{"id":8989,"date":"2026-03-28T20:02:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T20:02:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/8989\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T20:02:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T20:02:36","slug":"rizin-loans-ex-champion-naoki-inoue-for-pfl-brussels-fight-with-marcirley-alves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/8989\/","title":{"rendered":"RIZIN loans ex-champion Naoki Inoue for PFL Brussels fight with Marcirley Alves"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">PFL\u2019s upcoming May 23 show in Brussels, Belgium, will feature former RIZIN bantamweight champion Naoki Inoue taking on 2025 PFL tournament winner Marcirley Alves, the company announced Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">RIZIN confirmed to MMA Fighting that Inoue will be fighting under the PFL banner as part of a fighter-loan deal between promotions, but remains under contract with the Japan-based organization.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">In a 2025 interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/2025\/7\/26\/24471673\/rizin-champion-naoki-inoues-dream-fight-ufc-belt-merab-dvalishvili\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MMA Fighting<\/a>, Inoue said \u201cthere are a lot of tough guys in the PFL\u201d and he would love the opportunity to test himself against them one day. On May 23, he gets that chance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Inoue (20-5) will be competing for the first time since losing his RIZIN bantamweight title to Danny Sabatello via split decision in December, snapping a four-fight winning streak. Inoue won 10 of 13 bouts in RIZIN since a short 1-1 run in the UFC in 2017-18.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Alves (15-4) was an alternate in the 2025 PFL bantamweight season and made his way to the finals with a pair of decisions over Leandro Higo and Jack Hadley before beating Justin Wetzell in the final, all three victories in a span of four months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">PFL Brussels will take place at the ING Arena and feature former UFC and WEC champion Benson Henderson against local undefeated prospect Patrick Habirora in the main event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PFL\u2019s upcoming May 23 show in Brussels, Belgium, will feature former RIZIN bantamweight champion Naoki Inoue taking on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[18,865,3447,3457,3460],"class_list":["post-8989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brussels","tag-brussels","tag-latest-news","tag-pfl","tag-pfl-news","tag-rizin"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116308590160454339","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}