Journalist claims Nobuyuki Sakakibara is in an extortion incident involving organized crime links

This week, a journalist on Twitter by the name of Karaev Paul claimed that ex-PRIDE promoter and Rizin president, Nobuyuki Sakakibara is currently involved in an extortion incident due to his alleged ties with the Yakuza in Japan. According to MMA lore, the Yakuza were heavily involved in PRIDE and this claim has been backed up by ex-fighters and journalists alike.

Since PRIDE’s end, Japan has found a new home for MMA named Rizin which has run successfully for several years. In fact, it’s kept a pretty low profile where corruption is concerned, up until now. According to Paul, Sakakibara was being extorted by a Japanese journalist for the equivalent of $40,000. This was to pull an audio file of Sakakibara admitting ties to the Yakuza.

Allegedly, Sakakibara spoke about a Yakuza member working on Rizin without an official business card. Paul went on to say that the same person would be used when negotiating fight deals in Rizin. Apparently, this was information from a tabloid newspaper source in Japan.

It should be noted that as of right now, this is merely hearsay and the Twitter user Karaev Paul has no sources to back up his claims. What is a fact is that Sakakibara is currently in the midst of promoting a fight between Teshin vs. Takeru which is set to be one of the biggest fights in Japanese history. So, even though it seems that it’s business as usual for Japanese MMA, the whispers of gang-related involvement still rumble on as loud as ever.