Kai Asakura TKOs Aoriqileng in Round 2 at UFC Shanghai
Kai Asakura called the knockout, then delivered it. The former RIZIN champion stopped Aoriqileng by TKO at 0:34 of round two on the UFC Fight Night: Nurmagomedov vs. Song main card, dropping him with a head kick and finishing with punches in Shanghai.
Asakura improved to 23-6 overall and 2-2 in the UFC. Aoriqileng fell to 26-14 with one no contest and 4-6 inside the Octagon.
The finish came 34 seconds into the second round at the Oriental Sports Center, with Vitor Ribeiro waving it off. MMA Junkie’s live desk had Asakura land the head kick, Aoriqileng go down, and a follow-up knee and punches end the night.
That matched what Asakura said he wanted at media day. “I will knock him out and I will show a new combination this Saturday,” he said before the fight.
Round one was slower. Both men were cautious early, with Aoriqileng pressing and Asakura targeting the body with hooks, then backing him up with a bigger shot and a failed takedown that ended in a clinch on the cage.
MMA Junkie scored the first round 10-9 for Asakura. MMA Mania had an eye-poke pause in that round, then Asakura chasing with flurries after the restart.
The second round did not last long enough for Aoriqileng to solve the kick. Official stats showed Asakura landing 27 of 50 significant strikes and scoring the fight’s only knockdown.
Aoriqileng went 14 of 28 on significant strikes and never attempted a takedown. Neither man looked for a submission.
The result keeps Asakura’s bantamweight reset on track. He lost his first two UFC fights at flyweight, submitted by Alexandre Pantoja in a title bout at UFC 310 and by Tim Elliott at UFC 319, then moved back to 135 pounds and knocked out Cameron Smotherman in 1:50 of the first round on May 30.
This was his second straight UFC finish at his old weight. He is 32, 5-foot-8, trains with Japan Top Team, and now has 15 knockouts among 23 wins.
Aoriqileng, 33, is the veteran known as “The Mongolian Murderer.” He had just been stopped by Cody Haddon in the second round of that same Macau card in May, after a 21-second knockout of Cody Gibson last October.
He is a durable volume striker who closes distance well, and that style walked him into Asakura’s kick. Two UFC knockout losses in three months is a hard stretch for a 4-6 fighter who already sits outside the rankings.
Asakura is not in the title picture yet. Petr Yan holds the bantamweight belt, Merab Dvalishvili is booked for a trilogy, and Umar Nurmagomedov vs. Song Yadong is still the main event on this card.
Two straight knockouts at 135 pounds do change the conversation around him. The flyweight experiment is over, and the version that won RIZIN gold is the one showing up.
He had said this week that he looked and felt better at bantamweight and wondered why he had gone down to 125. Shanghai was the second data point.
Aoriqileng’s path is thinner. He can still win ugly fights in the bottom half of the division, but he has now been finished by Haddon and Asakura in back-to-back appearances.
UFC Fight Night: Nurmagomedov vs. Song continues in Shanghai, with Yan Xiaonan vs. Denise Gomes and the Nurmagomedov-Song headliner still ahead. Asakura is 2-0 since returning to 135 pounds, and the next booking will show whether the UFC treats that as a ranked step or another finishing showcase.