Horiguchi remains a dynamic talent that can do it all, and he’s proven that against the best competition, both inside and outside of the UFC. He took Demetrious Johnson to the limit in their championship clash at UFC 186 in Montreal back in the day, holds wins over Manel Kape, Hiromasa Ougikubo, Darrion Caldwell, Kai Asakara, and Sergio Pettis, and continues to thrive despite being in his mid-30s now.
This weekend, the American Top Team representative gets the chance to thrust himself into the thick of the chase in the 125-pound weight class as he takes on Tagir Ulanbekov in Qatar. The ranked Russian has won four straight and six of seven since arriving in the UFC, showcasing the suffocating grappling dominance commonly connected to fighters from the Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov lineage.
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Flyweight is going to be front-and-center over the final three events of 2025 —Alex Perez and Asu Almabayev clash on the main card this weekend, UFC 323 features a title bout and another Top 10 clash, and Brandon Royval faces Kape in the final bout of the year — and Horiguchi can instantly announce his presence as a legitimate contender with a quality win on the weekend. Beating Ulanbekov isn’t easy, so a win of any kind should make it clear that the former title challenger is still one all these years later.
Bekzat Almakhan
There are times when the performance an athlete delivers is more important than the result they achieve, and Almakhan’s UFC debut is a perfect example.
Called into action on short notice for a March 2, 2024, bout with Umar Nurmagomedov, Almakhan, who entered on an eight-fight winning streak, buzzed the head of the then-unbeaten rising star 30 seconds into the bout, prompting Nurmagomedov to wrestle for pretty much the rest of the fight. You can say diminish the initial blow if you choose, but Almakhan came at the talented prospect straight away, landed good strikes before that, and then dropped him with a right hand that bounced off his noggin and turned the well-rounded Russian into a wrestler.
