{"id":168269,"date":"2025-09-25T14:13:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T14:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/168269\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T14:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T14:13:07","slug":"kai-asakura-saying-goodbye-to-ufc-flyweight-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/168269\/","title":{"rendered":"Kai Asakura saying goodbye to UFC flyweight division"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Time for a change of scenery.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI\u2019m going to move up a weight class, so I\u2019m going to have to prepare properly and get my body in shape again,\u201d Asakura (21-6) said on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0HOAOJd_YXw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a>. \u201cIt might be next year or so, but I\u2019ll definitely win my next fight. It\u2019s not because someone told me to, but because I\u2019ve always done things based on my own instincts. I want to win.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Out of the frying pan and into the fire?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Bantamweight is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-mma-rankings\/389923\/david-martinez-boots-rob-font-bantamweight-top-10-noche-ufc-3-rankings-update-mma\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">stacked with formidable talent<\/a> and could prove to be a stiff test for the Japanese phenom. Even setting aside current champion Merab Dvalishvili, Asakura would be dealing with heavy-handed strikers like Sean O\u2019Malley and punishing wrestlers like Umar Nurmagomedov.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Expect to see Asakura make his bantamweight debut in early 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Time for a change of scenery. \u201cI\u2019m going to move up a weight class, so I\u2019m going to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,110261,1396,55880],"class_list":{"0":"post-168269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc-310","15":"tag-ufc-news","16":"tag-ufc-weigh-ins"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}