{"id":333428,"date":"2019-11-27T11:07:27","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T19:07:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=333428"},"modified":"2019-11-27T11:07:27","modified_gmt":"2019-11-27T19:07:27","slug":"kyoji-horiguchi-relinquishes-bellator-belt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/bellator\/kyoji-horiguchi-relinquishes-bellator-belt\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyoji Horiguchi relinquishes Bellator belt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Weeks after he relinquished the Rizin bantamweight title, Kyoji Horiguchi has let go of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bellator.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bellator<\/a> bantamweight belt as well.<\/p>\n<p>Bellator MMA announced this unfortunate news in a Wednesday afternoon press release.<\/p>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">\u201cI feel terrible for Kyoji [Horiguchi] about the injury he suffered to his knee, but in the true spirit of martial arts and being a true champion, he has elected to vacate his title and allow the division to move forward in his absence,\u201d Bellator President Scott Coker said in the release. \u201cAfter fully healing, we plan to give Kyoji an immediate title shot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As aforementioned, Horiguchi&#8217;s demotion from a two-promotion champion to a belt-less former champion is the result of a severe knee injury.<\/p>\n<p>Horiguchi was expected to return to the RIZIN ring on New Years Eve, where he would have taken on Kai Asakura. Asakura scored a shocking knockout victory over Horiguchi in a non-title bout earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am terribly sorry. I have injured myself and have just had surgery, and I am forced to withdraw from the Rizin 20 event,\u201d Horiguchi said in a statement issued at the time of his withdrawal from this fight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInjuries happen, and this is what we have to deal with on a regular basis,\u201d Rizin boss Nobuyuki Sakakibara said of Horiguchi. \u201cWe will work hard to take this situation and turn it into a positive. We believe that the fighters who look to stand up to these types of occasions will leave a special impression.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At present, it&#8217;s not clear when Kyoji Horiguchi will be able to return to the ring or cage, but it&#8217;s clear that he&#8217;ll be welcome backed to high profile fights by both Rizin and Bellator.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><i>This article first appeared on\u00a0<\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>BJPENN.com<\/i><\/span><\/a><i>\u00a0on 11\/27\/2019.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Weeks after he relinquished the Rizin bantamweight title, Kyoji Horiguchi has let go of the Bellator bantamweight belt as well. Bellator MMA announced this unfortunate news in a Wednesday afternoon press release. \u201cI feel terrible for Kyoji [Horiguchi] about the injury he suffered to his knee, but in the true spirit of martial arts and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54430,"featured_media":322915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[44,18157,10079],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Kyoji Horiguchi relinquishes Bellator belt | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Weeks after he relinquished the Rizin bantamweight title, Kyoji Horiguchi has let go of the Bellator bantamweight belt as well.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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