{"id":440572,"date":"2026-01-29T09:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T09:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/440572\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T09:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T09:48:08","slug":"patchy-mix-splits-with-ufc-signs-with-rizin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/440572\/","title":{"rendered":"Patchy Mix splits with UFC, signs with RIZIN"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a long and winding road for Patchy Mix. While it&#8217;s unclear what the final destination will be, the next stop is in Japan.<\/p>\n<p>Mix (20-3) has been released from the UFC and will fight at RIZIN 52 on March 6 (March 7 local) in Tokyo against Kyoma Akimoto (11-1), a person with knowledge of the situation confirmed to MMA Junkie after the promotion posted a graphic.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Not only will Mix, 32, be switching promotions, but also weight classes. Given his tough cut to bantamweight, Mix is headed up a class to featherweight in an attempt get back to his winning ways.<\/p>\n<p>Mix was widely regarded as one of the best fighters outside the UFC prior to PFL&#8217;s acquisition of Bellator. Following the merger, Mix departed the promotion and was swiftly signed by the UFC.<\/p>\n<p>After a debut unanimous decision loss to top contender Mario Bautista in June, Mix lost a split decision to former KSW champion Jakub Wiklacz in October.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Akimoto, 19, has eight finishes in 11 wins and has won three bouts in a row entering his battle vs. Mix.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ufc\/2026\/01\/28\/ufc-news-patchy-mix-release-rizin\/88408125007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:UFC makes stunning release as former Bellator champ signs with RIZIN;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">UFC makes stunning release as former Bellator champ signs with RIZIN<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s been a long and winding road for Patchy Mix. While it&#8217;s unclear what the final destination will&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,182456,80519,638,1302,92184,1859,82,640],"class_list":["post-440572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-kyoma-akimoto","tag-mario-bautista","tag-mma","tag-mma-junkie","tag-patchy-mix","tag-rizin","tag-sports","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}