Throughout the years, the UFC has seen its share of Asian fighters come and go. From former sumo and pro-wrestler Koji Kitao to renowned Japanese stars such as DREAM’s Kazushi Sakuraba, the retired Genki Sudo, Kazuhiro Nakamura, Keitaro Nakamura, Caol Uno who recently returned to the UFC, welterweight contender Dong Hyun Kim and of course, one of the top contenders for Anderson Silva’s UFC Middleweight Title, Yushin Okami. However, at UFC 100, the world was introduced to quite possibly the most popular Asian MMA fighter in the world, Yoshihiro Akiyama.

A little bit about the career of the man many netizens dubbed Sexyama. Prior to his stint in MMA, Akiyama competed in international judo tournaments and while he had gone through a few controversies, Akiyama remains one of the top judokas out there. Due to his Korean heritage and Japanese citizenship, Akiyama remains one of the few athletes in the world to represent two countries in judo tournaments. For instance, using his Korean name Sung Hoon Choo, Akiyama represented South Korea to win the Gold Medal at the Asian Championships in 2001, then a year later, represented Japan to take home the Gold Medal at the prestigious Asian Games. With his amazing judo skills, it seemed natural that this fighter would eventually make the transition to MMA.

In 2004, Akiyama made his long-awaited MMA debut at K-1 Premium 2004 Dynamite!! on New Year’s Eve. The popular fighter made an impact when he submitted the current WBF World Heavyweight Champion Francois Botha in under two minutes. While Akiyama had only one loss on his record (a TKO loss to Jerome LeBanner at the very first HERO’S event), Akiyama had been consistently strong in his fights. With victories over the likes of Tokimitsu Ishizawa, Katsuhiko Nagata, Taiei Kin, Kestutis Smirnovas, Melvin Manhoef and Denis Kang, Akiyama proved that he truly belongs in the upper tier of the middleweights in the world. While he had two controversial no contests against Kazushi Sakuraba and Kazuo Misaki, it wasn’t enough to put him down.

While Akiyama was serving his long suspension back in 2007 due to the controversies surrounding his fight with Sakuraba, the judoka decided to pursue other endeavors. Akiyama decided to head back to Korea and from there, took part in endorsing several products, including KIA vehicles, Yakult-ish banana milk drinks and refrigerators. Akiyama also decided to take advantage of his brooding handsome features by modeling for several renowned fashion designers, including Korea’s strangely popular designer, Andre Kim. Sometime in 2008, Akiyama decided to showcase his talents in something not many people would expect from MMA fighters: Singing. Akiyama covered a popular song by Park Sang Min titled Hana e Sarang, showing off his surprising talent in singing for M.Net’s huge Yeon Ga 2008 compilation album and later that year, he performed the same song in front of 50,000+ fans at the Seoul Olympic Jamsil Stadium for the prestigious annual Dream Concert. While he was not well-loved in Japan compared to a few years ago, Koreans still continue to adore him as one of the top celebrities and athletes in the country.

After two lackluster performances in his only two appearances for DREAM against Katsuyori Shibata and Masanori Tonooka, Akiyama was unable to come to terms to renew his FEG contract due to undisclosed reasons, despite showing interest in competing in FEG’s New Year’s Eve spectacular, Dynamite!! 2008. Akiyama immediately became the hottest free agent in the country and SENGOKU had shown some interest in him, particularly due to Akiyama wanting to challenge Hidehiko Yoshida to a fight. However, as one of Asia’s top fighters, Akiyama decided to further showcase his talents and what better place to show his talents than in the United States of America.

In February, Akiyama shocked the world when he signed a two year contract with the UFC. For many of his loyal fans, they were appalled that Akiyama would choose to compete in America than in Japan where they were used to seeing him compete. Despite that, Akiyama felt that he has a lot to prove and by competing against the top middleweights in the world in the top MMA organization, he would be able to show the entire world why he is Asia’s best MMA fighter.

And thus at UFC 100, Akiyama made his highly anticipated debut. Now the world was able to see whether or not Sexyama truly is for real. The popular judoka had a tough task ahead of him in the competitive Alan Belcher, who defeated one of Akiyama’s previous opponents, Denis Kang, back at UFC 93 in January. While Belcher was hoping to welcome Akiyama to the UFC the same way he did to Kang, he eventually failed. Despite landing in some aggressive shots, Akiyama was able to land the most number of strikes (according to CompuStrike, 99 strikes from Akiyama against Belcher’s 78 strikes) and scored all three takedowns attempts throughout the fight, which Belcher never made any attempt to do. The split decision victory signaled an amazing debut from Akiyama who is looking to become one of the UFC’s top contenders for the Middleweight Title and in the many months and years to come, will be facing some of the toughest oppositions he has ever had to face.

In the past, Akiyama has faced some tough challengers, but despite some of the credentials his opponents over in HERO’S and DREAM have, none of them were able to go the distance against Akiyama. In fact, his fight against Belcher was the very first time in his MMA career where Akiyama went to a decision. The road to the Middleweight Title is not easy as Akiyama will have to contend against the likes of Chris Leben, Yushin Okami, Dan Henderson, Chael Sonnen, Wanderlei Silva (whom Akiyama has expressed interest in fighting), Michael Bisping, Patrick Cote, Thales Leites and maybe, if he does go back to the middleweight division, Rich Franklin. Eventually, Akiyama would want to challenge Anderson Silva, one of the most dominant middleweights in the sport, for his UFC Middleweight Title and if he were to win, would truly solidify himself as one of the top middleweights in the world.

But for now, the world awaits Akiyama’s next fight, whenever that will be and when he fights, there is no doubt that the MMA community will be glued in to see how he fares in the UFC’s competitive middleweight division.