Fighters on the Rise | UFC Macau

Asakura’s first two UFC appearances came at flyweight — first a loss to champion Alexandre Pantoja at UFC 310, and then a second to Tim Elliott at UFC 319. While he had a smattering of moments against Elliott, he had little to offer Pantoja and, thus far, has been underwhelming since being a high-profile addition to the roster not even two full years ago. But here’s the thing: the success that made Asakura such a hot commodity came while competing in the bantamweight division, as he’ll do this weekend against Smotherman. The wins over Manel Kape and Kyoji Horiguchi really put him on the radar came at 59kg (130-lbs.) and 61kg (135-lbs.) respectively, and now he’ll resume fighting a touch higher than that on Saturday.

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As much as Kape and Horiguchi have thrived in the flyweight division, both are considerably smaller than Asakura and deserve plaudits for the success they had at a higher weight. The 32-year-old Asakura is better suited to life in the bantamweight division — at least in terms of his size and frame — and my expectation is that we see a very different kind of performance from him this weekend.

Cody Haddon

Haddon has become the forgotten man from Season 8 of Dana White’s Contender Series even though he was the first member of the graduating class to register a win, beating Dan Argueta by decision before his season had even officially wrapped.

The Luistro Combat Academy man is 8-1 as a professional and riding a six-fight winning streak. He’s been chasing his MMA dreams since he was kid, and one of his main training partners throughout the last several years has been ascending Australian lightweight Quillan Salkilld, who earned a win on the same DWCS season and has rocketed up the rankings ever since. Haddon, meanwhile, has been sidelined with injuries and missing out on opportunities. He was scheduled to face Malcolm Wellmaker last November at Madison Square Garden before suffering a broken foot and being forced to withdraw. Now, Haddon is finally set to step into the Octagon again on Saturday against Aoriqileng.

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He profiled as one of the top talents amongst the Season 8 graduating class and given how well his teammate Salkilld has performed thus far, there is reason to be excited to see if Haddon can match that level starting this weekend. Aoriqileng is a dangerous veteran with good power and coming off a 21-second knockout win, but Haddon has already shown he’s able to shift on the fly and find a way to get his hand raised in his competitive debut against Argueta five weeks after claiming his contract. Itching to return and further motivated by the success of his teammate, don’t be surprised if Haddon delivers a statement performance on Saturday.

Rei Tsuruya

It’s funny how a year can change the way we look at a fight and its result. The last time Tsuruya competed, he suffered the first loss of his professional career, landing on the wrong side of a unanimous decision at UFC 313. He had taken the fight on short notice and just didn’t have an answer for the offensive wrestling and overall skills of Joshua Van.

As he readies to return this weekend against DWCS grad Luis Gurule, who competes on consecutive fight cards after stepping in for Jesus Aguilar, that loss to Van looks a lot different. Funny how that works.

Tsuruya has always been a quality prospect, showing as much when he successfully navigated the flyweight tournament on Season 2 of Road to UFC and through his debut win over Carlos Hernandez. He is still just 23 years old and 11 fights into his UFC career, and while falling from the ranks of the unbeaten surely stung, it likely stings a little less now that Van has continued to thrive and Tsuruya’s standing as someone to watch in the 125-pound ranks remains intact.

This weekend’s pairing with Gurule is a good opportunity to see where Tsuruya is at in his development as the Colorado-based Contender Series grad is coming off a good win two weeks ago in Las Vegas against Daniel Barez. Stylistically, it’s a challenging matchup, but if the Japanese prospect can find a way to successfully navigate his return to the Octagon, he’ll return to being considered one of the top young talents in the division.