Kyoji Horiguchi conquered the challenging journey of three victories in a 48-hour span when he captured the bantamweight grand prix title in the headliner of Sunday’s “Rizin FF 9: World Grand Prix Final Round” event. Horiguchi (23-2) closed out the eight-man, two-day tournament with a brutal second-round knockout of Shintaro Ishiwatari (25-7-4) in the final of the online pay-per-view event at Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan. Horiguchi’s trip to the final didn’t come easy. He went through a competitive fight with Manel Kape in the semifinals and was on the receiving end of a hard illegal head butt that opened a cut. But he locked up a third-round arm-triangle choke submission and was cleared to advance to the finals. It was there he met Ishiwatari, who won his semifinal bout against Takafumi Otsuka by unanimous decision