In the main event of UFC 310 next weekend, dominant flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja defends his title against former RIZIN bantamweight king and promotional newcomer, Kai Asakura.
As a true student of the game, ‘The Cannibal’ has now teamed up with Kai Asakura’s infamous rival and one of the most legendary Japanese fighters of all time, Kyoji Horiguchi.
Alexandre Pantoja teams up with Kyoji Horiguchi in training for UFC 310
As revealed on the UFC 310 Countdown documentary, which premiered on YouTube earlier this morning, Alexandre Pantoja has teamed up with Japanese MMA icon Kyoji Horiguchi to help him prepare for his next title defense.
Horiguchi is the current RIZIN flyweight champion and is tied 1-1 with Asakura; having been viciously knocked out in their first fight in 2019, only to get that knockout finish back when they rematched in 2020.
“Kyoji is one of the best [sparring] partners that I’ve had in my whole life,” celebrated Pantoja, sharing that he’s “learned a lot” from both training with Horiguchi and watching his two fights with his incoming title challenger.
“He’s a Samurai, an amazing guy [and it’s] an amazing opportunity to train with him. I’ve seen Kyoji fight Kai two times, and in one of them [fights], he won, he beat Horiguchi… That for me, someone who can beat Kyoji is someone who has a lot of power; but in their next fight, Kyoji killed that guy.”
Horiguchi has enjoyed an illustrious 38-fight career which has seen him competing in the UFC (7-1), Bellator (2-2-1) and RIZIN promotions (13-1).
“Kai, he has a good record [and is] a dangerous fighter but I believe that Pantoja is on a different level,” acknowledged the legendary Japanese superstar, teasing that the Brazilian “can finish [the fight] from everywhere.”
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Veteran coach Marcos ‘Parrumpinha’ Da Matta was also keen to celebrate the partnership between Pantoja and Horiguchi; especially with such a dangerous common opponent looming large.
“Kai was a guy who was on our radar for a while now, he’s 1-1 against Kyoji so that’s why we studied him before and now we study him even more. Kai Asakura is a dangerous fighter, he’s big and tall, comes from an upper weight division so that’s a challenge for all of us.
“Pantoja is a complete fighter; it’s going to be five rounds [of him] in your face trying to finish you every single second of the fight. – I believe that he’s going to be ready to show why he is the No. 1 flyweight in the world.”
UFC 310 is stacked from top to bottom with world-class talent
Whilst the welterweight title fight between Belal Muhammad and Shavkat Rakhmonov sadly won’t feature on the final PPV of the year, UFC 310 is still stacked from top to bottom.
- Alexandre Pantoja vs Kai Asakura
- Shavkat Rakhmonov vs Ian Machado Garry
- Ciryl Gane vs Alexander Volkov
- Bryce Mitchell vs Kron Gracie
- Nate Landwehr vs Dooho Choi
- Dominick Reyes vs Anthony Smith
- Vicente Luque vs Themba Gorimbo
- Movsar Evloev vs Aljamain Sterling
- Randy Brown vs Bryan Battle
- Chris Weidman vs Eryk Anders
- Cody Durden vs Joshua Van
- Michael Chiesa vs Max Griffin
- Clay Guida vs Chase Hooper
- Kennedy Nzechukwu vs Lukasz Brzeski
UFC 310 goes down live from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday, December 7.
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