ONE FC returns this Friday to their home-base of Singapore with their 27th event headlined by the lightweight title defense for submission wizard Shinya Aoki (37-6) as he faces the challenge of countryman Koji Ando (11-3-2). The live card features eleven fights in all and is available streaming on pay-per-view at the company’s website. The lines have not popped up at the sport books yet, but the majority of ONE FC events get attention from the books a couple of days before the fights go down.
It is a sign of how far the Japanese MMA scene has fallen since its heydey at the start of the 21st century. Here is a title fight between two Japanese fighters, one of them Aoki, who has been a fixture and a star in Japanese MMA for going on a dozen years, and the fight is happening in Singapore. This would have been unheard of in 2005, but ONE FC is the largest MMA show in Asia now by far.
Aoki is as dominant a champion as is out there, as he has won seven fights in a row and is on a streak that has seen him win fourteen of 15 fights going back to July 0f 2010. Ando has reeled off five wins in a row, under the “Legends” promotion in Macao and for ONE FC.
ONE FC has put together a card with athletes from Japan, the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong, Costa Rica, Australia, Pakistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, China, Thailand, Egypt and the Philippines, giving them perhaps the most internationally diverse card in all of MMA.
The co-mian event features Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirishoke of Thailand (4-0) as he faces Roy Doliguez of the Philippines as the ONE FC group features the 115 lb men’s weight class. Also of interest is the lightweight bout scheduled between Ariel Sexton and Eddie Ng. Sexton is 1-1 under the ONE FC flag, while Ng won four in a row for the promotion before losing his last fight, back in May of last year to Vincent Latoel. Ng is trying to bounce back with a win after a long layoff of nearly a year.
