I sincerely hope the UFC keeps K-taro around and get him in there with a guy he can beat. He showed a ton of heart, and a ton of skill against Fickett and Brock Larson. I didn't see the Larson fight, but from what I hear, many thought K-Taro won.
His fight with Fickett was sick. Fickett landed a huge elbow while releasing from the clinch and spun him right around with it, and he followed up with a ton of punches and a head kick and more punches and K-Taro hung in there and took Drew down as Drew clinched and threw a knee. The whole opening round was great. Drew had his back for a couple seconds, but K-Taro quickly countered and got out of it, which is more than most can say after Fickett gets their back. He was cut badly with an elbow but never let it bother him.
He beat Drew up pretty good in round 2, but ultimately lost a lopsided decision (29-27, 29-27, 30-26) but he was never out of the fight. Fickett is a tough fight for anyone and it was only K-Taro's 2nd UFC fight. They were also fight of the night.
On top of being fun to watch, he's funny too. Every post fight pic he took with Fickett, he put this faked beat up, dead looking look on his face...it was funny shit. He made a fan out of me and I hope to see more of him.
They may not have had plans for him, but after how exciting the Fickett fight was, I dont see how they don't bring him back...I mean, he's only 22.
I still can't believe that the judges awardeded the fight to Larson.
But yeah you are right, K-taro is a great fighter and has been involved in two very good fights in the UFC.
I agree, Nakamura is tough and great on the ground. He did not however beat Larson. I did see it and it was a chess match once Larson took Nakamura down. They both countered each other jui jitsu very well. Of the 15 minutes of the fight there was approx. 45 seconds Larson didn't control K-Taro.
Ironically wasn't Larson in a similar situation after losing to a tough Fitch. It took a year for him to get another chance in the UFC and it was against K-Taro. My point is I want the UFC to let good fighters fight and K-Taro should be on that list.
I like K-Taro - I think he's struggled thus far with the larger size of the guys he's fought. Larson's an ex-MW and I'm sure Fickett's cutting to get to WW too. K-Taro looks more like he's walking in at the WW limit. Maybe he could drop to LW, or if he can't, concentrate a lot on strength/bulk training to try to make the transition a bit easier. Either way, he has a bright future I think.
He looks A TON bigger in person than on TV. They have him listed at 5'9" on the UFC's website, but Fickett is 5'10" and K-taro looked atleast 2 inches taller than Fickett in person. Fickett came out of the sauna as k-taro was coming out of the steamroom and he looked atleast 2 inches taller.
He jumped on the scale at 174 in the warmup room a few hours before the weigh-in also. I'm not sure if that's what he walks around at, but he was 174 at the same point that Fickett was in the 176 ballpark and he was in the steam room for a while. Fickett was definitely shorter and a little thicker, but not much.
He seemed to not be very active from his back, but standing up, and while on top, he was very active and very impressive.