What Japanese star Kai Asakura brings to UFC

It’s not as rare as you might think for a fighter to make their UFC debut in a title fight. Hayato Sakurai in 2002; Frank Trigg in 2003; Ronda Rousey in 2013; Joe Soto in 2014.

One of the most notable instances was Gilbert Melendez in 2013. He was StrikeForce’s lightweight champion when UFC purchased the promotion and absorbed part of its roster, and stepped immediately into a title fight with Benson Henderson, who was attempting his third defence of UFC's lightweight belt. A seesaw five-rounder ensued, as the fight lived up to its massive hype and Henderson came away with a razor-thin split decision victory:

This Saturday at UFC 310, the circumstances are similar. Alexandre Pantoja, UFC’s flyweight champion, will defend his belt against Kai Asakura, a two-time RIZIN bantamweight champion who vacated that title to sign with UFC this summer.

Like Melendez, Asakura will be making his UFC debut in a five-round title bout. And like Melendez, he’ll be fighting to prove how proficient the competition is outside of UFC. In a way, it’s like a cross-promotional fight. A test of whether RIZIN’s top talent is on par with UFC’s — just as Melendez fought to prove StrikeForce was equally competitive a decade ago.

Of course, this technically isn’t a like-for-like clash. Asakura was competing at 135 pounds in Japan and will now be dropping to 125 to challenge Pantoja. But RIZIN bantamweights generally don’t cut as much weight as UFC athletes do. If the five-foot-eight Asakura entered UFC at 135 he’d be at a significant size disadvantage; if he had a US-based career, he likely would’ve been competing at flyweight all along.

Still, Asakura can make a big statement Saturday night. The latest in a recent line of international stars poached from rival organizations — Alex Pereira, Michael Chandler, Michael “Venom” Page, Kayla Harrison, Umar Nurmagomedov — he’s attempting to become UFC’s first Japanese champion. And in Pantoja, an uber-durable cardio machine riding a six-fight win-streak with three bonuses along the way, he’s attempting to do it against UFC’s fourth-longest tenured champion.

That could be massively meaningful, both for Asakura and combat sports in Japan. A victory won’t only elevate Asakura beyond hero status in his home nation — it’ll help UFC break through to a robust, presently untapped market.

RIZIN is currently dominant in Japan, just as Pride was in the early 2000s before its organized crime ties were revealed and UFC acquired it as a depressed asset in 2007. But if UFC can turn one of RIZIN’s biggest stars into its newest champion, it can make inroads, reaching a voracious combat sports fanbase and the massive potential revenue it represents. Asakura’s following is already substantial. His nearly 1.4 million YouTube subscribers dwarf UFC star Sean O’Malley’s by over half a million.

So, UFC has plenty of reason to thrust Asakura straight into a title shot. But irrespective of business opportunities, the 31-year-old possesses the bona fides. He’s 13-3 in RIZIN — 20-4 as a professional — while putting on some of the most barn-burning action fights you’ll see. Although he’s sublimely skilled, Asakura doesn’t go into fights seeking to win on points. He’s seeking to take someone’s head off:

Asakura is a bit of a walking contradiction as a fighter. He’s technical, yet wild. He leverages his length to keep opponents at range but also works willfully inside with knees and combinations, relying on his agility to weave his way out of trouble. He’s very light on his feet and practically bounces around his opponent, but his power seems to catch fighters off guard as if his shots were being thrown by a more stationary slugger.

Where Asakura’s most unproven is on the mat. The Japanese fighters he’s come of age facing are much more striking-focused than the well-rounded athletes he’ll encounter in UFC. And Pantoja just so happens to be a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt. He has 10 professional finishes via submission; Asakura has only three and none since 2016.

Asakura’s also moving from RIZIN’s roped ring to UFC’s octagonal cage, which can be weaponized by experienced grapplers such as Pantoja. Whether Asakura possesses the cage craft to defend takedowns or work his way back to his feet from underneath heavy top pressure remains to be seen.

What’s safe to say is Asakura’s never faced a takedown threat quite like Pantoja, who’s earned over eight minutes of control time in each of his last three fights. He quickly finished the fight prior with a first-round neck crank; and the one before that with a second-round rear naked choke. Asakura’s range and distance management are among his best assets, but Pantoja ought to put them to a stiff test.

And yet, Pantoja’s facing substantial risk Saturday himself. In recent fights, we’ve seen the 34-year-old eat tremendous shots to close distance and hunt takedowns. But his notorious chin is only durable until it isn’t. Asakura throws bombs from unorthodox angles and has one of the best flying knees in all of MMA. Those are dangerous counters to any fighter that blitzes him.

Will Asakura be the one to finally wobble Pantoja? Will the extra 10 pounds of weight to cut impact Asakura’s power? Will Pantoja simply march his way through the fire to get his own offence off as he did in his five-round war with Brandon Moreno?

We’ll see. Regardless, Asakura is another exciting addition to a division that’s gone from one of UFC’s most overlooked and uninteresting to one of its most competitive and entertaining over the last five years.

When flyweight GOAT Demetrious Johnson — the division’s inaugural champion who held the belt for over a half-decade, defending it an incredible 11 times — left the company following his split-decision loss to Henry Cejudo in 2018, it appeared UFC was positioning itself to shut the division down.

But then came the rise of Deiveson Figueiredo and his bitter rival Moreno. Just as Kai Kara-France and Brandon Royval began to emerge. Amir Albazi, Steve Erceg and Tatsuro Taira closely followed.

Over the span of three years from July, 2020 to July, 2023, the flyweight belt changed hands five times. Pantoja is the first champion to defend it since Figueiredo did in late 2020. And if he beats Asakura, he’ll be the first to defend it three times since Johnson’s incredible run from 2013 through 2017.

Regardless of what happens Saturday, Asakura has several intriguing matchups ahead of him. If he wins, his first defence could come against either Moreno or Royval, who are both coming off wins against top contenders. If he loses, he could face Albazi or Kara-France to maintain his position within the division’s top five.

Still in what should be his prime, Asakura could fight all of the above over the next few years. He and Pantoja could wage a rivalry if Saturday’s fight delivers a classic. There are options aplenty.

Asakura also has history with current No. 9 flyweight Manel Kape, who he fought twice in Japan at bantamweight. Asakura eked out a split-decision victory following a back-and-forth war in their first confrontation in 2018. But 19 months later, Kape handed Asakura the second loss of his career with an early second-round stoppage due to punches. Trading with Kape in the middle of the ring, Asakura got overzealous in the pocket, ate a straight right, dropped, and was swarmed for the finish:

It's one of only three stoppage losses on Asakura’s record and he’d surely like to avenge it, just as he did in 2018 against Je Hoon Moon, who handed him the first loss of his career a year earlier. Kape, who’s missed weight twice in the last three years, has a lot of work to do if he’s going to reach the top of the division and get a title shot. But if Asakara falls to Pantoja Saturday the fight could be in play. 

More broadly, Asakura could be a key gateway for the UFC to move more meaningfully into Japan. The company has targeted Asia over the last several years through China, taking events to Beijing, Shenzhen, and Macao. It’s also been to Singapore twice since 2022, and in 2019 opened a 92,000 sq. ft. performance institute in Shanghai.

But it hasn’t been to Japan since 2017, leaving RIZIN to corner the market. Now, UFC has signed one of the country’s biggest MMA stars and he might just become one of the company’s champions this weekend. That would expose UFC’s product to a massive combat sports fanbase, one that could be further tapped if UFC brings an event to Japan sometime soon.

It's obvious who would headline that card. And UFC just so happens to have another Japanese fighter — the 16-1 Taira, who just suffered the first loss of his career to Royval — in the same division. An Asakura vs. Taira main event for the flyweight title would be the dream scenario. But merely having both near the top of the card would be an extremely lucrative proposition.

The days of UFC cross-promoting with other companies are long behind us. With such a dominant market share in the sport, there’s little incentive for the promotion to do so. Which makes Saturday’s main event about as close as we’ll get. A reigning UFC champion defending against a challenger who just vacated a RIZIN belt. A newcomer making their UFC debut in a title bout. It’s like the good old days of Melendez vs. Henderson. And Saturday’s main event features the right two guys to live up to that standard.