Kai Asakura and the complicated historical past of UFC debut title pictures

The reply to the query, “How many individuals have fought for a UFC title of their promotional debut?” isn’t as easy as it might appear.

Former RIZIN FF champion Kai Asakura has created intrigue into the subject as he readies for an opportunity to problem Alexandre Pantoja for the UFC flyweight title in his first octagon look Saturday at UFC 310, which takes place at T-Cellular Enviornment in Las Vegas (ESPN+ pay-per-view, ESPN2, Hulu, ESPN+).

By the broadest of definitions, Asakura would be the twenty fourth fighter to make a UFC debut in a championship setting. Nonetheless, not all title-fight debuts are structured beneath the identical diploma of integrity.

Asakura is preventing a longtime champ with a number of defenses already beneath his belt in a division that’s legitimately stuffed out on the UFC roster, and that could be a uncommon circumstance.

To start out, it needs to be famous a stable crop of the earlier 23 names debuted between 1997 and 2001 when divisions both didn’t have champions established but or had been of their infancy. The small variety of occasions and fights throughout that period in firm historical past created a scenario the place it was completely cheap to debut in a title battle as a result of the game was nonetheless so new.

These names included: Maurice Smith, Frank Shamrock, Igor Zinoviev, Jeremy Horn, John Lober, Jorge Patino, Andre Pederneiras, John Alessio, Caol Uno, and Gil Castillo.

There’s one other important window in play for those who quick ahead from 2011 to 2018, when the group launched a number of new weight courses. The boys’s featherweight and bantamweight divisions the place folded in from WEC, girls’s bantamweight was introduced in from Strikeforce, then males’s flyweight, in addition to girls’s strawweight, girls’s flyweight, and girls’s featherweight bought their house on the roster.

Jose Aldo, Dominick Cruz and Ronda Rousey had been all pre-crowned champions upon entry into the UFC, which means their respective debuts had been technically in title bouts. Rousey made her debut in opposition to Liz Carmouche, who was additionally preventing for the corporate for the primary time, and when Cris Cyborg was champion at girls’s featherweight, Invicta FC champs Tonya Evinger and Yana Kunitskaya debuted in opposition to her as challengers, however the weight class was removed from a longtime one.

These are the vast majority of fighters who match beneath the umbrella of this dialogue, however what number of of them actually apply to the spirit of the query?

One other curious case is that of Joe Soto, who was scheduled to make his UFC debut on the undercard of UFC 177 in August 2014 in opposition to Anthony Birchak, however wound up being thrust into a bantamweight title fight with T.J. Dillashaw the day earlier than the occasion when Renan Barao injured himself throughout his weight reduce.

Soto technically belongs on the listing, however he was an especially distinctive eleventh hour substitute, and the UFC by no means deliberate on placing him into that title battle till it was a final resort.

Given all that, there are really just a few situations of a debuting title who fought a longtime champion in a longtime division because the chosen and promoted challenger.

• Hayato Sakurai, who had an incredible run in Shoot and had solely misplaced to Anderson Silva at that time in his profession, challenged then-welterweight champion Matt Hughes in his debut at at UFC 36 in March 2002, and misplaced by fourth-round TKO.
• Frank Trigg, who had lately received the WFA champion, bought an instantaneous title shot in opposition to Hughes at UFC 45 in November 2003, and misplaced by first-round submission.
• Gilbert Melendez, who was the Strikeforce light-weight champion when the now-defunct promotion was merged with UFC, bought a debut title shot in opposition to then-lightweight kingpin Benson Henderson at UFC on FOX 7 in April 2023, and misplaced a cut up determination.

That brings the full to 23 names, however an argument may be made solely the three above match the identical standards as what Asakura is experiencing at UFC 310. Historical past reveals it’s an uphill climb because it’s an 0-3 report for athletes who’ve walked down this path.

Can Asakura (21-4 MMA, 0-0 UFC) pull off what would arguably be the primary true debut title battle victory in opposition to Pantoja (28-5 MMA, 12-3 UFC) at UFC 310? We are going to discover out on Saturday.

UFC analysis analyst and dwell statistics producer Michael Carroll contributed to this story. Comply with him on X @MJCflipdascript.

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