Alexandre Pantoja is not only willing to face his teammate Kyoji Horiguchi for the UFC flyweight title, he hopes it happens.<\/p>\n
This past Saturday at UFC Qatar, Horguchi made his long-awaited return to the UFC and submitted Tagir Ulanbekov in the third round of their main card matchup. Following the win, Horiguchi got on the microphone and called for a championship bout against his American Top Team teammate \u2014 who is scheduled to defend his title against Joshua Van in the co-main event of UFC 323 next weekend in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe and my family laughed so much,\u201d Pantoja told MMA Fighting. \u201cWe enjoyed [the fight so much]. He make it look easy with a tough opponent, Tagir is a high-level fighter, but I expected a fight like that. Kyoji is one of the best in the gym. He\u2019s pushed my level up. I have this belt right now because I have Kyoji Horguchi in the same room to train together. Amazing fighter, amazing teammate.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the time, [if] you\u2019re going to train with Kyoji, it doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s just a drill, he will come 100 percent. That\u2019s why he\u2019s one of the best, not just flyweight fighters, he\u2019s one of the best fighters in the whole world. And we can pick everybody [at] American Top Team. We have 100 fighters and if you choose the best fighter [at] American Top Team, maybe it\u2019s Kyoji Horiguchi. One of the hardest working guys in the gym. It\u2019s so good to have him in the same gym, [and] I put in the same position Kayla Harrison. It\u2019s so much inspiration for everybody. We have very good talents in the gym, and Kyoji Horiguchi [has helped me] to conquer this belt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pantoja looks for his fifth successful title defense against the surging Van, who began the year unranked, but after three impressive wins \u2014 including a Fight of the Year contending decision win over Brandon Royval at UFC 317 \u2014 has found his way into a title fight at just 24 years old. Pantoja also competed on that card, dominating and submitting Kai Kara-France in the co-main event.<\/p>\n
As for as Horiguchi goes, Pantoja says he spoke with his teammate when the all-time great revealed he was coming back to the UFC, which admittedly set the wheels in motion.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Kyoji came to me and [told me he] went back to UFC and he wants to conquer the UFC belt, I [told] Kyoji, \u2018If it\u2019s your dream, I\u2019m with you, brother. I want to help you get there.\u2019\u201d Pantoja said. \u201cIf we fight for the UFC belt, it\u2019s going to be a privilege. \u2026 Of course, I have a huge fight Dec. 6. [Once I win] that fight, I want to make this fight happen with Kyoji Horiguchi. But first I need to [fight] Joshua Van.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pantoja and Horiguchi have enjoyed a fantastic relationship over the years in Coconut Creek, Fla., and they\u2019ve made each other better throughout the process.<\/p>\n
To have that culminate into a world championship fight in the biggest MMA organization in the world would not only be an honor, but it might show a different side of Pantoja in the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t like trash talk, but maybe if I can have trash talk with someone it\u2019s with Kyoji,\u201d Pantoja explained. \u201cWe have so much good history. The trash talk starts in the gym. Great guy, he comes from Japan, has such respect and everything else. \u2026 Kyoji is a very different guy. He has a little Brazilian [in him].<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have so many Brazilians at American Top Team, and I think he loved the Brazil culture, he loves the Brazilian food. All the time he\u2019d go to Brazilian restaurants and I think it\u2019s going to be a present \u2013 not just for me, for Kyoji, but for American Top Team. You have two guys from the same gym conquering this position together, to fight for the world title for UFC, the most important title for MMA. Yeah, it\u2019s going to be a privilege.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexandre Pantoja is not only willing to face his teammate Kyoji Horiguchi for the UFC flyweight title, he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-308236","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}