Recently released by the UFC and with his lifetime ban reduced to three years, Japan’s Rizin Fighting Federation has signed former PRIDE FC champion.
Many expected Wanderlei to get a mega fight with Fedor, but according to Silva, he will first do a Jiu-Jitsu exhibition match on Rizin’s April 17 show in Nagoya. This match will be a 2 vs 2 ta team match.

Silva will face Kazushi Sakuraba and Hideo Tokoro in a unique grappling tag team match. According to the MMA Hour Silva’s tag team partner will be Japanese MMA legend Kiyoshi Tamura.

Here is the full Rizin card:

Daron Cruickshank vs. Shinji Sasaki
Gabi Garcia vs. Anna Malyukova
Chris Barnett vs. Kirill Sidelnikov
Teodoras Aukstuolis vs. Jaideep Singh
Vadim Nemkov vs. Karl Albrektsson
Hisaki Kato vs. Yuta Watanabe
Kazuyuki Fujita vs. Jiri Prochazka
Allan Nascimento vs. Yuki Motoya
Kanako Murata vs. Natalya Denisova

We haven’t seen much of Wanderlei’s grappling in MMA, but he is a BJJ black belt under Cristiano Marcelo (student of Royler Gracie).

Wanderlei with Cristiano Marcelo

Silva told Combate (translated by MMAFighting.com)

“I had a meeting with Nobuyuki Sakakibara, and he’s super interested in bringing me back to Japan, he said the Japanese are anxious to see me compete again. “We’re also flirting with Bellator,” he said with a laugh. “They want to make a deal together so I can fight in Japan and here in the United States, and I would fight for both promotions. I’m negotiating an exhibition fight in Rizin on April 17. They offered me a jiu-jitsu match, two versus two. It would be Team Wanderlei, Andre Dida and I, against a team from Japan.

“I’m also negotiating a tournament in Japan, in which I would fight in September and come back in December for two fights in one night. That’s the plan for 2016.”

 

Watch the rare Jiu-Jitsu roll between Wanderlei Silva and Vitor Vianna in the Gi: