dome Osaka carrying the featherweight championships of both RIZIN and PFL.