Kai
Kara-France will be keeping a close watch on the upcoming title
fight between Alexandre
Pantoja and Kai
Asakura.
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Asakura will make his promotional debut, challenging Pantoja for
the flyweight title in the main event at UFC 310
on Saturday at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Kara-France
considers himself to be next in line for title contention and will
be keeping a keen eye on the matchup.
Kara-France also believes he has the knockout power to shut the
lights out on either Pantoja or Asakura. If Pantoja wins, “Don’t
Blink” wants home crowd support to avenge his “Ultimate Fighter 24”
loss against the Brazilian in 2016. Meanwhile, if Asakura wins,
Kara-France wants to travel to enemy territory to challenge the
Japanese flyweight.
“I feel like I could definitely knock out Kai or Pantoja,”
Kara-France told Engage. “So that’s why I’ll be tuning in. Let’s
say now if Pantoja wins, let’s fight in New Zealand. I’ll headline
it, me and him for the title, in front of my people… There’s a
story [if Kai wins] as well. I would love to go back over there,
fight in Super Saitama Arena, in front of all the Japanese fans and
fight for the title there. That would be awesome.”
While Kara-France spent a large part of his early career fighting
in Asia, his only outing at the Super Saitama Arena in Japan ended
in a unanimous decision loss against Tatsumitsu
Wada. Kara-France is coming off a knockout win over Steve Erceg
that saw him rebound from a two-fight slump.
Meanwhile, Pantoja is riding a six-fight winning streak that
includes a title win over Brandon
Moreno followed by defenses against Brandon
Royval and Erceg. Asakura is a former Rizin bantamweight champ
who has wins over the likes of Manel Kape
and Kyoji
Horiguchi and is currently coming off back-to-back stoppage
wins.