What a 31-Year-Old Fighter’s Move to Bantamweight Means for His UFC Future
Kai Asakura, not even one year ago, came over from the Japanese promotion RIZIN and brought a lot of hype to the UFC. Many were expecting him to be a new promising face in the Flyweight Division. A two-time champion in RIZIN, Asakura brought a lot of experience coming into the UFC, even facing UFC competition in the past with his bouts against current ranked UFC Flyweight Manel Kape. Now two fights in, Kai Asakura is winless in the UFC and is facing a dilemma, as he might not be far away from being cut. Kai Asakura then announced that, as of yesterday, he is making the move to the Bantamweight Division.
Most of Kai’s fights, including his title reign at RIZIN, were at Bantamweight, so Kai has a lot of experience in the division. Known as a tall fighter in Flyweight, when making the move up, he wouldn’t be undersized for the division, and it could potentially help out his striking game as he would be better conditioned for fights, and he would have more power behind his shots as he would be in a higher weight class. It’s good that his main strength within the octagon would not be negatively affected, but his striking has looked good in the UFC. The problem has been his grappling. Against both Alexandre Pantoja and Tim Elliott, Asakura had difficulty getting out of and working from the bottom position. His grappling was exposed on both occasions, and his cage work—particularly in the clinch—also showed that it needed some work. Even with the move up to Bantamweight, he still needs to work on his grappling, as Bantamweight in the UFC is a much deeper division with a lot of extremely skilled grapplers. Kai desperately needs to work on his takedown defense and basic grappling skills, potentially learning some jiu-jitsu in order to better avoid and escape bad positions if on the mat.
Thus, Kai’s move could end up being one that is good for his future, but he still has major weaknesses in his game that a change in weight classes cannot fix. A good next opponent for Kai would be an unranked Bantamweight fighter who has UFC experience and can potentially test his ground game. Fighters like Rob Font and Jonathan Martinez come to mind. Both fighters are coming off losses, putting them outside the top 15, but they have a lot of experience and have proven that they have the skill to get wins in the UFC. It would be a tough test for Asakura, but in order to become the kind of fighter that the UFC wanted him to be when they signed him, he has to fight against tough competition, even if they are outside the rankings.
