3 World Title Bouts Announced For ONE: UNSTOPPABLE DREAMS
ONE Championship is prepared to stage its grandest card yet, featuring a trio of enticing world title bouts – ONE: UNSTOPPABLE DREAMS on Friday, 18 May, at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
What’s more, for the first time in history, a sibling pair will challenge for world titles at the same event, and they could make history as brother-sister world champions.
Headlining the event will be international superstar, ONE Women’s Atomweight World Champion “Unstoppable” Angela Lee, who returns to action for the first time since her car accident in November.
She will defend the belt against Japan’s Mei “V.V.” Yamaguchi in a rematch of their epic clash two years ago.
The Singapore hero defeated Yamaguchi via unanimous decision in their first encounter in May 2016, a contest that won several Bout Of The Year awards in 2016. This time around, each athlete has vowed to finish the other and win in definitive fashion.
In the first of two co-main events, ONE Featherweight and Lightweight World Champion Martin “The Situ-Asian” Nguyen will defend the featherweight title for the very first time. He faces the challenge of top contender and hometown hero, Christian “The Warrior” Lee.
Like the headlining tilt, this co-main event offering is a rematch, after Nguyen gave Lee the first, and only, blemish of his career with a guillotine choke victory in the opening stanza of their August 2016 clash.
Since then, both have soared to new heights, as the Vietnamese-Australian became the promotion’s first-ever two-division ONE World Champion, and Lee set the record for most stoppage victories in ONE history at nine.
Also, the first world champion in ONE Super Series will be crowned.
Multiple-time Muay Thai world champion and living legend Sam-A Gaiyanghadao will meet Lion Fight lightweight champion Sergio “Little One” Wielzen for the inaugural ONE Super Series Muay Thai Flyweight World Championship.
Fans will remember Gaiyanghadao from his participation in the promotion’s first-ever Muay Thai Bout in January, where he dismantled Italy’s Joseph “The Hurricane” Lasiri via TKO. Now, for the inaugural title, the living legend goes up against one of the world’s premier strikers in Wielzen, and the stakes could not be any higher.
The Return Of Shinya Aoki
Former ONE Lightweight World Champion Shinya “Tobikan Judan” Aoki is ready to restart his ascension up the lightweight ranks. The Japanese grappling extraordinaire makes his long-awaited return to the division, where he will take on hard-hitting Russian grappler Rasul Yakhyaev.
Aoki, the most dominant lightweight world champion in the company’s history, experienced some brief turbulence in his career following his November 2016 title loss to Eduard Folayang.
He moved up in weight to unsuccessfully challenge Ben Askren for the welterweight world championship a year later, but bounced back this past January by submitting former ONE Featherweight World Champion Marat Gafurov via rear-naked choke in a Grappling Super-Match.
However, he is not the only one entering the show with some momentum. Yakhyaev made his promotional return in Bangkok last December, where he upset Thai martial arts hero Shannon “OneShin” Wiratchai via unanimous decision.
A Fierce Bantamweight Battle
A striking battle between two bantamweight brawlers will surely ignite Singapore, as “The Terminator” Sunoto is scheduled to collide with the Philippines’ Roel “Akiyama” Rosauro.
Sunoto is the one of the most talented martial artists to ever emerge from Indonesia. The WKF Indonesia Champion is on a three-bout win streak, most recently defeating Malaysia’s Hisyam Samsudin last month at ONE: VISIONS OF VICTORY.
Against Rosauro, Sunoto meets a Philippine national Muay Thai silver medalist, and a win could help break him into the upper echelons of the division.
