Can Kai Asakura end 31 years of Japanese UFC heartbreak?

Back when Shinya Aoki first made the jump from the Japanese MMA scene to the American one in 2010, he made it very clear what he thought the stakes were.

“If Aoki loses,” he said, referring to himself in the third person, “it is over for Japan. I love Japan and it is certain that if I lose, Japan will become a colony of U.S. MMA.”

Well, he lost. Aoki rolled into Nashville for a rare champ vs. champ battle against Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez and left a few days later with just his second career loss in the 155-pound division.

This was a big deal at the time. Aoki had been a two-division champion in Japan. He also had something approaching a star quality about him. He fought in colorful tights. He was a brilliant and creative grappler who submitted almost everyone. He had a certain swagger about him that at some point he gave up on trying to tone down.

At the big New Year’s Eve show in Tokyo to close out 2009, he fought Sengoku lightweight champ Mizota Hirota as part of a cross-promotional, in-country rivalry. Aoki snapped his arm with a hammerlock in the first round, then stood over him and put his middle finger directly in Hirota’s face as he lay there defeated with his useless arm at his side.

If you were making a list of the best fighters outside the UFC back then, Aoki and legendary Russian heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko would have been top picks. But Aoki’s lopsided decision loss to Melendez forced people to reconsider. He ultimately fought just two more times in American promotions, submitting Lyle Beerbohm in Strikeforce and then getting knocked out by Eddie Alvarez in Bellator.

His comment about Japanese MMA becoming a “colony” of the American version? That might have been overselling it somewhat. But Aoki’s struggles in the cages of North America did signal some type of shift. One could even argue there hasn’t been a serious Japanese contender for anything that could be considered a true world championship since Aoki — until now.

This is the lineage that Kai Asakura steps into on Saturday night. When he makes his UFC debut in a flyweight title fight against 125-pound champion Alexandre Pantoja at UFC 310 in Las Vegas, Asakura becomes the latest Japanese export to carry the hopes of the entire scene on his back whether he likes it or not.

In the modern era of MMA there have been zero UFC champs from Japan. That’s not to undermine the legacy of the great Kazushi Sakuraba, who won the Ultimate Japan heavyweight tournament in 1997. (Sakuraba also became the rare fighter to successfully protest a referee stoppage at that show, getting it changed from a TKO loss to a no-contest all in the same day, which is weird enough to be worth some recognition too.)

It’s just that, while several have come close, no Japanese fighter has been able to make the leap and win a UFC title. There were those like Takanori Gomi and Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto, who perhaps came over too late in their careers to capitalize. There were title challengers like Kyoji Horiguchi and Yushin Okami who were perennial contenders without ever becoming champs. There also others like Tatsuro Taira, who’s currently on the way up with his UFC title hopes still very much alive.

But to go all these years without a single Japanese UFC champ? It’s a little ironic, given the country’s importance in martial arts history. Who knows, if Mitsuyo Maeda never leaves Japan to end up teaching his brand of judo and jiu-jitsu to the Gracie family, maybe the UFC as we know it is never formed.

Representatives of basically all the other nations with their own rich martial arts histories have won UFC belts by this point. So why not Japan?

All kinds of theories have been put forth. Is it the difficulty of adjusting to fights in a cage rather than a ring? Is it a case of wrestling vs. submission grappling? Are there not enough gyms doing good enough work in Japan to prepare their fighters for the level of international competition?

Part of it has to be a numbers game. The Japanese MMA scene has, at times, been one of the most insular. From the thriving days of PRIDE FC to the zombie years that followed its collapse and sale, Japanese fighters have tended to stay home. Russia (and the Caucasus Mountains in particular) have seemingly spammed North America with fighting exports, but Japan has sent only a handful.

Not all of that is by choice. Aoki in particular was rumored to have wanted to make the jump well before he did, but was pressured to stay home the same way he was pressured to keep quiet about not always getting paid what he was owed. Part of what the Japanese MMA scene expected of him was to be a standard-bearer, which also meant shutting up and being a good soldier even when his loyalty wasn’t repaid.

There’s also the tumultuous history of the fight sports scene in Japan. Promoters there have been up and down, with controversies and collapses, all while the region remains a tough nut to crack for foreign promoters. In order for talent to develop and grow, there have to be opportunities to fight and learn.

Asakura has benefitted from some of those opportunities. He came along at a good time in the post-PRIDE rebuilding era of Japanese MMA. With several promotions all trying to scratch out a place for themselves, he got a chance to work his way up gradually. Now, after five years with RIZIN and two separate title reigns, the big fish seems to have outgrown the small pond.

But to make the leap to the UFC and win the belt all in your first fight? That’s a lot to ask of anybody. Many great fighters who went on to great careers lost their first UFC fight. And if Asakura can’t get it done in his UFC debut, he could face a long road back to the title in a crowded division like flyweight.

Still, it’s hard not to root for a guy who could make history with one punch. The fact that he has some of these variables stacked against him only makes him more of a relatable underdog. Now he just has to find some way to go right where others went wrong. And if we’ve learned anything about Pantoja during his title reign, we know it’s not going to come easy.