A reflection on RIZIN fighter matchmaking as the quintessential example of "handling complexity without simplifying it" — which I consider one of the most important stances in startup management.

First, watch this interview with RIZIN CEO Sakakibara. Starting around the 10-minute mark, he discusses the matchmaking for star fighter Tenshin Nasukawa. (RIZIN is Japan's premier mixed martial arts promotion; Tenshin Nasukawa is one of the biggest names in Japanese combat sports.)

The key points:

  • Tenshin has announced he's retiring from kickboxing by year-end to move to the more lucrative world of boxing. Both his team and RIZIN want to maximize his commercial value in the remaining window.
  • For this special Tokyo Dome event, no single opponent could be arranged at Tenshin's level — Taiga (a top kickboxer by name) declined due to weight class issues.
  • The solution: rather than a conventional bout, they arranged a unique challenge at a non-ideal weight class (~60kg) where Tenshin faces three opponents from different combat disciplines, one per round.

There are clearly many more possibilities that were considered before arriving at this format — adjusting weight class, bringing in international fighters, surprise opponents from different backgrounds, and so on. Tenshin has in fact experienced almost all of these: his fights against Floyd Mayweather (boxing legend) and Kyoji Horiguchi (a top MMA fighter) are RIZIN's all-time YouTube views leaders.

RIZIN's problem was: "How do we use the Tenshin card — the biggest draw we have — in the most valuable way?" And they needed to solve it from scratch, unconstrained by historical precedent.

In doing so, they had to hold multiple uncertainties simultaneously: weight class, opponent reputation, ruleset, whether it generates attention. I'd guess that even a small fraction of the decisions I can think of doesn't capture the full complexity Sakakibara had to manage.

Decision-Making in the Face of a Bundle of Uncertainties

Sakakibara is one of Japan's premier promoters — and I'd argue a master at handling complex, interdependent decisions.

"Handling complexity without simplifying it" means: making decisions that maximize expected return while holding a bundle of uncertainties simultaneously, without resolving them too early.

Most work involves serial decision-making: break an issue into sub-issues, prioritize them, and answer them one by one. This is stable and produces predictable outcomes. Product development is a good example. Even when multiple people work in parallel, the predictability doesn't fundamentally change.

Matchmaking is different in nature.

Sakakibara appears to hold a multi-year story arc for the industry in mind — where each event fits into a larger narrative, with "maximizing entertainment value" as the north star. The time horizon is long, and the number of simultaneous uncertainties is enormous. When you're operating in that mode, not resolving a single uncertainty too early becomes essential to protecting the ceiling of expected return.

In Tenshin's case: if the team had locked in "weight class is 55kg, fixed" early, the unique three-opponent format would never have emerged. The right opponent at that weight might not have materialized, and Tenshin might have gone without a fight at all. That's unthinkable given their shared narrative.

Weight class? Opponent? Entertainment angle? Announcement strategy? These are things that professionals naturally want to lock down quickly to plan ahead. Holding all of them open until the last possible moment — that's "handling complexity without simplifying it." From the typical worker's perspective, this looks like poor planning: missed deadlines, constant last-minute pivots, and relentless demands for improvisation.

In my own work, I can identify exactly two areas where this mode applies: choosing the market to enter, and constructing the equity story — who to raise from, when, and for what purpose.

Both involve decisions where a single move produces not "business returns" but "medium-term growth capacity." Both have extremely high uncertainty. Both are close to one-way doors. Market selection means you can't exit until you've become an expert (otherwise you'll never generate results). Equity is irreversible once issued; the window is limited.

The day-to-day work of solving business issues creates growth. But the speed and ceiling of that growth — those are determined by how well you handle complexity without simplifying it. That's the pressure inherent in running a company.

As I've gradually shifted from "I just want to grow" to "how do I get to the trillion-yen class, what expands the ceiling," Sakakibara's interview hit me as particularly rich with insight.