Sakikibara met with Dana recently. Horiguchi said recently he wanted to return to UFC and win the FLW title. I don’t know the details of the Bellator-RIZIN deal Horiguchi was under but I’d love to see him return to the UFC and get a FLW title shot.
In fifteen years he has only lost two FLW fights. When he was young he lost a MD to prime Ueda and then he lost his UFC title shot to prime Mighty Mouse.
Beyond that Horiguchi is:
Shooto BW (FLW) champ
RIZIN FLW champ
RIZIN BW GP champ
RIZIN BW champ
Bellator BW champ
I’m not against seeing him in the UFC but it looks like he has a bunch of semi-recent losses. The only reason I looked it up was because you mentioned he was the Bellator BW champ… and I thought that was one of those Nurmagomedov bros, so I was like “did he beat that guy?” … the answer is no.
I said “is” in the post but should have said “was”. I was just listing all his prior achievements. One of those Nurmagomedov bros? No dude, the Nurm in Bellator is the LW champ, the Nurm in the UFC is the BW.
So no Horiguchi will not be fighting a Nurmagomedov.
His recent losses are at BW, to the current and former BW champs.
What I said I would like to see him do is what he said he would like to do…go to the UFC and compete for the FLW title.
Horiguchi recently returned to FLW and won the RIZIN title.
