Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted September 14, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted September 14, 2019 (edited) OK, don’t usually do this but just clocked that ONE are doing a big double-header next month to mark their 100th show. The cards look pretty good and seeing as it’s a milestone it probably deserves more than a couple of passing mentions in the Other MMA thread. It all goes down on October 13th in Tokyo. I think. Most places have it all listed as taking place on the 13th. But MMAJunkie has it split over 2 nights with Part 1 on the 12th and Part 2 on the 13th. I think it’s all on the 13th though. Whatever. PART 1 MAIN CARDAngela Lee vs Xiong Jing Nan - Atomweight Title Demetrious Johnson vs Danny Kingad - Flyweight Grand Prix Tournament Final Eddie Alvarez vs Saygid Guseyn Arslanaliev - Lightweight Grand Prix Tournament Final Ekaterina Vandaryeva vs Janet Todd - Vacant ONE Muay Thai Atomweight Title PART 1 PRELIMSYuya Wakamatsu vs Dae Hwan Kim Sam-A Gaiyanghadao vs Darren Roland - Muay Thai Yushin Okami vs Agilan Thani Rika Ishige vs Itsuki Hirata Senzo Ikeda vs Lito Adiwang Phoe Thaw vs Yoon Chang-Min Sunoto Peringkat vs Kwon Won Il So that’s Part 1. I like it. Main event is a rematch of one of the better overlooked fights so far this year. All four main card fights hold some level of interest for me actually. Yushin Okami on the prelims as well. Angela Lee vs Xiong Jing Nan 2 headlines. A rematch of their fantastic fight in March on the ‘New Era’ show. Like in March, this is a champion vs champion matchup. Lee is from Singapore/Canada and is the Atomweight champ, Xiong is Chinese and is the Strawweight champ. In the first fight Lee went up to 115lbs to challenge Xiong for her title. Lee went in undefeated at 9-0 with 7 submissions and was coming in pretty hyped up as kind of the poster girl of ONE. Xiong wasn’t having it. They had a hell of a fight. One of the best of 2019 so far, to be honest. If it happened in the UFC it’d have been talked about a lot more in the FOTY discussion but with it going down in ONE it went under a lot of radars. It wouldn’t be my #1 or anything. It was no Adesanya vs Gastelum. But it was a tremendous and dramatic fight. They went back and forth and at one point it looked like Lee had it all wrapped up with a tight armbar in the 4th round. But Xiong survived it and rained down a storm on Lee in the 5th that just melted her. A vicious attack to the body proved to be too much for Lee to withstand and Xiong got the stoppage and picked up her second title. Xiong was actually the first Chinese fighter to win a major MMA title. Obviously this didn’t get as much coverage as Weili Zhang’s recent title win in the UFC, and understandably so because of where it happened. But if she wins this fight, Xiong can lay claim to being the first Chinese ‘champ champ’ in MMA history. So yeah, with that win, Xiong gets a crack at Lee’s Atomweight strap now. Of course, this brings a new set of challenges as Xiong now has to cut down to 105lbs. An interesting new wrinkle but I’m expecting another excellent fight here. Lee lost another fight in July so she’s 9-2 and coming off back-to-back losses now. She’s still only 22 years old, she’s got time, but she needs to bounce back here. Xiong is now 14-1, coming off 9 wins in a row and hasn’t lost since 2013. If she goes 2-0 over Lee here, she solidifies herself as the undisputed queen of ONE and has all the gold. The first fight is up in full on ONE’s YouTube channel. Definitely worth a watch if you haven’t seen it; Very much looking forward to the rematch. Skills-wise l really think this could go either way but Xiong must have the psychological edge now coming off that first fight and Lee has the pressure of possibly losing a third fight on the bounce which is obviously never good. Demetrious Johnson vs Danny Kingad is the Flyweight Grand Prix Tournament final. DJ’s obviously been the significant favourite to run the field since he was announced to be in it. He hasn’t really had it quite as easy as most would’ve predicted though so far. He beat Yuya Wakamatsu in March with a guillotine choke, then outpointed Tatsumitsu Wada in the semi finals in August. He got the wins and that’s the most important thing. He never looked bad or anything, just not as dominant as he did during his UFC title reign. Whether it’s that he’s lost a step, that he was taking these guys lightly or maybe the competition in ONE is just better than we think. Whatever the case, Mighty Mouse is in the finals as expected. Danny Kingad is from the Philippines, 11-1 record with nearly all his wins by decision. He beat Senzo Ikeda and Reece McLaren on points to get here. I don’t expect DJ to have much hassle here. Eddie Alvarez vs Saygid Guseyn Arslanaliev is the Lightweight Grand Prix final. Alvarez was originally knocked out of the tournament in his ONE debut, when he got stopped in a round by relative unknown Timofey Nastyukhin. One of the more shocking upsets of 2019. But Nastyukhin picked up an injury and pulled out of the GP, so Eddie got another bite of the cherry. He stepped in against Eduard Folayang in the semi finals in August and, after a rough start and an apparent leg injury, he rebounded with an awesome sweep and submitted Folayang with a rear naked choke in about 2 minutes. Typical Eddie Alvarez. Nothing is ever straight forward but it’s usually wildly entertaining to watch. Not really familiar with Arslanaliev but from little bits I read when this fight was announced, a lot of people seem to think this might be another rough night for Eddie. Arslanaliev is 24 years old, from Dagestan and he’s 8-1 with all his wins being finishes. He knocked out someone called Amir Khan (not him) in his last fight and he also stopped Nastyukhin. It’s usually a safe bet to pick the Alvarez fight as the likely FOTN but especially here as this Arslanaliev guy sounds a bit of a handful himself. Ekaterina Vandaryeva vs Janet Todd is a Muay Thai fight to crown the first ONE Atomweight Muay Thai champion. Can’t say I’ve ever seen these two. Vandaryeva is 28 years old from Belarus and has a record of 58-7. How do you still look that hot after 65 Thai fights?! 😍 Only 16 stoppages so not exactly a finisher. She does hold a win over Joanna Jedrzejczyk in 2011 though. Todd is 33 years old and American. Not sure on her record. Only one I can find is that she’s 27-8 as an amateur but 0-1 as a pro. Doesn’t sound right so I’ve probably got duff info. Regardless, love a bit of Muay Thai so I enjoy the mix on ONE’s cards. So onto Part 2.... PART 2 MAIN CARDAung La Nsang vs Brandon Vera - Light Heavyweight Title Bibiano Fernandes vs Kevin Belingon - Bantamweight Title Rodtang Jitmuangnon vs Walter Goncalves - ONE Muay Thai Flyweight Title Giorgio Petrosyan vs Samy Sana - Kickboxing Featherweight Grand Prix Tournament Final Shinya Aoki vs Honorio Banario Arjan Bhullar vs Mauro Cerilli PART 2 PRELIMSMei Yamaguchi vs Jenny Huang Hiroyoki Tetsuka vs Hernani Perpetuo - Pancrase vs Shooto Takasuke Kume vs Koshi Matsumoto - Pancrase vs Shooto Rafael Silva vs Shoko Sato - Pancrase vs Shooto Daichi Kitakata vs Yosuke Saruta - Pancrase vs Shooto Another solid bunch of fights there. Some names on there plus what should be closure on the Fernandes-Belingon series and I really like the look of those 2 Kickboxing fights. Aung La Nsang vs Brandon Vera tops Part 2. Another champ vs champ battle. This one is for Nsang’s belt at 205lbs. Vera is ONE’s Heavyweight champion coming down in weight to challenge for a second title. Haven’t seen much of Nsang, just a couple of fights. He’s 34 years old, Burmese and has a 25-10-1 record. He’s won his last 6 fights, finished his last 5 and holds both the Light Heavyweight and Middleweight belts. His first fight against Ken Hasegawa in June 2018 was a crazy scrap with Nsang eventually getting the 5th round knockout in a proper slobberknocker. They had a rematch in March and Nsang stopped him fairly easily. Vera is 41 years old now and is mostly remembered for his spectacular start to his UFC career, that fizzled out into years of lacklustre mediocrity before he quietly parted ways with the company in 2013. He’s gone unbeaten in ONE since, although he’s been mega inactive. He’s only fought 4 times since 2014. But he’s managed to get 4 first round knockouts and won ONE’s Heavyweight gold. Clearly, the lack of top Heavyweights over there has helped. Also, the lack of drug testing seems to have done wonders for him... But he’s going back down to 205 here and, although I don’t know enough about Nsang to really rate him, I’d say this is Vera’s first ‘proper’ fight since he left the UFC. Bibiano Fernandes vs Kevin Belingon 4 then. Yes, 4! They first met in 2016 and Fernandes won with a first round kimura. The second fight was in November 2018, and Belingon won a split decision to take Fernandes’ ONE title. The rubber match took place in March and was supposed to settle the score. But the fight was marred in controversy when Belingon landed an illegal elbow to the back of Fernandes’ head, Fernandes couldn’t continue and Belingon was disqualified. So they have to go a fourth time. Should be a good one and hopefully we get a decisive and controversy free ending to this series this time. Rodtang Jitmuangnon vs Walter Goncalves should be an entertaining Muay Thai clash. Jitmuangon is defending his title here. He’s only 22 years old and already has a record of 258-41-10. Read that again. 309 fucking fights! At 22 years old! Those Thai fighters don’t mess about. He started at 8 years old. Goncalves, nicknamed ‘Iron Hands’, is Brazilian. Can’t find his current record but he looks good in the highlights I’ve seen. Giorgio Petrosyan vs Samy Sana is the Featherweight final of a Kickboxing tournament I didn’t even know was happening. Should be fun. Petrosyan is Italian/Armenian and he’s a bad man. He’s fought everywhere from K-1 to GLORY to It’s Showtime to Bellator Kickboxing to ONE. He’s experienced but still far from past it at 33 years old. Has a record of 101-2-2-2 with 41 knockouts and has beaten some of the top names in the sport over the years. Sana is French, 30 years old with a record of 135-11-2 with 49 of his wins by knockout. Not familiar with him but he did beat Yodsanklai Fairtex in May and also beat Petrosyan’s brother Armen in November. So there might be a bit of a revenge element to this one. Shinya Aoki vs Honorio Banario...this is all about Aoki. He’s coming off a KO loss to Christian Lee (younger brother of Angela Lee) in May so you know ONE are hoping he bounces back in style here. Aoki isn’t really talked about among the best Lightweights discussion, mostly because he never fought in the UFC, but you look back over his career and he fought everywhere else. Pride, Strikeforce, DREAM, Bellator, Shooto, Rizin, the lot. He also holds wins over the likes of Kazushi Sakuraba, Eddie Alvarez, Tatsuya Kawajiri, Joachim Hansen, Caol Uno, JZ Cavalcante and Shaolin Ribeiro. 43-9-1 record with 28 submissions. He’s had quite a career. But at 36 and coming off a bad loss, he needs to be making a statement here. Banario is Filipino, 29 years old, 14-9 record, has been submitted 4 times and is coming off back-to-back losses. Make no mistake, Aoki should be winning this comfortably. If he loses this fight, it’ll be a disaster and will be a sign that he should maybe sod MMA off. Arjan Bhullar vs Mauro Cerilli was a fight I didn’t expect to see listed here. When did the UFC let Bhullar go? And why? Seems odd. He’s 9-1 and was coming off 2 wins in the UFC and just beat Juan Adams. On top of that he’s an Indian/Canadian Heavyweight, there aren’t many of them around. And he’s a teammate of Daniel Cormier and supposed to be a top class wrestler. From what I’m reading his contract expired so I guess they just didn’t fancy renewing it. All I can think is they weren’t a fan of his wrestling-heavy style. Whatever. He’s in ONE now. And they could certainly do with some Heavyweights. Don’t know this Cerilli bloke. Looking him up he’s Italian, 36 years old with a 13-3 record. Plenty to like there. Hopefully it’ll be streamed live on their YouTube channel. That’s how I watched the March show anyway and I remember the quality being good. Edited September 14, 2019 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted September 14, 2019 Share Posted September 14, 2019 Is it just me who can't get into these events? I see a fair bit of hype, but they seem like the drizzling shits to me. Mighty Mouse and Eddie Alvarez fighting a couple of no-names on night one, and Brandon fucking Vera headlining on night two? Seriously? The last I saw of him he was being smashed up by Ben Rothwell over five years ago. This kind of event sums up a lot of the MMA fanbase. I remember fans online shitting all over Mouse defending his title against the likes of Ray Borg, Wilson Reis and Tim Elliott in the UFC, yet now they're looking forward to him facing Danny Kingad, a guy so obscure he doesn't even have his own Wiki page! Same with Alvarez, he's facing some no-name who also doesn't even have a Wiki page! I know both Eddie and Mouse are making decent coin here, but by fuck are they now in the obscure fringes of MMA! I wouldn't watch this event if it was taking place in my fucking garden. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted September 14, 2019 Author Paid Members Share Posted September 14, 2019 (edited) Ha. There’s a lot of names I don’t know on there and it’d be better if Mouse and Alvarez were facing people we knew. But the stuff I’ve seen from ONE I’ve enjoyed. It’s a similar thing with Rizin shows. I don’t watch much but whenever I do dip in, I won’t know a good 80% of the names on the card but I’m usually entertained by it. Even if I immediately forget half the names as soon as it’s over. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with DJ and Eddie after this. If they both win the tournaments what’s the future? Are the ONE deals 100% exclusive or can we get crossover fights? I’d love to see Mighty Mouse vs Horiguchi again somewhere down the line. And that Alvarez vs Chandler rubber match that we never got in Bellator. You’re spot on about fans who shat on DJ’s defences in the UFC but suddenly like him in ONE though. I’ve noticed some of that and it’s fucking odd. Definitely got a ‘but A-Train was good in Japan’ feel about it. DJ was always awesome though. In fact, he was better to watch in the UFC than he has been in ONE so far. Can’t even defend the Vera thing though. Him headlining anything isn’t ideal. He’s the Heavyweight champ because ONE barely even have a Heavyweight division. My hope is that he gets battered. He’s been useless apart from twatting Frank Mir to pieces. And that was 2006. His goodwill with me from that ran out years ago. Edited September 14, 2019 by wandshogun09 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Posted September 14, 2019 Share Posted September 14, 2019 Yeah, I mean, if there was fuck all else going on I'd probably seek out the DJ and Alvarez fights to watch, but on a weekend where we have a pretty good UFC card and some decent boxing? Not a chance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimufctna24 Posted September 14, 2019 Share Posted September 14, 2019 13 hours ago, wandshogun09 said: I’d love to see Mighty Mouse vs Horiguchi again somewhere down the line I was about to post that. If Rizin could somehow book that fight at the Saitama Super Arena, I would be thrilled. Beyond that, I am not that interested in Mighty Mouse (or One FC). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted September 14, 2019 Author Paid Members Share Posted September 14, 2019 Fuck! You’re right David. Just looked up the schedule that weekend and we’ve got... Josh Warrington vs Sofiane Takoucht on BT Sport. Oleksandr Usyk vs Tyrone Spong on Sky Sports. And the UFC Tampa show with Joanna Jedrzejczyk vs Michelle Waterson and Kron Gracie vs Cub Swanson. After all that work on the opening post, I don’t even know if I’ll get around to watching this myself with all that lot on! ONE don’t half know how to pick their dates, don’t they? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted September 14, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted September 14, 2019 yeh wand. this all happens on 1 day, maybe its airing in the US over 2 though? As for the events, i think they are real high level, its just theres so much going on in the US between the UFC and Bellator that its hard for these things to get any traction with fans outside of their region. Christ, if Pride was around when the UFC held a show every week people probably wouldnt have given a toss about that either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimufctna24 Posted September 14, 2019 Share Posted September 14, 2019 13 hours ago, Egg Shen said: Christ, if Pride was around when the UFC held a show every week people probably wouldnt have given a toss about that either. I'm not sure whether you could have both. If the UFC were to run every week between 2003-2006, they would need the majority of the world's best fighters under contract. That would leave Pride's roster looking like Rizin and One FC's rosters do now - a few world-class fighters, a few decent prospects, a handful of has-beens, and a ton of domestic/mid-level fighters. If, somehow, Pride was able to hang on to the majority of the world's best fighters and still only run 10 times a year, then they would be the toast of the MMA community. Their cards would be stacked and every show would feel like something special. By contrast, the UFC would not only be over-saturated, but their cards would be weak as piss and easier to ignore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted September 14, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted September 14, 2019 yeh, i didnt mean it literally, it was a different time and there were nowhere near as many top level fighters at that time. The point i was trying to make was that the level of One Championship is likely of the same calibre as the UFC now (outside of perhaps the top 5 in each division give or take) and people dont recognise it because theres simply too much MMA to take in. Its like being a regular viewer of Pro Wrestling but not watching New Japan because there simply isnt time for you to squeeze it in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members WeeAl Posted September 26, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted September 26, 2019 https://mmajunkie.usatoday.com/2019/09/champ-christian-lee-replaces-eddie-alvarez-in-one-championship-lightweight-grand-prix-final Eddie Alvarez has had to pull out for some reason, with Christian Lee taking his place, par for the course with MMA tournaments. It only makes it more miraculous that the Bellator HW GP went off without a hitch and any alternates being needed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted September 27, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted September 27, 2019 bit of a blow with that card airing on American TV. The Russian guy Alvarez was meant to be fighting is abit of a tank by all accounts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted October 7, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted October 7, 2019 this is a few days off, really gonna try and find time to give this a go, heres some Countdown stuff... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted October 15, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted October 15, 2019 I viewed the highlight packages on youtube but watched the Vera/Aung La fight in full. Hell of a scrap, ive never seen Aung La fight but the guy looks a bit of a beast, he basically out toughed the much bigger man here. Real fun fight to watch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted October 15, 2019 Author Paid Members Share Posted October 15, 2019 After all my hyping this up in the opening post, I didn’t even watch it in the end. Just didn’t get around to it after the UFC, Bellator, Usyk and Warrington fights. I’ll give some of it a look this week. Aung La N Sang’s had a couple of fun fights in ONE. If you haven’t seen it give his first fight with Ken Hasegawa a look. Full on slobberknocker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Egg Shen Posted October 15, 2019 Paid Members Share Posted October 15, 2019 yeh he literally just walked Vera down whilst Vera was teeing off, crazy bastard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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