At RIZIN 53, Luis Gustavo captured the lightweight championship by knocking out Ilkhom Nazimov in the first round. The card featured multiple finishes, including Ryo Takagi's first-round knockout of Kaiwen Li and Shinobu Ota's second-round arm triangle victory over Yuto Hokamura. Several bouts ended by submission, including Ryan Cafaro's third-round guillotine of Koyomi Matsushima and Daiki Tsubota's first-round triangle choke of Genji Umeno. The event also included kickboxing matches alongside MMA bouts. A featured special-rules standup fight between Ren Hiramoto and Koji Tanaka ended in a draw.
