RIZIN 55 went down at LaLa arena Tokyo-Bay in Chiba, Japan, airing November seventh stateside and November eighth locally, and the headline act delivered a changing of the guard. Makoto Shinryu put his flyweight title on the line against Canada's Tony Laramie, and according to reporting out of the live discussion on r/MMA, Shinryu dropped the belt to his challenger.

Laramie came in riding three straight wins and a four and one record inside RIZIN, with Cageside Press noting the twenty-seven year old had become one of Canada's top prospects heading into this one. Taking the flyweight strap off a Japanese champion on home soil in Chiba is about as big a statement as a prospect can make on the international stage.

The result caught fire on social media for a bigger reason than just the title change. A post on r/MMA pointed out that with Shinryu's loss, RIZIN no longer has a single champion who is Japanese across any of its weight classes, something the poster believes has never happened in the promotion's eleven year history.

The action inside LaLa arena Tokyo-Bay kept viewers hooked all night long, generating massive discussion across online communities as the event unfolded and delivered dramatic moments from the opening bell right down to the final championship rounds.

Fans in the arena spotted Korean Zombie and Song Yadong among the crowd, with one r/MMA thread calling the night a card full of finishes. Song, our third ranked bantamweight and sitting at a fifteen thirty Elo built from seven bouts, last fought on August twenty-ninth, stopping Umar Nurmagomedov with punches one minute and forty-eight seconds into the second round.