The Flyweight division has finally arrived

[Hellowhosthat]

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.

Fair enough but you're very much an outlier. 12 out of 13 media scores and 80% of user scores are for Moreno.

Brandon Moreno drew with Askar Askarov :: UFC on ESPN+ 17 :: MMA Decisions

 

[ferrisjso]

Fair enough but you're very much an outlier. 12 out of 13 media scores and 80% of user scores are for Moreno.

Brandon Moreno drew with Askar Askarov :: UFC on ESPN+ 17 :: MMA Decisions

I'm aware of that. I tend to be an outlier on cases where a fighters argument for a round is the takedown. I think you should get credit for taking someone down even if you don't do anything with it. Davis v Machida at LHW is a decision I was an outlier opinion on for this reason.

 

[HuskySamoan]

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.

Lucas Rocha you don't think gets signed? Murad, Alibi and Igor are ones I'd like to see signed off this list the most (Igor could wait a year or two I agree), Davi Costa I saw his last two fights he should be UFC bound too.

The rest I'm a little medium on, especially Bunes. I also haven't seen any fights from Kryvets, does he look really good? I'd add Mansur Malachiev to the list if he wants to keep fighting, he has a few big wins and they are usually winning to sign EFC guys, still young and a good record. Nazruloev would be great too as would Asylbek Rustambek, for 6-0 those guys have very good wins but not sure if they're 135 or 125.

Too soon for An Ho and Lewis McGrillen Evans (who it looks like PFL scooped up) but they've looked good to me. Too soon for Piccininni too I think but we might see him anyways, I'd think next year would be better though.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

Lucas Rocha you don't think gets signed? Murad, Alibi and Igor are ones I'd like to see signed off this list the most (Igor could wait a year or two I agree), Davi Costa I saw his last two fights he should be UFC bound too.

The rest I'm a little medium on, especially Bunes. I also haven't seen any fights from Kryvets, does he look really good? I'd add Mansur Malachiev to the list if he wants to keep fighting, he has a few big wins and they are usually winning to sign EFC guys, still young and a good record. Nazruloev would be great too as would Asylbek Rustambek, for 6-0 those guys have very good wins but not sure if they're 135 or 125.

Too soon for An Ho and Lewis McGrillen Evans (who it looks like PFL scooped up) but they've looked good to me. Too soon for Piccininni too I think but we might see him anyways, I'd think next year would be better though.

Rocha could maybe be in too. Bunes I'm not massively high on but he's LFA champ and I'm trying to be more objective about who I think gets on rather than who I want to get on.

Kryvets looks pretty good, I don't think he's an uber prospect of anything but he's young and looks well rounded. Malachiev won't be on as he's signed with ONE.

Be interesting to see what happens with McGrillen. I don't know if that was a one off or if he has a longer term contract. PFL doesn't have a flyweight division so it's difficult to see where he goes with them.

 

[AbominableJoman]

Mini Majk looms

 

[Hellowhosthat]

@HuskySamoan did you catch Lone'er Kavanagh yet? Better prospect than McGrillen imo. He's on the poster for the Cage Warriors July show though so looks like he's not quite ready yet.

 

[HuskySamoan]

Rocha could maybe be in too. Bunes I'm not massively high on but he's LFA champ and I'm trying to be more objective about who I think gets on rather than who I want to get on.

Kryvets looks pretty good, I don't think he's an uber prospect of anything but he's young and looks well rounded. Malachiev won't be on as he's signed with ONE.

Be interesting to see what happens with McGrillen. I don't know if that was a one off or if he has a longer term contract. PFL doesn't have a flyweight division so it's difficult to see where he goes with them.

ONE needs to stop signing good fighters. Several guys I wanted to see stateside randomly I found out got scooped up ONE, I actually remember now that he did but I forgot already.

Could be a 1 off with McGrillen kinda like with Umar and Saidyokub. Yeah I could even be upset, they've done a great job with Flyweights.

 

[HuskySamoan]

@HuskySamoan did you catch Lone'er Kavanagh yet? Better prospect than McGrillen imo. He's on the poster for the Cage Warriors July show though so looks like he's not quite ready yet.

Yeah I watched the Scarano fight so far, I think he could use another year just from how green his record and level of competition is, similarly McGrillen too. They need a couple meatier wins, but the talent is there.

 

[ferrisjso]

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.

Well I'll be a monkeys uncle. Don't remember that being announced. Tsuruya is something to be enthusiastic about.

Fair enough. While I think Askarov was the best fighter the elite at 125 are relatively close in skill fights between them could go either way. I do suspect Fig is the worst of the bunch and he was able to keep the rivalry with Moreno going this long.

Yeah a lot went wrong could go on all day about all that went with 125 promotionally. Lineker being unable make weight was one of the issues as it robbed the division of a exciting contender. But at it's core 125's big issue(besides discrimination against the size) was MM beat everyone, Joe B and Dodson, Horiguchi, Lineker and Bagunitov beat everyone else and so on and when these people lost to MM and/or left there was no one left because they'd cleaned out everyone already.

No one will deny the overall number of fighters in the division was always small. Way I see it you could have a really good 25/35 or a really bad 25/35.


Fair enough. I have changed my world view and opinions pretty heavily on quite many things but yeah that's a gradual thing and it is never visually apparent in the context of an argument or discussion. People change their minds "off camera". You don't get a notification when you convince someone of something. But I am absolutley very resolute most of the time. Yeah just brought up because online a lot of sentences tone is unclear and I like to clarify what is being said.

 

[SalvadorAllende]

FLW is a good division and has a lot of talent out there.

Sad to see the UFC puts a top 5 matchup buried in the early prelims of a terrible FN card.

 

[HuskySamoan]

FLW is a good division and has a lot of talent out there.

Sad to see the UFC puts a top 5 matchup buried in the early prelims of a terrible FN card.

Dana acknowledges that and said it was a mistake on their part.

 

[NikLuk]

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 its 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 and informative post. Appreciate it. Thank mate.

 

[xhaydenx]

I don't think I know a single name you listed, but looking forward to seeing them fight. FLW in the UFC is getting good.

 

[Fioretti]

A lot of these kids will move up once they start to hit their late 20s/ early 30s and put on some mass.

 

[HuskySamoan]

A lot of these kids will move up once they start to hit their late 20s/ early 30s and put on some mass.

Yes sir, just like boxing we will see 125ers and 135ers and 145ers do well in their early twenties a then move in weight.

 

[Fioretti]

Yes sir, just like boxing we will see 125ers and 135ers and 145ers do well in their early twenties a then move in weight.

Is normal.