Taira must be the first guy in the UFC to have his first six fights be against Hispanic/latino fighters haha. But on a serious note tho, great flyweight bouts. We’ve had a nice recent influx of flyweight fighters and I’m interested to see where they all land. I still include Steve Erceg in the group of up and comers even tho he did fight for the title already.
For some odd reason, I thought I heard Taira was going to fight another Asian, Joshua Van (Burmese American), another young, UFC-undefeated (3-0) prospect, whose with an over-all very good 10-1 pro mma record. Anyway, great opportunity for the Japanese BJJ specialist, to enter the Top 5 from the bottom half of the Top 15. Alex is a very skilled & seasoned vet, so if young 24 year-old Taira gets through, it's a well earned Top 5 spot. See how good his stand-up is, as he'd need it at the Top 5, with almost everyone being well rounded.
I wouldn't be surprised if we saw an influx of Japanese MMA fighters in the UFC. With the yen cratering to almost 160 to the Dollar unless you're one of the very biggest stars in Rizin, even $12k/$12k a fight is good money here. Hit on a couple of $15k/$15 wins in a year or get one win + performance bonus and that's 98th percentile annual income for an MMA fighter in Japan.
That's a good insight. Kai Asakura signing with the UFC this past weekend is big. He's very good, plus charismatic and above all, young. He could be a sign of things to come.
@@sherdog he's big for his weight class, hits hard and is the biggest MMA star in Japan (the Asakura brothers' RU-vid channel has more than 1.3 million subscribers). As long as they match him up with guys who are primarily strikers I think he comes in as a top 10ish guy. My main concern with him would be his chin, defensive wrestling and the fact he's mostly fought undersized guys in Rizin, so it will be interesting to see what he can do against like sized bantamweights. I'd bring his brother Mikuru over too, his ceiling is definitely lower but he's a fun action fighter. Seika Izawa is obviously another Rizin fighter worth poaching, she’s better than at least half the strawweights on the current UFC roster (yes I know, low bar). The ladies in particular get the short end of the stick when it comes to pay, I remember when she was the reigning women's Rizin atomweight champion, Ayaka Hamasaki had a full time day job as a physical therapist at a nursing home. All the old folks had no idea who she was.
It was a pretty good card, the high points at least: Savannah Marshall lookin' burly. Jack Grant taking Charlie Leary for a *ride*. Shanelle Dyer doing what PFL has been hoping Dakota Ditcheva would do.
@@sherdog I really don't see what they'll do with Marshall other than set her up to fight Clarissa Shields. I loved the Dyer KO. I think Ditcheva is good but is getting a bit big for her boots, I think she'll have a rude awakening once she runs into Talia Santos or Liz Carmouche.
@@Portia_Baines Yeah, Marshall would have been a great person to bring along during the Kayla era at PFL. I have the feeling she's going to take to the ground game far better than Shields has. And PFL is handling Ditcheva with kid gloves. Chelsea Hackett is about as favorable a matchup as they could bring without it being a complete farce, as a smaller and (arguably) less decorated kickboxer who is unlikely to have the will or skill to wrestle her.
@@sherdog I'm pretty certain Hackett will go down in the second round after taking a beating in the first, but I guess we'll find out shortly. Some of Ditcheva's match ups have raised an eyebrow for me. Scatizzi in particular, even though I think she might have been a late replacement.
I have always figured the weird fight order (Van on the prelims) is to make me consider getting Fight Pass, since here in Sweden there’s no other way to watch the prelims.
“That's the sound of my tool, you say it ain't cool? But mama didn't raise no fool And as long as I stay black, I gotta stay strapped And I never get to lay back 'Cause I always got to worry 'bout the pay backs Some buck (Dev) that I roughed up way back Comin' back after all these years Rat-a-tat, tat, tat, tat, that's the way it is”
I've been in this game for years, it made me an animal It's rules to this shit, I wrote me a manual A step-by-step booklet for you to get Your game on track, not your wig pushed back
He could certainly crash and burn, and he wouldn't be the first super-prospect to do so! Speaking just for myself [Ben], at his best moments he really does have special speed and strength for that division, and just needs more focus and composure. It will be fun to see what happens over the next few years. Feel free to come back and gloat if he washes out of the UFC and Taira is champ three years from now. :)
Reporting for duty sir! 🫡 I got so close to Quinlan's hotel room but before I could find anything the UFC's Forest Gump (Bryce Mitchell) called the cops and ratted me out :/
