The Flyweight division has finally arrived

[HuskySamoan]

Since the inclusion of the Flyweight division into the UFC back in 2012 it's been a turbulent ride to win over the fans interest due to the size of the athletes and the UFC has never fully gotten behind 125 either. From keeping the roster space for the division at around half that of other men's weight classes, denying all time great Mighty Mouse of PPV points for much of his title reign and plans to close down the division back in 2018 which was a big reason behind trading away Mighty Mouse to ONE FC. I've said this for years, 125lbs is globally speaking one of the deepest divisions in all of MMA and if the UFC just invested in top talent and were willing to increase the divisions roster size from roughly 38 fighters compared to the divisional average of 70 in men's weightclasses below Light Heavyweight.

Well, well, well, well, wellllll it looks like the UFC has finally decided to invest in Flyweight as a division and I cannot be anymore excited about this. If you don't follow the Road to the UFC tournaments, it's third season begins May 27th in Shanghai China on Fight Pass and the Flyweight tournament in particular is an absolutely incredible acquisition of talent by the UFC, albeit the prospects are on the green side they are blue chip nonetheless. Let's run through the Flyweights bracket standouts.

Mark Climaco 25 years old, 8-1 pro and 4-0 amateur training out of AKA, he's one of the US's best Flyweight prospects and having went 4-1 under the LFA banner he's one of the most experienced of the bunch in this tournament and will serve as a great measuring stick for the younger fighters to pit themselves against.

Jung Hyun Lee 20 years old, 8-0 pro and 8-2 amateur fighting out Korea, one of the best Korean prospects in MMA regardless of weight class. His opening round opponent is the aforementioned Mark Climaco so we will immediately find out what Hyun's made of.

Rei Tsuruya 20 years old, 6-0 pro with all finishes and 1-0 amateur, fighting out of his fathers gym Paraestra Matsudo in Japan Tsuruya grew up on the wrestling mats and in MMA gyms. He is one of the two best Japanese Flyweight prospects outside the UFC alongside Makoto Shinryu Takahashi who's 16-1-1 and they are teammates, iron sharpens iron. Tsuruya has some good wins over experienced guys already and a high level wrestling background winning Japanese nationals in Greco Roman at the highschool level and having competed at the Cadet world championships.

Sumit Kumar 22 years old, 5-0 pro and 2-1 amateur, Sumit is from India but his road to MMA is a unique one. He was a successful freestyle wrestler in his home country having worked with their Olympic team and he came to the US where he trained at the Olympic training center before finding MMA where Urijah Faber took Sumit under his wing. For the last 2 years Sumit has been splitting his team between Team Alphamale in the US and AKA Thailand to hone in on his striking. The young man is quite the athlete and will be dropping down from 135lbs where he gave up a bit of a size advantage in some of his fights to 125lbs for this tournament.

Beyond the road to the UFC tournament this May I want to shout out to all the recent top prospects the UFC has recently signed to their roster at 125lbs. It seems like they finally decided to upgrade the division and I think in 5 years time we will be saying similar things about Flyweight that we are now about Bantamweight.

Asu Almabaev 29 years old 17-2 (13 fight win streak). Asu was one of the best free agents at Flyweight in the sport having been the M1 Flyweight champion and Brave Flyweight champion. He is Shavkat Rakhmonov's teammate from Dar Pro Team in Kazakhstan and he's a pretty dynamic athlete both with his striking and wrestling.

Azat Maksum 27 years old 16-0, also from Kazakhstan. Another one of the biggest Flyweight signings in all of MMA, Azat is the truth with big KO power, fast hands and strong wrestling he's already been calling out the likes of guys such as Mohammed Mokaev. Currently he's stateside training at Elevation in Colorado alongside Cory Sandhagen presumably prepping for his UFC debut.

Rafael Estevam 26 years old, 11-0 training out of the lions den that is Nova Uniao in Rio De Janeiro Brazi. Estevam was one of the three major Flyweight prospects out of Brazil I had hoped to see the UFC sign along with 22 year old 15-1 Lucas Rocha who currently has a fight scheduled in May under the LFA banner (so he's on the right track for the UFC) and 7-0 Jungle Fights Champion 19 year old Igor Da Silva. Estevam makes his UFC debut veteran Zhalgas who's coming back from retirement, don't let Zhalgas's blemished record fool you he has wins over the likes of UFC top 10 and Dagestani Sambo Champ Tagir Ulanbekov and former UFC title contender Ali Bagautinov so very stiff competition from the get-go for Estevam where we will find out just what the prospects made of.

Joshua Van 21 years old, 7-1 pro and 3-0 amateur, originally from Burma and having grown up in the US, Van is arguably the best Flyweight prospect on the US regional scene right now with a big upset win over Paris Moran recently. Boasting a 100% rate and claiming the Fury FC title while nothing has been officially announced about Joshua Van's signing he has been added to the UFC's roster on their website recently and was rumored to be on the Road to the UFC tournament until brackets were recently so I'm assuming that he is/will be soon.

This division is so young, both in it's conception and in the age of the competitors. The potential is huge and I'm so glad to finally see it being actualized by the UFC. I'm hoping for more top Flyweight prospects being signed during this years contender series season. is there anyone I missed that the UFC recently picked up at 125lbs? Is there anyone you have your eye on hoping the UFC will sign for the division? Hopefully this got you a little more excited for the manlet division.

 

[Davidjacksonjones]

Looking forward to this! Great post as always man

Love how insightful your posts are and how heavily invested you are into the sport of MMA

 

[Eternalwarriorking]

Good shout man, I'm especially excited about the Kazakhs. Hopefully Kabardiev finds his way to their LW division as well

 

[ferrisjso]

Tbh the division was at it's absolute peak in the early 2010s it was like 15 great fighters deep. People did not appreciate the UFC's signing spree back then. Even if people appreciate the rebuilt 125 IMO it's not comparable to that golden age. Especially with Askarov gone. These are prospects the 2013 gang were all proven stars.

We also have less of a feel how these guys rate P4P(promotion for promotion) compared to the Asian orgs. Both the UFCs current lineup and these prospects. Among those prospect breakdowns I do not see ONE or Shooto mentioned at all and thats where the top 125 talent is(back in the day throw Tachi Palace in the mix). Most of the UFC talent seems to be from smaller shows.

125 is my 2nd favorite weight class(in terms of the weight and the quality of fighting) but that's really based on the past. I view 125's rebuild poorly thus far because of the Fig v Moreno series and alienating Askarov to the point people were saying he faked a medical condition to leave the UFC(is that accurate?). The division had a lot of potential in 2020 the situation has not really changed except now they lost possibly there best fighter.

125 IMO is the one division where the UFC probably doesn't have the best fighters in the world and they really need the big signings to lend credibility.

All this criticism comes from a place of love btw. I believed in 125 when very few did.

 

[Char Jawz]

I wouldn't mind seeing Jarred "The Monkey God" Brooks back in the fold when his One FC contract runs out. He's still only 29 and win or lose, always had pretty fun fights. Most memorably knocking himself out on a slam takedown, but was still entertaining.

 

[HuskySamoan]

I wouldn't mind seeing Jarred "The Monkey God" Brooks back in the fold when his One FC contract runs out. He's still only 29 and win or lose, always had pretty fun fights. Most memorably knocking himself out on a slam takedown, but was still entertaining.

Jose Torres is another guy they should re-resign, he's 11-1-1, he was the IMMAF amateur world champ before going pro and was 1-1 in the UFC when he got cut, he literally beat Amir Albazi in Brave after the UFC released him...Kinda nuts.

Tbh the division was at it's absolute peak in the early 2010s it was like 15 great fighters deep. Even if people appreciate it now IMO it's not comparable to that golden age. Especially with Askarov gone. These are prospects the 2013 gang were all proven stars.

We also have less of a feel how these guys rate P4P(promotion for promotion) compared to the Asian orgs. Both the UFCs current lineup and these prospects. Among those prospect breakdowns I do not see ONE or Shooto mentioned at all and thats where the top 125 talent is.

125 is my 2nd favorite weight class(in terms of the weight and the quality of fighting) but that's really based on the past. I view 125's rebuild poorly thus far because of the Fig v Moreno series and alienating Askarov to the point people were saying he faked a medical condition to leave the UFC(is that accurate?).

I disagree with a lot of this but you kinda seem in your own world and I try to navigate around that. Division absolutely wasn't at it's peak in the early 2010s, it had some elite 135ers dropping down like Benavidez, Dodson and Mighty Mouse who were still around their primes and yeah Horiguchi, Bagautinov, Formiga were all very good but there were tons of lemons and no depth at all. The UFC has done a terrible job up until recently cultivating and growing the division. Truthfully similar to the early 2010s Featherweight and Bantamweight divisions, all 3 of the smallest divisions were shallow and infantile back then...they had standouts and pioneerish legends but nah...Flyweight is clearly coming into it's prime now. Look at the pedigree of these guys, how young they started, how skilled they are, dudes like Moreno and Figueredo are on barrowed time.

Who in Shooto or One are the best Flyweights? I'll concede Mighty Mouse but he's 36 now and makes 500k checks in One, the UFC has no need to get him back and I do think at this point he'd fall short of the title picture. Kairat Akhmetov was a good signing years ago but he's also old now and wouldn't do anywhere near as well as his younger Kazakh counterparts most likely will in the UFC in Asu and Azat. I'll concede Rizin recently scooped up two very good Flyweights in Makoto Takahashi and Ramazan Temurov but I'm hoping those are both just for 1 or 2 fight short deals since I know Makoto was determined to sign with the UFC. Adriano Moraes is solid but certainly not the best either and unless you're absolutely knocking down doors it's obvious the UFC isn't interested in 33 year olds as new signings when they're high cost and not even champion anymore.

The absolute 3 best Japanese Flyweights any promotion could have signed right now are Tatsuro Taira who's in the UFC, Rei Tsuruya who's in the road to the UFC tournament and Makoto Takahashi who's in Rizin as of his last fight but has expressed eagerness to sign with the UFC. If there is a promotion that has elite Flyweights that should be signed outside the UFC it's ACA Azamat Keferov at this point is a more important signing than Mighty Mouse, Askar Askarov should not have been let go and Daniyar Toychubek is one of the best prospects in the sport regardless of division.

 

[World eater]

5-10 years from now, UFC might be forced to take an extended ppv break during Ramadan.

 

[HuskySamoan]

5-10 years from now, UFC might be forced to take an extended ppv break during Ramadan.

Guys do fight and go through camps during Ramadan to be fair, it's not that uncommon. It can be tough but in Islamic countries where everyone is practicing the gyms can more easily accommodate it by staying open at night for their camps. Evloev and Aliskerov have been making due through Ramadan for their 288 fights.

But yeah haha, if they keep opening up to central Asia there's going to he a lot of men practicing Ramadan.

 

[Luckyme]

Insightful post as always. We need more of this kind of scouting information on upcoming MMA talent.

Regional MMA, especially the international scene, seldom gets any attention from podcasters and the MMA media.

 

[ferrisjso]

Jose Torres is another guy they should re-resign, he's 11-1-1, he was the IMMAF amateur world champ before going pro and was 1-1 in the UFC when he got cut, he literally beat Amir Albazi in Brave after the UFC released him...Kinda nuts.



I disagree with a lot of this but you kinda seem in your own world and I try to navigate around that. Division absolutely wasn't at it's peak in the early 2010s, it had some elite 135ers dropping down like Benavidez, Dodson and Mighty Mouse who were still around their primes and yeah Horiguchi, Bagautinov, Formiga were all very good but there were tons of lemons and no depth at all. The UFC has done a terrible job up until recently cultivating and growing the division. Truthfully similar to the early 2010s Featherweight and Bantamweight divisions, all 3 of the smallest divisions were shallow and infantile back then...they had standouts and pioneerish legends but nah...Flyweight is clearly coming into it's prime now. Look at the pedigree of these guys, how young they started, how skilled they are, dudes like Moreno and Figueredo are on barrowed time.

Who in Shooto or One are the best Flyweights? I'll concede Mighty Mouse but he's 36 now and makes 500k checks in One, the UFC has no need to get him back and I do think at this point he'd fall short of the title picture. Kairat Akhmetov was a good signing years ago but he's also old now and wouldn't do anywhere near as well as his younger Kazakh counterparts most likely will in the UFC in Asu and Azat. I'll concede Rizin recently scooped up two very good Flyweights in Makoto Takahashi and Ramazan Temurov but I'm hoping those are both just for 1 or 2 fight short deals since I know Makoto was determined to sign with the UFC. Adriano Moraes is solid but certainly not the best either and unless you're absolutely knocking down doors it's obvious the UFC isn't interested in 33 year olds as new signings when they're high cost and not even champion anymore.

The absolute 3 best Japanese Flyweights any promotion could have signed right now are Tatsuro Taira who's in the UFC, Rei Tsuruya who's in the road to the UFC tournament and Makoto Takahashi who's in Rizin as of his last fight but has expressed eagerness to sign with the UFC. If there is a promotion that has elite Flyweights that should be signed outside the UFC it's ACA Azamat Keferov at this point is a more important signing than Mighty Mouse, Askar Askarov should not have been let go and Daniyar Toychubek is one of the best prospects in the sport regardless of division.

Here's the thing the lemons largely weren't lemons the division was just that good. There's guys who won belts in the worlds top promotions who were lucky to win a belt in the UFC. Because the top 8 or so(MM, Joe B, Dodson, Horiguchi, Formiga, Moraga, Lineker, Bagunitov, Dustin Ortiz, Mavosky beat everyone outside the group. That honestly might be the best 8-10 man lineup P4P in UFC history. Guys like Urushitani, Gomez and Montague never even won ONE UFC fight(the number not the promotion).

To put this in perspective Ian McCall who some considered the best 125er in the world when the UFC started their division went 2-3-1 close losses to 3 monsters and that's the end of that. There were only 25ish guys on roster and like 15 of them were elite or close to it. Also Scott Jorgensen, Louis Gaudinot(who beat Lineker), Phil Harris holy shit this division was stacked.


I haven't followed Shooto recently it does seen that ONE has kinda replaced them but historically Shooto(and way back Pancrase) had the best 125ers in Asia. They started all this. Yamaguchi etc. Taira is their champ he'd be a good signing but their stars tended not to come over to North America, Urushitanis the biggest one I remember(besides Horiguchi). ONE seems to have become the big player in Asia and in ONE Pacio and Brooks would be great signings. ONE has more depth than that but everyone else is pretty old(like nearing 40).

Note it's tricky cause they use different names over there in Shooto 125 is Bantamweight and ONE it's Straweight and they both call different weight classes Flyweight(115 and 135 respectively). So better to go by the numbers to avoid confusion.

While there's obviously lots of overlap between 135 and 125 Rizin and Bellator don't have 125 pound divisions last I checked. ONE has 125 but Moraes is 135. And some of those guys would cut down of course but others would not. UFC 135 division is in much better shape. I do think Moraes can win the 125 belt if he cut down and maybe some of the other ONE 135ers could. I don't know I'd want to see them try though. Takahashi and Temurov are nice signings for Rizin regardless. Will try and keep my eye on them. And yeah top Japanese small fighters tend to not come to the US even if they are stars. Maybe there's a reason for this if someone dead set on the UFC didn't sign?

In terms of Moreno and Fig I agree they are on borrowed time. I do not think they are the best fighters in the UFCs 125 I think Fig has been in the right place in the right time a lot he was the guy who got to retire Joe B thus he got to the front of the line etc. Royval is a fighter I'm high on who won a few days back. Really like France. But I did think Askarov was the best 125er in the UFC and waiting for years for him to get a title shot just for him to leave really grinded my gears.


Also while I thought Askarov was great are there other good small fighters fighters at ACA? Is that a pipeline I always took it as the promotion he happened to get started from? Wiki says they haven't even had a new 125 champ since Askarov left and that was 5 years ago now. Found video of Keferov on youtube but tapology and sherdog both don't have a page on him even. I will look into him if you say he's quote "a more important signing than MM". That's some high praise.

Will say Rei Tsuruya does look pretty promising but he's only 21. Super young for MMA and only a few fights but maybe I'm a little excited for his signging.

My own world?

By my own world you mean the past? I mean doesn't half of sherdog live in 2006? Why isn't it okay to live in 2013? You're a poster whose content I like I don't know if you meant anything bad by that or not this is one of those things where you struggle to interpret words without context. Don't know what you're getting it. Passionate about spreading the message of how great 125 was in the early 2010s namely because no one appreciated it at the time. Listen I get the optimism but my issue is we're really still at square 1. I was optimistic about 125 in 2020 too.

 

[World eater]

I mean doesn't half of sherdog live in 2006?

Yes. Yes we do.

 

[HuskySamoan]

Here's the thing the lemons largely weren't lemons the division was just that good. There's guys who won belts in the worlds top promotions who were lucky to win a belt in the UFC. Because the top 8 or so(MM, Joe B, Dodson, Horiguchi, Formiga, Moraga, Lineker, Bagunitov, Dustin Ortiz, Mavosky beat everyone outside the group. That honestly might be the best 8-10 man lineup P4P in UFC history. Guys like Urushitani, Gomez and Montague never even won ONE UFC fight(the number not the promotion).

To put this in perspective Ian McCall who some considered the best 125er in the world when the UFC started their division went 2-3-1 close losses to 3 monsters and that's the end of that. There were only 25ish guys on roster and like 15 of them were elite or close to it. Also Scott Jorgensen, Louis Gaudinot(who beat Lineker), Phil Harris holy shit this division was stacked.


I haven't followed Shooto recently it does seen that ONE has kinda replaced them but historically Shooto(and way back Pancrase) had the best 125ers in Asia. They started all this. Yamaguchi etc. Taira is their champ he'd be a good signing but their stars tended not to come over to North America, Urushitanis the biggest one I remember(besides Horiguchi). ONE seems to have become the big player in Asia and in ONE Pacio and Brooks would be great signings. ONE has more depth than that but everyone else is pretty old(like nearing 40).

Note it's tricky cause they use different names over there in Shooto 125 is Bantamweight and ONE it's Straweight and they both call different weight classes Flyweight(115 and 135 respectively). So better to go by the numbers to avoid confusion.

While there's obviously lots of overlap between 135 and 125 Rizin and Bellator don't have 125 pound divisions last I checked. ONE has 125 but Moraes is 135. And some of those guys would cut down of course but others would not. UFC 135 division is in much better shape. I do think Moraes can win the 125 belt if he cut down and maybe some of the other ONE 135ers could. I don't know I'd want to see them try though. Takahashi and Temurov are nice signings for Rizin regardless. Will try and keep my eye on them. And yeah top Japanese small fighters tend to not come to the US even if they are stars. Maybe there's a reason for this if someone dead set on the UFC didn't sign?

In terms of Moreno and Fig I agree they are on borrowed time. I do not think they are the best fighters in the UFCs 125 I think Fig has been in the right place in the right time a lot he was the guy who got to retire Joe B thus he got to the front of the line etc. Royval is a fighter I'm high on who won a few days back. Really like France. But I did think Askarov was the best 125er in the UFC and waiting for years for him to get a title shot just for him to leave really grinded my gears.


Also while I thought Askarov was great are there other good small fighters fighters at ACA? Is that a pipeline I always took it as the promotion he happened to get started from? Wiki says they haven't even had a new 125 champ since Askarov left and that was 5 years ago now. Found video of Keferov on youtube but tapology and sherdog both don't have a page on him even. I will look into him if you say he's quote "a more important signing than MM". That's some high praise.

Will say Rei Tsuruya does look pretty promising but he's only 21. Super young for MMA and only a few fights but maybe I'm a little excited for his signging.

My own world?

By my own world you mean the past? I mean doesn't half of sherdog live in 2006? Why isn't it okay to live in 2013? You're a poster whose content I like I don't know if you meant anything bad by that or not this is one of those things where you struggle to interpret words without context. Don't know what you're getting it. Passionate about spreading the message of how great 125 was in the early 2010s namely because no one appreciated it at the time. Listen I get the optimism but my issue is we're really still at square 1. I was optimistic about 125 in 2020 too.

Tatsuro Taira is in the UFC! Rei Tsuruya is in Road to the UFC tournament at Flyweight too and Kamikubo and Shin Haraguchi in the FW and LW tournaments. All these guys are the best of the best of the up coming Japanese talent. Rinya Nakamura signed to the UFC too of course and he's an amazing talent, basically Japanese Bo Nickal or better. I believe Makoto Takahashi will get signed he's only 22 and wants to be in the UFC, there's rumors he took the Rizin fight to finish his pre-existing contract so that he can sign with the UFC and other rumors he signed a 1 fight deal to stay busy before the contender series. The UFC has done a bad job with Japanese talent historically but also Japanese talent in the west has just largely done bad for a few different reasons they seem to now be addressing finally (being undersized, lack of wrestling base, too inconsistent with wins and losses) I've always felt Japan viewed MMA as less series compared to boxing, Judo, wrestling, sumo, kickboxing and more similar to pro wrestling in that it's performative and a spectacle. These up coming Japanese prospects seem different though and I'm hopeful it will translate to success in the UFC, the UFC seems to he aggressively signing top Japanese talent again as if they notice this.

Ones 135 is their Flyweight and Moraes in the past fought at 125lbs, jts just the rehydration clause. Regardless I don't think Moraes would ever fight for a belt in the UFC at 125 or especially 135 personally.

I don't think Askarov was the best in the UFC, Kai upset him and that draw should have went to Moreno, since Moreno has improved a ton and Askar has stayed the same. He's a solid top 5-10 guy but I think Askar would struggle with a lot of the very good grapplers like Nascimento, Tagir, Mokaev, Taira etc.

Here's Azamat Kerefov Tapology page, he's actually fighting Askar Askarov soon so we will see what's what. Got the R and F mixed up in dyslexic.

https://www.tapology.com/fightcenter/fighters/136149-azamat-kerefov

I personally think Flyweight was more shallow back in the early to mid 2010s but I hear where you're coming from, I think them getting rid of Mouse and Horiguchi made the division lose a lot of integrity and Lineker becoming unable to make the weight was tough and a lot of other subsequent things. I do currently think overall flyweight is better now than then, even if not by a lot, honestly the division was then and is still now super shallow, being ranked top 15 out of 35 fighters is nearly flipping a coin. The division within the sport has grown tremendously but it currently is neglected by the UFC but they're finally fixing that.

You live in your own world, you have your opinions and stances you'll stay rooted in that no matter how much discussion it won't change. I have similar issues with some opinions, sometimes it's better to identify those things and work around them rather than constantly trying to argue them. We don't have to agree on everything. It isn't a bad thing, having your own opinions means you actually have something to offer.

 

[HuskySamoan]

I wouldn't mind seeing Jarred "The Monkey God" Brooks back in the fold when his One FC contract runs out. He's still only 29 and win or lose, always had pretty fun fights. Most memorably knocking himself out on a slam takedown, but was still entertaining.

Just checked, Jose Torres and Brooks got cut along with a lot of the Flyweight roster in 2018 because the UFC planned on scrapping the entire division. Kind if hilarious and horseshit they never bothered resigning these guys after that as they're on the level obviously.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

Since the inclusion of the Flyweight division into the UFC back in 2012 it's been a turbulent ride to win over the fans interest due to the size of the athletes and the UFC has never fully gotten behind 125 either. From keeping the roster space for the division at around half that of other men's weight classes, denying all time great Mighty Mouse of PPV points for much of his title reign and plans to close down the division back in 2018 which was a big reason behind trading away Mighty Mouse to ONE FC. I've said this for years, 125lbs is globally speaking one of the deepest divisions in all of MMA and if the UFC just invested in top talent and were willing to increase the divisions roster size from roughly 38 fighters compared to the divisional average of 70 in men's weightclasses below Light Heavyweight.

Well, well, well, well, wellllll it looks like the UFC has finally decided to invest in Flyweight as a division and I cannot be anymore excited about this. If you don't follow the Road to the UFC tournaments, it's third season begins May 27th in Shanghai China on Fight Pass and the Flyweight tournament in particular is an absolutely incredible acquisition of talent by the UFC, albeit the prospects are on the green side they are blue chip nonetheless. Let's run through the Flyweights bracket standouts.

Mark Climaco 25 years old, 8-1 pro and 4-0 amateur training out of AKA, he's one of the US's best Flyweight prospects and having went 4-1 under the LFA banner he's one of the most experienced of the bunch in this tournament and will serve as a great measuring stick for the younger fighters to pit themselves against.

Jung Hyun Lee 20 years old, 8-0 pro and 8-2 amateur fighting out Korea, one of the best Korean prospects in MMA regardless of weight class. His opening round opponent is the aforementioned Mark Climaco so we will immediately find out what Hyun's made of.

Rei Tsuruya 20 years old, 6-0 pro with all finishes and 1-0 amateur, fighting out of his fathers gym Paraestra Matsudo in Japan Tsuruya grew up on the wrestling mats and in MMA gyms. He is one of the two best Japanese Flyweight prospects outside the UFC alongside Makoto Shinryu Takahashi who's 16-1-1 and they are teammates, iron sharpens iron. Tsuruya has some good wins over experienced guys already and a high level wrestling background winning Japanese nationals in Greco Roman at the highschool level and having competed at the Cadet world championships.

Sumit Kumar 22 years old, 5-0 pro and 2-1 amateur, Sumit is from India but his road to MMA is a unique one. He was a successful freestyle wrestler in his home country having worked with their Olympic team and he came to the US where he trained at the Olympic training center before finding MMA where Urijah Faber took Sumit under his wing. For the last 2 years Sumit has been splitting his team between Team Alphamale in the US and AKA Thailand to hone in on his striking. The young man is quite the athlete and will be dropping down from 135lbs where he gave up a bit of a size advantage in some of his fights to 125lbs for this tournament.

Beyond the road to the UFC tournament this May I want to shout out to all the recent top prospects the UFC has recently signed to their roster at 125lbs. It seems like they finally decided to upgrade the division and I think in 5 years time we will be saying similar things about Flyweight that we are now about Bantamweight.

Asu Almabaev 29 years old 17-2 (13 fight win streak). Asu was one of the best free agents at Flyweight in the sport having been the M1 Flyweight champion and Brave Flyweight champion. He is Shavkat Rakhmonov's teammate from Dar Pro Team in Kazakhstan and he's a pretty dynamic athlete both with his striking and wrestling.

Azat Maksum 27 years old 16-0, also from Kazakhstan. Another one of the biggest Flyweight signings in all of MMA, Azat is the truth with big KO power, fast hands and strong wrestling he's already been calling out the likes of guys such as Mohammed Mokaev. Currently he's stateside training at Elevation in Colorado alongside Cory Sandhagen presumably prepping for his UFC debut.

Rafael Estevam 26 years old, 11-0 training out of the lions den that is Nova Uniao in Rio De Janeiro Brazi. Estevam was one of the three major Flyweight prospects out of Brazil I had hoped to see the UFC sign along with 22 year old 15-1 Lucas Rocha who currently has a fight scheduled in May under the LFA banner (so he's on the right track for the UFC) and 7-0 Jungle Fights Champion 19 year old Igor Da Silva. Estevam makes his UFC debut veteran Zhalgas who's coming back from retirement, don't let Zhalgas's blemished record fool you he has wins over the likes of UFC top 10 and Dagestani Sambo Champ Tagir Ulanbekov and former UFC title contender Ali Bagautinov so very stiff competition from the get-go for Estevam where we will find out just what the prospects made of.

Joshua Van 21 years old, 7-1 pro and 3-0 amateur, originally from Burma and having grown up in the US, Van is arguably the best Flyweight prospect on the US regional scene right now with a big upset win over Paris Moran recently. Boasting a 100% rate and claiming the Fury FC title while nothing has been officially announced about Joshua Van's signing he has been added to the UFC's roster on their website recently and was rumored to be on the Road to the UFC tournament until brackets were recently so I'm assuming that he is/will be soon.

This division is so young, both in it's conception and in the age of the competitors. The potential is huge and I'm so glad to finally see it being actualized by the UFC. I'm hoping for more top Flyweight prospects being signed during this years contender series season. is there anyone I missed that the UFC recently picked up at 125lbs? Is there anyone you have your eye on hoping the UFC will sign for the division? Hopefully this got you a little more excited for the manlet division.

Good post but don't sleep on the Aussie Steve Erceg they just signed. That dude is good too.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

Tbh the division was at it's absolute peak in the early 2010s it was like 15 great fighters deep. People did not appreciate the UFC's signing spree back then. Even if people appreciate the rebuilt 125 IMO it's not comparable to that golden age. Especially with Askarov gone. These are prospects the 2013 gang were all proven stars.

We also have less of a feel how these guys rate P4P(promotion for promotion) compared to the Asian orgs. Both the UFCs current lineup and these prospects. Among those prospect breakdowns I do not see ONE or Shooto mentioned at all and thats where the top 125 talent is(back in the day throw Tachi Palace in the mix). Most of the UFC talent seems to be from smaller shows.

125 is my 2nd favorite weight class(in terms of the weight and the quality of fighting) but that's really based on the past. I view 125's rebuild poorly thus far because of the Fig v Moreno series and alienating Askarov to the point people were saying he faked a medical condition to leave the UFC(is that accurate?). The division had a lot of potential in 2020 the situation has not really changed except now they lost possibly there best fighter.

125 IMO is the one division where the UFC probably doesn't have the best fighters in the world and they really need the big signings to lend credibility.

All this criticism comes from a place of love btw. I believed in 125 when very few did.

The best talent at 125 isn't at Shooto or ONE in 2023 lol. ACA has the 2nd best flyweight division in the world by a considerable distance, after that it's probably ONE then either BRAVE or LFA depending on who's still in LFA at the time.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

Here's the thing the lemons largely weren't lemons the division was just that good. There's guys who won belts in the worlds top promotions who were lucky to win a belt in the UFC. Because the top 8 or so(MM, Joe B, Dodson, Horiguchi, Formiga, Moraga, Lineker, Bagunitov, Dustin Ortiz, Mavosky beat everyone outside the group. That honestly might be the best 8-10 man lineup P4P in UFC history. Guys like Urushitani, Gomez and Montague never even won ONE UFC fight(the number not the promotion).

To put this in perspective Ian McCall who some considered the best 125er in the world when the UFC started their division went 2-3-1 close losses to 3 monsters and that's the end of that. There were only 25ish guys on roster and like 15 of them were elite or close to it. Also Scott Jorgensen, Louis Gaudinot(who beat Lineker), Phil Harris holy shit this division was stacked.


I haven't followed Shooto recently it does seen that ONE has kinda replaced them but historically Shooto(and way back Pancrase) had the best 125ers in Asia. They started all this. Yamaguchi etc. Taira is their champ he'd be a good signing but their stars tended not to come over to North America, Urushitanis the biggest one I remember(besides Horiguchi). ONE seems to have become the big player in Asia and in ONE Pacio and Brooks would be great signings. ONE has more depth than that but everyone else is pretty old(like nearing 40).

Note it's tricky cause they use different names over there in Shooto 125 is Bantamweight and ONE it's Straweight and they both call different weight classes Flyweight(115 and 135 respectively). So better to go by the numbers to avoid confusion.

While there's obviously lots of overlap between 135 and 125 Rizin and Bellator don't have 125 pound divisions last I checked. ONE has 125 but Moraes is 135. And some of those guys would cut down of course but others would not. UFC 135 division is in much better shape. I do think Moraes can win the 125 belt if he cut down and maybe some of the other ONE 135ers could. I don't know I'd want to see them try though. Takahashi and Temurov are nice signings for Rizin regardless. Will try and keep my eye on them. And yeah top Japanese small fighters tend to not come to the US even if they are stars. Maybe there's a reason for this if someone dead set on the UFC didn't sign?

In terms of Moreno and Fig I agree they are on borrowed time. I do not think they are the best fighters in the UFCs 125 I think Fig has been in the right place in the right time a lot he was the guy who got to retire Joe B thus he got to the front of the line etc. Royval is a fighter I'm high on who won a few days back. Really like France. But I did think Askarov was the best 125er in the UFC and waiting for years for him to get a title shot just for him to leave really grinded my gears.


Also while I thought Askarov was great are there other good small fighters fighters at ACA? Is that a pipeline I always took it as the promotion he happened to get started from? Wiki says they haven't even had a new 125 champ since Askarov left and that was 5 years ago now. Found video of Keferov on youtube but tapology and sherdog both don't have a page on him even. I will look into him if you say he's quote "a more important signing than MM". That's some high praise.

Will say Rei Tsuruya does look pretty promising but he's only 21. Super young for MMA and only a few fights but maybe I'm a little excited for his signging.

My own world?

By my own world you mean the past? I mean doesn't half of sherdog live in 2006? Why isn't it okay to live in 2013? You're a poster whose content I like I don't know if you meant anything bad by that or not this is one of those things where you struggle to interpret words without context. Don't know what you're getting it. Passionate about spreading the message of how great 125 was in the early 2010s namely because no one appreciated it at the time. Listen I get the optimism but my issue is we're really still at square 1. I was optimistic about 125 in 2020 too.

What makes you say Askarov was the best in the UFC? I know it got scored a draw but Moreno very clearly beat him and although I thought it could have gone either way he had a very close fight with Kara-France who Moreno very clearly beat twice.

 

[HuskySamoan]

Good post but don't sleep on the Aussie Steve Erceg they just signed. That dude is good too.

I missed a couple, Erceg was one of them and I almost edited but I wanted to see some people chime in. Clayton Carpenter called him out for some reason, seems like a fun matchup.

Nazruloev you turned me onto fought mostly at Flyweight, since he's RCC I kinda hope he makes it to the contender series and does it at 125.

 

[krelianx]

Best thread in a while. Really fantastic talent pool, immediately making the Flyweight division one of the most interesting ones at the moment. It's crazy Askarov left...

 

[Hellowhosthat]

I missed a couple, Erceg was one of them and I almost edited but I wanted to see some people chime in. Clayton Carpenter called him out for some reason, seems like a fun matchup.

Nazruloev you turned me onto fought mostly at Flyweight, since he's RCC I kinda hope he makes it to the contender series and does it at 125.

My guesses for the Contender Series this year at Fly are...

Igor Da Silva (maybe a year too early but he's amazing for a 19 year old).
Davi Costa
Alibi Idiris
Oleksii Kryvets
Mitch Raposo again
Murad Magomedov (maybe wishful thinking here)
Felipe Bunes
Tony Laramie

But we'll see. I'd love it if Phumi Nkuta came out of retirement for a crack too.

I think Shinryu gets signed directly.

 

[ferrisjso]

What makes you say Askarov was the best in the UFC? I know it got scored a draw but Moreno very clearly beat him and although I thought it could have gone either way he had a very close fight with Kara-France who Moreno very clearly beat twice.

I thought he was the fighter with the highest ceiling. Like his wrestling.

I will admit I have a hard time scoring the close 2-1,3-2 125 fights with the close rounds especially a three rounder.. So I'm not going to strongly argue I think Askarov clearly won either fight because I'm not really confident at all about that. But I do feel strongly Moreno one was close and could have went either way. Moreno got a knockdown in R2 but Askarov got 3 TDs. I value takedowns more than your typical person on here and clearly judges agreed on that though not sure that should cancel a knockdown. IMO it was a "coinflip decision" regardless which way it went down.

Not saying he's the best by a lot but he was the one who I had the highest hopes for. Also like France and Royval. Thing is with the top guys right now(as Moreno and Fig have made painfully clear) everyones capable of beating each other especially in a 3 rounder.