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Check out the weigh-in results for Sunday’s Rizin Fighting Federation fight card.

Rizin Fighting Federation will return on Sunday April 17 with an intriguing fight card that will feature a 242-pound catchweight headliner between Grand Prix runner-up Jiri Prochazka and Japanese veteran Kazuyuki Fujita.

The Japanese upstart promotion will also showcase some of their talent from the NYE shows, including Vadim Nemkov, Teodoras Aukstuolis, Gabi Garcia and RENA. The promotion also signed new talent, including Chris Barnett and Daron Cruickshank.

The event will also feature a two-on-two tag-team grappling match between Wanderlei Silva and Kiyoshi Tamura against Kazushi Sakuraba and Hideo Tokoro. The contests is expected to open up the main card proceedings.

Check out the weigh-in results below (courtesy of Sherdog):

Jiri Prochazka (217) vs. Kazuyuki Fujita (240)
Vadim Nemkov (204) vs. Karl Albrektsson (205)
Teodoras Aukstuolis (215) vs. Jaideep Singh (214)
Gabi Garcia (209) vs. Anna Malyukova (200)

Tag Team Grappling Bout
Kazushi Sakuraba (181) / Hideo Tokoro (151) vs. Wanderlei Silva (220) / Kiyoshi Tamura (185)

Rena Kubota (112) vs. Cyndi Alves (112)
Daron Cruickshank (154) vs. Shinji Sasaki (154)
Kirill Sidelnikov (259) vs. Chris Barnett (301)
Yuta Watanabe (193) vs. Hisaki Kato (193)
Yuki Motoya (N/A) vs. Allan Nascimento (125)
Kanako Murata (117) vs. Natalya Denisova (115)

Kickboxing Bouts
Hiroto Yamaguchi (141) vs. Tetsuya Yamato (141)
Danilo Zanolini (161) vs. Norihisa Amimoto (159)
Yuya Yamato (132) vs. Yuki (130)

Glover Teixeira and Rashad Evans will scrap TONIGHT (April 16, 2016) at UFC on FOX 19 inside Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida. In a match up of long-time veterans, what adjustments must be made for either man to claim victory? Find out below!

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Light Heavyweight hitters Glover Teixeira and Rashad Evans will clash TONIGHT (April 16, 2016) at UFC on FOX 19 inside Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida.

Teixeira picked up a pair of solid wins in his last two bouts, and he’s looking for a third victory here. If Teixeira can become just the second man to finish Evans, he’s in great position to fight for the title once more.

Meanwhile, Evans returned from a long layoff only to suffer an uninspired decision loss to Ryan Bader in Oct. 2015. Now, Evans must prove that he’s still a relevant player in 2016, or he’ll be relegated away from high-profile bouts.

Let’s take a look at the keys to victory for both men:

Glover Teixeira
Record: 24-4
Key Wins: Ryan Bader (UFC 160), Ovince St. Preux (UFC Fight Night 73), Quinton Jackson (UFC on FOX 6),
Key Losses: Jon Jones (UFC 172), Phil Davis (UFC 179)
Keys to Victory: Teixeira is a very well-rounded combatant. The Brazilian is a second-degree black belt in jiu-jitsu, possesses some murderous punching power, and he’s a very capable wrestler as well.

In this fight, Teixeira’s biggest key to victory is to avoid over-committing to his punches. His opponent is excellent at timing his takedowns — both at the end of his own combinations and reactively — so Teixeira needs to be careful of reaching for his opponent.

If Teixeira can keep this fight standing, he should be able to put his “Hands of Stone” to good use. Evans has definitely slowed down a bit in recent years, and he’s far more hittable than he once was.

Against a puncher like Teixeira, that’s a problem.

It’s also important that Teixiera show a sense of urgency if he is taken down. Evans is not much of an offensive guard passer or devastating ground striker, so Teixeira should scramble immediately and take risks to return to his feet.

VS.

Rashad Evans
Record: 21-4-1
Key Wins: Phil Davis (UFC on FOX 2), Dan Henderson (UFC 161), Chuck Liddell (UFC 88)
Key Losses: Jon Jones (UFC 145), Ryan Bader (UFC 192), Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (UFC 156)
Keys to Victory: Evans is a sharp boxer and one of the finest MMA wrestlers in the sport. Evans blends those two aspects of his game far better than most, allowing him to effectively chain together his strikes and takedowns very well.

If he’s still in relatively good form, Evans holds a pair of advantages over Teixeira that he’s held over most of his past opponents. Namely, Evans is the faster man and better wrestler.

With those skills, Evans can stick and move, as his speed should allow him to land and get away safely. This will undoubtedly frustrate the power puncher and make him more aggressive, which is where Evans’ excellent blast double will come in handy.

There is one adjustment Evans could attempt here. Phil Davis had great success at controlling Teixeira from the turtle, and that’s a strategy Evans could look to replicate as well.

Above all else, it’s important that Evans doesn’t hesitate. If he lets Teixeira stalk him and find his range, he’s simply asking to eat some very hard shots and make his own life difficult.

Bottom Line: Only one of these men can be relevant to the title picture.

Teixeira has done a very nice job rebounding from his 2014 losses. If he wins here, that will be three straight victories over some pretty quality opposition. While he’s not likely to receive a title shot from this win — see Jones, Jon — it’s not impossible that he ends up in the cage with Anthony Johnson in a title eliminator.

On the other hand, a loss would really derail his momentum. Evans hasn’t been performing particularly well, so for Teixeira to lose here it would be a major setback.

Despite his recent time off and loss to Bader, victory would put Evans in very good position. He wouldn’t be ready for a No. 1 contender’s bout just yet, but nor would the former champion be that far off.

Alternatively, a loss is a pretty definitive statement that Evans should not be competing opposite members of the top five anymore. He’s been in UFC for a long time and has had a great career, but “Suga” may no longer be an elite Light Heavyweight.

TONIGHT at UFC on FOX 19, Glover Teixeira and Rashad Evans will go to war in the main event. Which fighter will remain standing when the dust settles?

Karim Zidan delves into the discussion surrounding meldonium, the drug that Maria Sharapova tested for.

Back in March, five-time Grand Slam champion Maria Sharapova stood behind a podium at a press conference she hurriedly called together to inform the media that she had tested positive for meldonium. The revelation indirectly shed light on a sports scandal that now involves more than 30 Russian athletes and over 200 positive tests for the substance since Jan. 1 2016.

After Sharapova’s positive test was made public, scores of Russian athletes started to fail drug tests for the same substance. Other athletes include two Ukrainian biathletes, Olga Abramova and Artem Tyschcenko, Russian cyclist Eduard Vorganov, and Russian ice dancer Ekaterina Bobrova. The drug also seeped into combat sports such as boxing when European Boxing Union (EBU) light-heavyweight champion Igor Mikhalkin tested positive for meldonium. He was later stripped of the title he defended on three occasions.

UFC lightweight Islam Machakhev was the latest to test positive for the substance when he failed his pre-fight test and was removed from the UFC on FOX 19 card less than 24 hours before his fight. Though Machakhev stood by his innocence – his manager claimed it was medication used for a heart procedure — his preliminary match-up against Drew Dober was cancelled.

So what is meldonium, and why are so many athletes testing positive for the substance?

Meldonium, an anti-ischemic drug, is medically used to treat ischemia, which is an issue concerning blood flow. It is not approved for use in the United States but is commonly available in the Russian Federation, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus and Armenia. The medication helps improve exercise capacity in patients, as well as in healthy individuals and athletes. It has also shown benefits in dealing with diabetes and neurological disorders.

Meldonium, classified by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) as a S4 substance to do with the hormone and metabolic modulator, was added to the prohibited list on Jan. 1 2016 after being monitored the previous year. The reason behind this was because the substance was found to give healthy athletes a boost in performance and endurance.

Though meldonium was an acceptable substance to ingest until recently, it was only available in the Russian Federation or the former Soviet Bloc. It is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration and is actually manufactured by a single Latvian company named Grindeks. It is generally purchased under the brand name Mildronate, which is the exact substance that Sharapova has admitted to using for the past decade during her press conference.

According to Sharapova, she was prescribed the medication by her family doctor to deal with various health concerns, including a history of diabetes and a magnesium deficiency. Once the International Tennis Federation informed her that she had failed a drug test, she realized the medication also went by the name meldonium, which was the substance added to the 2016 WADA prohibited list. She neglected to read the numerous emails that the organization had released to confirm the recent additions to the list.

WADA has come under fire for their inefficient method of notifying athletes. Despite their efforts to publicize the information ahead of the ban at the start of the year, nearly 200 tests were flagged for meldonium after Jan 1. The agency also released a statement this week that meldonium could potentially linger in the athlete’s system months after they stop ingesting it. Therefore it is unclear whether some of the positive urine tests that occurred over the past few weeks/months actually contained meldonium samples from 2015.

“Limited data exists to date on the urinary excretion of meldonium,” WADA said in a statement. “Several studies are currently being conducted involving WADA-accredited laboratories, and WADA will share these results with its stakeholders when available.”

According to WADA, meldonium has a half-life of approximately 15 hours but can remain in the system in minute doses for weeks, if not months. Therefore, the organization suggested that concessions could be given to athletes with less than 1mg of meldonium in their system prior to March 1.

“It might take several months for meldonium to leave the human organism due to its non-linear pharmacokinetics (dose-dependence),” Grindex spokeswoman Laila Klavina told Tass.ru. “It depends on a variety of factors, such as dose, the length of treatment, individual physiological characteristics, test sensitivity and sample types (blood or urine) used in tests,”

While it remains a prohibited substance and the onus is on athletes to be fully aware of the supplements they consume, the recent inconsistencies in WADA’s testing procedure and handling of the ban could provide a loophole for some of the athletes who were flagged.

The Russian Minister of Sports, who came under fire once the latest doping scandal was publicized, quickly criticized WADA once they released the statement suggesting partial amnesty was possible.

“An athlete should be punished fairly but now it turns out that they were taking meldonium unintentionally,” Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko told Tass.ru. “WADA has not carried out any research how long the substance stays in the human body. We filed a request and were answered that there had been no research.

“I assure you that by the year’s end the percentage of athletes suspended over positive doping tests will be the same as 3-5 years ago,” Mutko said. “It will not be at the same level as in the U.S., France or Italy… It will be around one percent of the testing base.”

Since then, the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) has lifted multiple bans placed on some of their athletes for meldonium tests. The latest include Nadezhda Kotlyarova, Olga Vovk, Gulshat Fazletdinova and Andrei Minzhulin.

However, the UFC’s sole meldonium case – Islam Makhachev – does not fall under the March 1 WADA deadline. Regardless, the UFC’s statement suggested that WADA’s new evaluation of the drug could have an impact on his eventual suspension.

“WADA recently announced that they are currently conducting further studies of the substance which may influence how cases involving Meldonium are evaluated. In order to ensure Makhachev receives full and fair due process, USADA, the independent administrator of the UFC Anti-Doping Policy, will consider all relevant information before making any determinations.”

Makhachev has since expressed his innocence and explained that the medication was for heart surgery he had undergone last year. It should also be noted that the fighter never publicized his condition, as this should have been disclosed on medical forms in the United States.

According to the manufacturer’s website, mildronate is “widely used for the treatment of different heart and vascular diseases, as well as for the improvement of work capacity of healthy people at physical and mental overloads and during rehabilitation period.” The regular course of treatment last between four to six weeks and is undergone “twice or thrice a year.”

It will be interesting to see how USADA handles Makhachev’s flagged drug test, particularly given the unprecedented number of drug failures for meldonium and the variables involved in the overall scandal.

Bellator got their hands on one of Glory’s flashiest talents, Karateka and kickboxer Raymond Daniels. He’ll make his promotional debut at Bellator Kickboxing’s first ever event on April 16th in Italy.

Bellator is expanding. Not only are they stepping outside their normal US borders for their upcoming April 16th show in Torino, Italy, but they’re doing it with an all new product to show off alongside their normal lineup of MMA fights. Bellator Kickboxing will hold it’s first ever card this weekend, and it will be headlined by Melvin “No Mercy” Manhoef. Manhoef is a familiar name in the MMA and kickboxing world and lined up for a middleweight title shot as well, but he’s not the only name that might be known to US fight fans.

Further down the card is Raymond “The Real Deal” Daniels, a Glory kickboxing staple for the past several years, who cut his teeth in Chuck Norris’ World Combat League. Glory and Bellator had a brief partnership, linking up for Bellator’s Dynamite 1 card back in September of 2015. It didn’t last long, with Glory taking it’s product to ESPN in 2016, but when the two promotions parted ways, Daniels decided to stay with Spike TV and Bellator.

The flashy sport karate based fighter has made a name for himself as a highlight reel staple and is looking to show off his form on Bellator’s inaugural kickboxing event. He sat down with Bloody Elbow to talk about his career so far, why he made the jump to Bellator, and what the future might hold.

You were a police officer for about 8 years, in Long Beach, California, why did you leave? Was it just for kickboxing?

“There’s a few other things. Definitely I got a lot on my plate to motivate me to move on in life. One of the main reasons was my son. I’m a single father, so just to be able to have that opportunity to spend more time with my son. It was just one of those things that I wanted to do. Being a police officer was a goal of mine that I set when I was very young. I became a police officer when I was 21. And then it also allowed me to be able to teach martial arts full time. I was going to be able to help people out a little bit more, which I was able to do, but as a martial arts instructor I’m able to help out kids, adults, families. Make sure that they never end up in the back seat of a police car. So, being a martial arts instructor is a lot more rewarding. Plus it allows me to spend endless amounts of time with my son, which is one of those things that’s really important to me.”

Is it more stressful to fight to pay the bills than it was to be a cop?

“A lot of people look at fighting as a violent type of thing, but it’s an expression of yourself. And me as a martial artist, I’ve trained in the martial arts since I can remember. I usually just say, ‘since five.’ So, that’s about 30 years that I remember actually training martial arts. And the fighting aspect just gives me the opportunity to come over and show my craft to the world. So actually, it’s really fun for me to actually do it.

“Just imagine if you make some type of sculptures and then someone comes out with an event so you’re able to show these sculptures. And you’ve been working on these sculptures since you were a kid. It gives me an opportunity to show a skill set that I’ve been working on since I can remember to the world, on that national and world level. It’s nothing better than doing what you love and loving what you do for a living. I love to teach martial arts and I am fortunately blessed enough to be good enough to have the skills and ability to do it on the world level.”

Bellator’s obviously not just about kickboxing. You’ve tried MMA before, would you consider trying it again?

“The door is always open for it. Back then I was younger and I was… You know when you’re a young man and your parents try, or people around you, try and tell you different things. And when I went into that particular round, I just was not prepared for all aspects of the fight. I was kickboxing, I was winning, I was knocking everyone out. So, I was that young man. I was like, ‘No one can jump me in the cage. I don’t need to practice any ground game.’ So, that’s how that ended up happening.

“I still do actually practice it, and it’s something that, it’s open as an option. However, now my goal obviously is to work with Bellator Kickboxing, do some of that. And if the right opportunity presents itself and I talk to my staff and my crew, and it’s an adventure we want to take, then definitely that’s a door and a window that obviously is open. Especially with Bellator having the resources with the kickboxing and MMA.”

You were with Glory for a few years, had good success there, why did you decide to leave for Bellator?

“I originally started… My first kickboxing match ever, before they were televised, before anyone knew what it was, I was actually with Scott Coker and I also did some K-1 with him as well. And I had such amazing experiences with Scott, as far as on a personal level, getting a chance to meet with him, knowing what his… I think it’s also important to share a person’s vision for things. And his vision for what he wants to do, what he did back with Strikeforce and when he was doing K-1, he was able to help his athletes understand that vision. And that’s why you don’t really hear about a lot of promotions where athletes really really like the person that’s in charge.

“And I like what he’s doing, I like where he’s going with things. So, it was a little bit of an easier move to move over that way, because I had worked with him before, before I went into World Combat League, the Chuck Norris League, and before I was with Glory. And then having an opportunity to work with Bellator, work with Spike TV, is a great opportunity. They do great things and I’m looking forward to being a part of that venture.”

Kickboxing is not a staple sport in the US, is it harder to make a living as a US based kickboxer than it is for other guys in the sport?

“I think it is. It’s a little more complicated. The states are the states, they fans pick different things. I think they just haven’t had the education in kickboxing and it hasn’t been mainstream enough in order for them to see it, to understand it, to love it. And that’s why I always say, anytime you look at anybody that is an MMA fighter, if you look at how they became popular and how they became the top athlete in the world, it’s usually from their standup side.

“There’s a few guys that their ground game is just… You know, when we talk about the Gracies and you talk about their ground game. And that’s what made them known. But if you look at the most popular fighters in MMA history, most of them are standup knockout artists with punches and kicks. And that’s what people like to see. They like to see two people standing up, punch and kick each other, until one person gets knocked down, one person gets dropped. And that’s the person that’s winning, is the one standing. So, I think it’s just lack of education on it, and then also just lack of seeing it and how exciting it is.”

You’ve got a really flashy style, it feels a lot more like some of the classic 70’s and 80’s martial artists that ended up as action stars or stunt men, rather than what you see most fighters doing. Is that something that you feel is important, to rep a more old-school, flashy karate style in the ring?

“Oh yeah, definitely. I mean, I’m a sport martial arts fighter, sport karate fighter. I’m a karate martial artist at heart and so I love to go out there and bring that flash and show people. They’re like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s flashy stuff. Yeah, you see that in the movies.’ No, you can actually hit some people and cause some damage with this stuff. So, when I go out there it’s not about winning.

“I already expect to go out there and expect to win. But, can I do it and can I win in a fashion and do something that people haven’t seen, or something that they’re, ‘I saw that in a Ninja Turtle movie.’ Yep, you saw it in the Ninja Turtle movie in the sci-fi and we just did it in real life combat sports on international television. For me, it’s really about putting martial arts on the map and especially even sport karate. Because people have seen sport karate and they’re, ‘Oh that’s just tappy tap.’

“For me it’s fun. And it gives everybody that, ‘Oh, what’s he gonna do next?’ They either want to come and see what I’m gonna do next, or you want to come and see me get beat up. Well, one or the other, as long as they have one of those relationships with me I’m actually okay with it.”

Raymond Daniels will fight Francesco Moricca in a welterweight feature bout on Bellator Kickboxing on April 16th in Torino, Italy. The card will be broadcast on tape delay on Spike on April 22nd.

You can follow Daniels on twitter @RD_GOAT.