Dana White Awards Japanese Star World Championship Fight In UFC Debut

Dana White announced something on Saturday that we’ve only seen happen two other times in modern UFC history. As a part of the exciting UFC 310 card, White announced the newly signed Kai Asakura would challenge Alexandre Pantoja for his UFC flyweight championship.

Asakura will be making his promotional debut in the fight, and it will serve as the co-main event under Belal Muhammad’s first title defense of his welterweight championship against Shavkat Rahkmonov.

Here is White’s announcement, which includes a good portion of the UFC 310 card.

Asakura, 30, is 21-4 as a mixed martial artist. He scored a second-round TKO win over Juan Archuleta. Here is a look at some of Asakura’s work in Japan.

The only two times the UFC has awarded a fighter making their debut a title shot in the modern days was with Gilbert Melendez in 2013 when he challenged Benson Henderson for his lightweight title. Melendez had established himself as one of the best 155-pound fighters in the world with Strikeforce.

The UFC purchased Strikeforce and signed several top fighters from that promotion. Melendez was one of them, as was Daniel Cormier, and Ronda Rousey was the only other fighter to get a title fight in their debut.

In her debut, Rousey fought Liz Carmouche for the women’s bantamweight title in the fight that started the division. In a sense, Asakura’s opportunity is even more of an anomaly than the other two. The UFC didn’t purchase or inherit Asakura’s services. The promotion recruited and signed him, bringing the Japanese star into the ranks and elevating him to a championship opportunity.

In some weight classes, this decision would cause an outrage. In the UFC men’s flyweight division, it is somewhat understandable. Pantoja has all but cleaned out the division. If you look at the rankings in the division, Pantoja has already defeated most of the top contenders once or, in some instances, as much as three times.

Tatsuro Taira fights for the No. 1 contender spot on Saturday, but he will likely fight the Pantoja-Asakura winner if he can defeat Brandon Royval. The plan for Asakura wasn’t always to fight for the title in his debut.

Royval revealed he was offered a fight with Asakura in Perth, Australia. However, the UFC wasn’t willing to meet Royval’s monetary demands. Thus, the fight didn’t happen. On that card, Kai Kara France stopped former world title challenger Steve Erceg.

Kara France could make a case for a title shot, but he may need to face the winner of Taira-Royval before getting that opportunity. In any case, the UFC has to be excited about the potential of not one but two potential superstars from Japan.

Here is a look at the entire UFC 310 card.

Main Event:

• Belal Muhammad (c) vs. Shavkat Rakhmonov for the UFC Welterweight Championship

Co-Main Event:

• Alexandre Pantoja (c) vs. Kai Asakura for the UFC Flyweight Championship

Other Fights:

• Ciryl Gane vs. Alexander Volkov (Heavyweight)
• Movsar Evloev vs. Aljamain Sterling (Featherweight)
• Anthony Smith vs. Dominick Reyes (Light Heavyweight)
• Tatiana Suarez vs. Virna Jandiroba (Women’s Strawweight)
• Chase Hooper vs. Clay Guida (Lightweight)
• Nick Diaz vs. Vicente Luque (Welterweight)