Posted by E. Spencer Kyte
There have been myriad twists and turns in the road back to Montreal and UFC 186 this weekend, but with the fight card finally put together as it will appear on Saturday night, knock on wood.
The finished product may not be as packed with marquee fights as next month’s pay-per-view offering, but there are still some compelling stories, tremendous fighters and intriguing elements to UFC 186 that make it worth tuning in to see.
Need more convincing? You’ve come to the right place.
Here are 5 Reasons to Watch UFC 186: Johnson vs. Horiguchi.
The Mightiest of Them All
Demetrious Johnson might be the best overall fighter in the UFC today.
The first and only champion in the history of the flyweight division, “Mighty Mouse” has won seven straight and silenced the critics that said he never finishes fights by earning stoppages in three of his last four bouts. He has all the attributes you look for in an elite fighter: speed, power, and crisp technique with an ability to excel wherever the fight goes and the gas tank to push a torrid pace for 25 minutes.
He’s probably never going to be a massive star for the UFC because of his size and lack of interest in talking trash via the media, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that time he fights, Johnson delivers a master class on mixed martial arts.
What’s particularly interesting to note is that the 28-year-old Kirkland, Washington native seems to have reached a new level when it comes to trusting his talents and dominating overmatched competition. He absolutely dominated John Moraga, shut out Ali Bagautinov and made quick work of Chris Cariaso at UFC 178, taking the fight to the “deer-in-the-headlights” challenger.
This weekend’s challenger Kyoji Horiguchi has been hustled into a title shot a little sooner than most anticipated as a result of Johnson’s run of success since the division’s inception, and it could be another opportunity for the flyweight champion to showcase how far ahead of the competition he is in the 125-pound ranks.
Can We Really Count Out Underdog Challengers?
At this point, shouldn’t we have learned our lesson when it comes to dismissing the chances of the unheralded title challenger in these situations?
Last year, TJ Dillashaw was in a comparable position to Horiguchi, stepping in with a dominant champion in a fight many believed he was getting a little ahead of schedule and the Team Alpha Male member went out and blistered Renan Barao to claim the UFC bantamweight title.
More recently, both Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Rafael dos Anjos were expected to come up short in their respective title bouts at UFC 185, but instead, the duo delivered tandem beatings to Carla Esparza and Anthony Pettis, respectively, to win UFC gold.
Horiguchi has all the markings of a challenger that could easily be counted out – he’s only 24-years-old and has just four UFC wins to his credit, none of which came against Top 10 opponents. He’s facing a dominant champion that doesn’t have any discernible holes in his game and can beat you in numerous ways. He’s coming off a good-not-great win over a good-not-great opponent in Louis Gaudinot that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in his chances against “Mighty Mouse.”
But that’s precisely why this fight is so compelling – we’ve seen this situation play out before and there have been several recent examples where just about everyone got it wrong.
Even if he doesn’t win the title, there is a good chance Horiguchi shows something that wasn’t previously there; that he elevates his game and shows that while winning the title may not have been in the cards this weekend, his number will be called again in the future and he deserves to be in the championship picture.
5 Reasons to Watch UFC 186: Johnson vs. Horiguchi | The Province