Pantoja, Horiguchi on collision course as UFC flyweight history repeats itself

And Van will be doing it opposite the division’s best takedown and ground control artist in the first five-rounder of his career. Van’s offensive output is crazy and he has the athletic tools to hang with anyone. But Saturday, if he ends up on the mat with Pantoja working to take his back, he’s going to be battling a strong undertow in deep, unfamiliar waters. 

That’s what happened to Horiguchi. He was brimming with potential but nowhere near Johnson’s level yet when his opportunity came. It was too much, too soon. He’d been in America for a little more than a year and was still settling in at a new gym. He needed more seasoning against high-level opposition, and he started to get it during his subsequent three fights, bouncing back with unanimous-decision victories over a trio of ranked flyweights.

But when it came time to negotiate a new contract in 2017, the future of UFC’s flyweight division was murky and the promotion appeared to be taking steps to shutter it. Rather than return to that uncertainty, Horiguchi opted for a more attractive offer from RIZIN in Japan, where he won his first 10 fights as his career took off and he quickly became a face of the organization.

Continuing to train out of ATT in Florida, Horiguchi consistently beat bigger opponents while fighting up at bantamweight because RIZIN didn’t have a flyweight division. He twice held RIZIN’s bantamweight belt and even won Bellator’s in a 2019 cross-promotional bout. He forged spirited rivalries with Kai Asakura and Sergio Pettis. He even tried his hand at kickboxing in a one-off against, of all people, Tenshin Nasukawa — one of the greatest kickboxers ever.

After hopping back and forth between RIZIN and Bellator throughout the prime of his career, running his record to 34-5 and featuring near the top of every “best fighters outside the UFC” list written, Horiguchi shocked the thousands in attendance at RIZIN 50 in March, entering the ring in a black suit and announcing he was vacating the promotion’s flyweight title to return to the U.S. and “become the first Japanese UFC champion”:

With Johnson long since retired following a career-ending run with Singapore’s One Championship, Horiguchi’s lone loss from his eight-fight UFC stint a decade ago will forever go unavenged. But the belt he was fighting for lives on wrapped around Pantoja’s waist. And with the UFC facing a similar lack-of-viable-competition predicament with Pantoja now as it did with Johnson then, Horiguchi may this time be the solution after all.

Considering all he’s accomplished, if the UFC had thrown Horiguchi — who they re-signed in March — straight into a flyweight title shot, no one would have batted an eye. That’s what the promotion did with Asakura, Horiguchi’s long-time rival who they signed last year and fed straight to Pantoja, who submitted him in the second round. If anything, Horiguchi’s more deserving of the treatment.

But this time, the promotion opted to give its new signee a welcome bout against a ranked yet less heralded opponent: Tagir Ulanbekov, a product of Khabib Nurmagomedov’s gym in Dagestan, Russia. To say Horiguchi had his way with him would be an understatement.

Fighting at his natural weight for the first time in a decade, Horiguchi out-struck Ulanbekov 36-5 in the first round and 47-5 in the second. He got the better of him on the ground, too, outclassing an athlete from a gym renowned as one of the best grappling factories in the sport. 

Ulanbekov’s corner had every reason to throw in the towel following the second round. And, in hindsight, they probably should have, as Horiguchi pitched a shutout in the third, out-striking Ulanbekov, 37-0, before finding his way to a fight-ending rear naked choke. It was a championship-level performance from a championship-level fighter.

And that’s where Horiguchi’s next fight ought to occur — championship level. There’s no reason to dawdle. Turning 36 next year and a cool 40 fights into his professional career, Horiguchi has only so much left to give. And if Pantoja handles Van on Saturday as comfortably as he’s handled everyone else the UFC has thrown at him, who could possibly be more deserving?

Oh, and one more thing about these two — they’re teammates. Pantoja began training at ATT early in his UFC career, and if you’re a flyweight or bantamweight at that gym — former One bantamweight champion Adriano Moraes also trains at ATT — you’re going to end up on the mats with Horiguchi.

These two have sparred and rolled countless times. When Pantoja was preparing to fight Asakura, Horiguchi was an integral resource, sharing his experience from fighting him twice in Japan. Pantoja refers to Horiguchi as a friend of his family. 

Fighting someone you’re that close with would be extremely difficult, even impossible for most fighters. But Horiguchi isn’t most fighters:

That’s Pantoja’s head coach, Marcos Da Matta, in the white shirt standing to Horiguchi’s left after cornering him in his UFC return. It’ll be up to Da Matta and ATT head MMA coach Mike Brown to figure out how two of a gym’s top fighters prepare to face one another within the same four walls.

For his part, Pantoja’s welcoming the challenge, saying it would be an honour and a privilege to defend his title against his close friend if he gets past Van. How could that clash of talent and familiarity play out? Only these two truly know. But it would undoubtedly be a lot more competitive than the last time Horiguchi fought for UFC flyweight gold.

Now, all it would take to interrupt Horiguchi’s full-circle opportunity is Van landing the right combination or Pantoja having his first off night in five years, which would likely trigger an immediate rematch.

In MMA, it’s never wise to make the next fight ahead of the current one. But if past is prologue, Van might just be that surging 24-year-old thrust into his first marquee fight opposite a dominant champion before he’s ready for it. And if that’s the case, he can look to Horiguchi for proof that no matter how far away from the belt you get, there’s always a path back.