Tomorrow at midnight, we’ll be celebrating the fact that the worst year in living memory is finally over. But fight fans, 2020 isn’t quite done yet. On Friday, Japan’s No. 1 MMA promotion, RIZIN, will put on its biggest show of the year on New Year’s Eve, which has for years been the biggest night for fights in the country. There’s some really good action on offer, so for our final post of 2020, let’s dive on in.

Here are looks at the three fights I’m going to be watching closest from RIZIN 26:

Kai Asakura vs. Kyoji Horiguchi

RIZIN 26 will have fans in attendance – about 10,000 will be allowed to space out within the cavernous Saitama Super Arena, one of Pride’s iconic venues – but it’s a shame we can’t get a full house. The rematch between Japan’s two biggest native-born MMA stars is the most money fight that RIZIN can possibly put on, and one would expect it to set the promotion’s record for attendance if this was a normal year.

Big New Year’s Eve shows are a longstanding tradition in Japanese fight sport, dating back to the early 2000s. You’ll see some MMA, you’ll see some kickboxing – check out the exhilarating Japanese superstar Tenshin Nasukawa, who’s going to be in action this week – and when Antonio Inoki was booking the things 20 years ago, you’d see some pro wrestling too. One of the most bankable Japanese MMA fighters to come around in years, Asakura headlined his first New Years’ Eve show last year against Manel Kape, and the crowd of nearly 30,000 set a RIZIN record.

I’ve written about Asakura, a young, exciting star with the potential to be the kind of figure the Japanese MMA scene can rebuild around, before on this site. His backstory is like something out of a movie: a young street tough who frequently got in trouble growing up, Asakura found an outlet for his energy in MMA, and broke onto the scene in a fight promotion that was specifically set up as a second chance for criminals, juvenile delinquents and other societal rejects. He has lightning-fast hands and some of the most explosive knockout power you’ll find anywhere at his weight class – although he fights at bantamweight, the bantamweight division in RIZIN is at 130 pounds rather than 135.

It became obvious very quickly that RIZIN was banking on Asakura to become its signature star. Asakura ran a string of wins after signing with RIZIN in 2017 and was placed in a non-title fight with Horiguchi, then the bantamweight champion, last August. It was Asakura’s big opportunity to make his name. In just 68 seconds, he came through.

The knockout victory made Asakura as the newest Japanese MMA superstar. And since it was in a non-title fight, the obvious money-making move was right there: a rematch, with the strap on the line, in the main event of the 2019 New Year’s Eve show. In October, however, Horiguchi suffered a major knee injury in training that has kept him out for over a year. The title was vacated, and Asakura instead faced Kape, an excellent striker from Angola whom Asakura had beaten by decision in 2018. This time Kape got the better of him, stunning the Saitama crowd into silence by knocking him out in the second round.

Since then, Kape has moved on to the UFC, where he appears to be getting groomed for contendership in the flyweight division. And in two fights this year, Asakura has looked untouchable, scoring first-round knockouts in both fights and barely taking a hit. Aside from his youth and his considerable natural gifts, Asakura has finely tuned his striking style to RIZIN’s unique ruleset, swarming grounded opponents with knees and soccer kicks to devastating effect.

But the onus will be on Asakura to prove that his quick win over Horiguchi last year wasn’t a fluke. Still just 30 years old, Horiguchi has proven himself again and again, and at this point has to rank as one of the most successful Japanese MMA fighters of all time. Formerly one of the top 125-pound contenders in the UFC, in 2015 Horiguchi became just the fourth Japanese-born mixed martial artist to challenge for a UFC title, joining Yuki Kondo, Hayato Sakurai and Yushin Okami. He came up short against a prime Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson, and two years later chose to return home to Japan to serve as one of RIZIN’s major building blocks.

Horiguchi could very well still be one of the UFC’s top contenders – the loss to Johnson was his only defeat in the Octagon, and he subsequently reeled off a 13-fight win streak that ended when he met Asakura last year. Along the way, he became a champion in both RIZIN and Bellator, beating Darrion Caldwell twice in a row to win both belts.

Horiguchi is a brilliant all-around mixed martial artist, one of the very best in the world. He has fast and powerful hands of his own in the stand-up game and can more than hang on the ground. Against Caldwell, Horiguchi managed to fend off the elite wrestler’s smothering top control to assert his skill advantage, submitting Caldwell in the first fight and winning by decision in the second fight.

What remains to be seen is how his major knee injury will affect him moving forward, but even a questionable Horiguchi will be another very meaningful test along Asakura’s rise. Another win over a fighter of Horiguchi’s caliber will further cement Asakura’s status as a new pillar of Japanese MMA. The title will be up for grabs, but there’s more at stake here than just a belt.

Mikuru Asakura vs. Satoshi Yamasu

Kai is far from the only Asakura on this show, either. On the undercard, talented young atomweight Kanna Asakura – no relation – will be looking to continue her rise up the rankings against Ai Shimizu. And a couple fights before the main event, Kai’s older brother Mikuru will have one heck of a big platform against Saitama’s own Satoshi Yamasu.

About a year older than Kai, Mikuru has been at times lost in the shadow of his sibling’s ascent to stardom. But at 28 years old, he looks like a very promising featherweight, he’s put some good wins on his resume, and he looks like he could also be a factor in RIZIN for a very long time.

While his younger brother Kai is a violent tornado constantly moving in for the kill at warp speed, Mikuru has refined his style into a more patient counter-striker with precise hands and a mean left leg. In February, Asakura put together perhaps the best performance of his career, controlling the range against former Ultimate Fighter contestant Daniel Salas with his kickboxing before blasting him with a head kick in round two.

That earned Asakura his first-ever main event against top featherweight contender Yutaka Saito last month, which wound up being a unanimous decision loss that snapped an eight-fight winning run. I didn’t think the defeat hurt his stock very much: Asakura looked very sharp on the feet and put in a good account of himself, but the aggressive Saito had enough success scoring takedowns and controlling the grappling game to earn the decision. Asakura is a young fighter with plenty of room to grow. We already knew that.

Refocused after his first defeat in three years, Asakura is coming back off a quick turnaround, but he isn’t getting an easy out. “Dominator” Yamasu is debuting in RIZIN this week after reigning as the featherweight champion in the promotion Deep, one of the older MMA organizations still operating. Yamasu has a slew of quick finishes on his record, and should be a good add to the RIZIN roster. He’ll have the chance to claim a big scalp right away.

Ayaka Hamasaki vs. Miyuu Yamamoto

The UFC has expanded to the point where it has dominion over almost every division in the sport. Back in the day, you’d watch the WEC to see the best featherweights and bantamweights – then the UFC absorbed the WEC, and instead they were all under the same roof. You once would have to watch low quality Tachi Palace Fights streams on Sherdog.com to see the world’s top flyweights – then the UFC added a 125-pound division and swallowed them all up. Along the way the UFC added women as well, slowly expanding from just 135 to 115, 145 and 125 as well. Basically every MMA division where there’s any abundance of talent, the best are in the UFC.

Today, the women’s atomweight division, 105 pounds, is the last frontier. It is the only weight class in the sport that both has more than one or two decent fighters and is not dominated by the UFC. The best at 105 pounds are scattered in a few different places – Invicta has a relatively strong division, while the top 105-pounder in the world, Korea’s Seo Hee Ham, calls ONE her home – but RIZIN also has a good crop. And on Friday, they’ll have one of the world’s very best back in action.

Over the past decade, Ayaka Hamasaki has thoroughly established herself as a legend in the sport, albeit one a little too small to get a chance at the UFC spotlight. Hamasaki has been a star at both 105 and 115, winning atomweight titles with Invicta and RIZIN and racking up a record of 20-3.

She’s only lost once in her career at atomweight – a split decision loss to Ham, whom she had previously beaten twice, last year – with the other two losses on her record coming against UFC standouts Claudia Gadelha and Livia Renata Souza at 115. At 38 years old, she’s still going strong. She’s a second-degree judo black belt who’s dangerous everywhere. Hamasaki has brilliant grappling ability but isn’t afraid to slug things out, and showed the best of all her skillset in a bounceback win over Tomo Maesawa in August.

She could be in for one hell of a grappling match on Friday. Her opponent, Miyuu Yamamoto, has one of the most interesting backstories in the sport. The older sister of the late MMA legend Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto, Miyuu was a three-time world wrestling champion but never got the chance to wrestle in the Olympics – women’s wrestling wasn’t added to the Games until 2004, when she was past her peak, and she came up short on several attempts to qualify in her 30s and early 40s.

Despite her brother’s success in MMA and the fact that she was formerly married to UFC and Pride veteran Enson Inoue, she didn’t make the jump to MMA until 2016, when she finally gave up on her Olympic dream. She was 42 years old when she stepped into the RIZIN ring for the first time, an almost unheard-of age to debut at a high level. And while Yamamoto took her lumps in her adjustment to a new sport, she’s reeled off wins in five of her last six, and has all of a sudden found herself as a top contender. She’s in marvelous physical condition for a woman her age, and her wrestling ability, honed over decades, has translated. Now, at 46 years old, she’s trying to become one of the oldest champions in the history of the sport.

Yamamoto’s story is truly inspiring, but she’ll have her hands full against the all-around finishing ability of Hamasaki, who has all the MMA experience and accolades Yamamoto lacks. But the fact that Miyuu Yamamoto has even gotten herself to this point is incredible, and if she can fend off Hamasaki’s submissions, she could have a fighting chance. That’s all she needs.