Kyoji Horiguchi is 30 days out from UFC Qatar, and he wants everyone to know camp is going well.
The former RIZIN and Bellator champion posted the update on X on Wednesday, quote-tweeting the UFC’s Japanese account and its countdown graphic. His message was short and loud, three exclamation points included: “試合まで残り1ヶ月！！！ 練習も順調です。やったります！” In plain English, he said there’s one month left until the fight, training is on track, and he’s going to get it done. That last word, やったります, is the kind of casual, fired-up sign-off you’d hear in a gym in Japan right before someone runs a hard round.
The original post from @ufc_jp marked the date as Saturday, November 21 local time, tagged #UFCQatar, and dropped a link for tickets. Neither post named his opponent or where he lands on the card, so for now the confirmed facts are the date, the event and the state of his camp.
View post on X
Where he sits at 125
Horiguchi heads into this one ranked No. 8 at flyweight in the UFC Meta Rankings, the composite list MMA Mania and Yahoo Sports published Tuesday after UFC Edmonton. That puts him in a crowded, dangerous neighborhood. Joshua Van holds the belt. Manel Kape sits at No. 1, followed by Alexandre Pantoja, Brandon Royval and Tatsuro Taira. Asu Almabayev, Lone’er Kavanagh and Ramazan Temirov fill out fifth through seventh, right above Horiguchi. Directly behind him are Amir Albazi at No. 9 and Brandon Moreno at No. 10.
The Japanese presence near the top of the division jumps out, too. Taira is at No. 4, and Rei Tsuruya checks in at No. 14. With Horiguchi in the mix at eighth, three Japanese fighters hold spots in the flyweight top 15, which would have sounded like a fantasy a few years ago.
Qatar also caps a busy stretch for the UFC in the Middle East. Before November 21 comes UFC 333, headlined by Alexander Volkanovski against Movsar Evloev for the featherweight title on Saturday, October 24 at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi.
Quick take
I’ll take a Horiguchi camp update over a dozen hype videos, because he doesn’t do the long, rambling social posts some fighters crank out every week of camp. When a guy this economical with words tells you training is going smoothly, I believe him. The bigger story is the list he’s walking back into. Eighth place at 125 means everyone from Temirov up to Kape is a name that moves him toward Van, and a sharp night in Qatar could put him in the conversation with Taira for the title of Japan’s best shot at UFC gold. Thirty days from now, on November 21, he gets to prove やったります was a promise and not just a caption.
