Key takeaways
Masanori Kanehara beat Kleber Koike by unanimous decision after three rounds in the main event of RIZIN 44 at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama. The co-main event also went to the scorecards: Juntarou Ushiku beat Kyohei Hagiwara after three rounds at featherweight.
Across the nine bouts that produced a result, two ended by knockout, one by submission and six on the judges' scorecards — three stoppages in nine fights. Every decision was unanimous: not one result divided the judges.
The quickest finish belonged to Shoma Shibisai, who stopped Janos Csukas at 2:32 of round one, and two of the three finishes came inside the opening round. The longest was Ryuya Fukuda's knockout of Erson Yamamoto, 11 minutes and 40 seconds in. End to end, the nine fights filled one hour and 48 minutes of cage time.
Four weight classes were used, featherweight most often with three bouts.