Kai Asakura has had a bit of a rocky start to the beginning of his UFC career and a previous adversary of his from the Rizin ring has weighed in on Asakura’s UFC tenure up until now. The current reigning RFF champion is someone who has fought Asakura twice actually and the combatant in question is Hiromasa Ougikubo.
Although Ougikubo is presently the Rizin Federation flyweight champ, he fought Asakura on both occasions at bantamweight with the latter besting the former via first round soccer kick finish. Ougikubo would tie up their series in the rematch though and bested Asakura to win the 2021 Rizin bantamweight grand prix in the process.
Kai Asakura’s journey in the UFC saw him into the deep end of the pool immediately and face Alexandre Pantoja for the flyweight title, whereby he then fought a former UFC flyweight title challenger in Tim Elliott after that. Asakura has posted up an 0-2 octagon-specific ledger so far and when asked if he had any thoughts on the UFC run of Asakura so far, Ougikubo said [via Bowks Talking Bouts],
“I personally think that Kai [Asakura] is not a flyweight. When you look at his career, he hasn’t really done well in the flyweight division. So I hear that he’s moving up to bantamweight and I think he’ll have a much better chance of utilizing his skills there.”
Kai Asakura next UFC bout announced, move back to bantamweight scheduled for May
Kai Asakura is indeed pivoting his path and going back to bantamweight, as Hiromasa Ougikubo and many others predicted, and the former Rizin champion will compete at the looming UFC Macau card. Cameron Smotherman will clash with Asakura on May 30th from the Galaxy Arena for UFC Fight Night 277.
Smotherman was last seen weighing in for a contracted bantamweight bout at UFC 324 whereby he hit the mark but infamously lost consciousness and faceplanted after getting off the scale in January. Both men are looking to rebound from their own respective two fight losing skids on this card which is headlined by Song Yadong versus Deiveson Figueiredo.