Kyoji Horiguchi is on the ground in Qatar, and he says the last stretch of camp starts now.
“無事現地に到着してます！1年ぶりのカタール懐かしいです🇶🇦 最終調整もやったります。来週末応援お願いします🔥” he wrote on X Saturday, tagging it #UFCカタール.
Translated loosely, Horiguchi said he arrived safely, that Qatar feels nostalgic after a year away, that he will handle his final preparations, and that he is asking fans for support next weekend. No cryptic emoji riddle and no hype video. A fighter got off a plane and told people he landed.
View post on X
The post quoted his earlier fight announcement, which laid out the details: Saturday, Nov. 21 local time, UFC Fight Night in Qatar, opponent Asu Almabaev. In that one he noted the bout falls exactly a year after his return fight, again in Qatar, and said he was looking forward to fighting Almabaev.
The card is UFC Fight Night 294, headlined by Prochazka vs. Stirling. Horiguchi vs. Almabaev is a flyweight fight, and it carries real weight at 125.
Horiguchi sits at No. 3 in the Knockout Daily flyweight rankings with a 36-6 record. He trains out of American Top Team, and his last fight was June 20, 2026. That makes this his third appearance since coming back to the UFC, and the turnaround from June to November is a busy schedule for a guy who turned 36 last month.
The résumé is long. Horiguchi was the inaugural RIZIN flyweight champion, the inaugural and two-time RIZIN bantamweight champion, Bellator bantamweight champion and Shooto bantamweight champion before that. In his first UFC run, from 2013 to 2016, he earned a shot at the flyweight title. He started in karate at age five, then walked into Norifumi Yamamoto’s Krazy Bee gym at 18 because he wanted to learn how a smaller man knocks out bigger ones.
For a fighter sitting third in the division, a win over Almabaev keeps the conversation about another UFC title shot alive, 10-plus years after the first one. A loss in the same city where his comeback began would sting in a very specific way.
He has a week left to cut weight and sharpen up. The cage door closes Nov. 21.
