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Main event-
Hyd.-women's strawweight title match: Tiffany Teo vs. Xiong Jing Nan
Co-main event-
Hyd.-flyweight title-eliminator: Stefer Rahardian vs. Muhammad Imran
Main card-
Hyd.-middleweight bout: Vitaly Bigdash vs. Leandro Ataides
Hyd.-featherweight bout: Marat Gafurov vs. to-be-announced
Hyd.-bantamweight bout: Yusup Saadulaev vs. Masakazu Imanari
Hyd.-women's strawweight bout: Iryna Kyeslova vs. Miao Jie
Preliminary card-
Hyd.-bantamweight bout: Victorio Senduk vs. Yohan Mulia Legowo
Hyd.-flyweight bout: Riski Umar vs. Arnol Batubara
Hyd.-strawweight bout: Rene Catalan vs. Peng Xue Wen
Hyd.-women's atomweight bout: Priscilla Hertati Lumbangaol vs. Audreylaura Boniface
In the debut card of ONE's 2018 focus on Southeast-Asia-- they have 18 events scheduled entirely in areas they've been in before and had success, using their resources to have more events in established areas rather than wasting them on failed expansions into China (especially since a bunch of other organizations have already established themselves in China)-- they're holding their first of four events at the Jakarta Convention Center with... five fights with title-implications! That's right, between the title-bout, Bigdash-Ataides, Imanari-Saadulaev, Rahardian-Imran, and Gafurov's return, they have five fights on this card where the winner will be awarded some kind of status in the title picture of ONE! I mean, how can they possibly have so many of those fights on this card??? But they did it; they don't give a fuck.
In the main-event, the second ever women's champion in ONE will be crowned as accomplished Singaporean kickboxer Tiffany Teo will be matched up with surging Chinawoman Xiong Jing Nan. Interestingly, the winner of this bout will be the first-ever for a large promotion no matter what; either the first ever Singaporean or (whatever the present-tense-participle of someone from China is) of a major organization will be crowned.
Tiffany Teo made her transition to MMA in her mid-20s a little under two years ago after spending her entire life competing in various forms of kickboxing (beginning with Taekwondo), signing with ONE later that year after winning three fights in a row, two in Singapore and one in the Full Metal Dojo organization. Training out of the Juggernaut Fight Club, along with ONE veteran Major Overall, Syafiq "The Slasher" and I believe Will Chope, Teo's become ever-more well-rounded as her career has progressed, and after going 4-0 in ONE between 2016 and 2017 and being the most marketable women's strawweight available in ONE, she's been given a title-fight.
An accomplished Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, Xiong Jing Nan grew her career in her native China primarily in the Kunlun Fight organization. Holding an unofficial record of 13-1 (she has a few matches that aren't on her official 10-1 record yet), she began her fighting career as a bantamweight, then a flyweight, and dropped down to strawweight shortly before signing with ONE. She won her debut by defeating the scrappy Team Lakay veteran April Osenio in the first round. Kunlun Fight's apparently a pretty successful organization, so it's pretty interesting that she left 'em to sign with ONE-- maybe someone could shed some light on this if they're in-the-know.
She's also a fairly nice-lookin' lady, as far as dyke-y looking female fighters go.
In the co-main event the best Indonesian fighter in the world right now is looking to improve to 7-0 and earn a title-shot against Pakistani fighter Muhammad Imran.
Rahardian, a student of the Indonesian GOAT Fransino Tirta, has inherited the famed Tirta's grappling skills, which has been what's ultimately set him apart from the rest of the crop in Indonesia, as, even though the training is, for the most part, there in Southeast-Asia, the dedication to grappling isn't, and that's what you need to have to be successful in shootfighting. The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu purple belt has used his wrestling and submission skills to great effect in all of his fights, either submitting his opponents or grapplefucking them en route to handy decisions. After joining- and winning the 2016 one-night ONE Indonesian flyweight tournament to determine a prospect, Rahardian lived up to his expectations and won three more fights in a row, most notably against the underrated Filipino Muay Thai practitioner Eugene Toquero, who holds a very solid butterfly guard. He submitted a Cambodian opponent in a minute and improved to 6-0 a few months ago at the last ONE card in Jakarta. Because there's no one else who's really quite as marketable as a title-contender right now at flyweight than Rahardian, he's been rushed into title-contention against reigning champion Adriano Moraes, so the pressure will be on him to win this fight.
Muhammad Imran is a Pakistani grappler who is much like Rahardian in many ways. Holding a solid 5-1 record, the Pakistani's success has been largely attributed to his willingness to embrace grappling, as he's earned submissions in four of his five victories. While the grappling training of Pakistan isn't quite at the level of Indonesia's (heh), Imran's embracing of it has still led to him getting some nice skills, and it's been enough to offset his raw striking skills. Though he may be a little undersized against Rahardian, he may end up pulling off the upset and ONE'll have to see if they're really willing to uphold their end of the whole title-eliminator bargain like they made with Rasul Mirzaev earlier this month. It might've been understood amongst the actual competitors that it was a one-way title-eliminator, like Cheick Kongo had against Cain Velasquez years ago, but we'll see.
Muhammad Imran is a Pakistani grappler who is much like Rahardian in many ways. Holding a solid 5-1 record, the Pakistani's success has been largely attributed to his willingness to embrace grappling, as he's earned submissions in four of his five victories. While the grappling training of Pakistan isn't quite at the level of Indonesia's (heh), Imran's embracing of it has still led to him getting some nice skills, and it's been enough to offset his raw striking skills. Though he may be a little undersized against Rahardian, he may end up pulling off the upset and ONE'll have to see if they're really willing to uphold their end of the whole title-eliminator bargain like they made with Rasul Mirzaev earlier this month. It might've been understood amongst the actual competitors that it was a one-way title-eliminator, like Cheick Kongo had against Cain Velasquez years ago, but we'll see.
Here's some stuff on a few of the other fights:
In a fight that could very conceivably determine the next contender for Aung La N Sang's middleweight belt, since Marcin Prachnio's signed with the UFC apparently, Vitaly Bigdash is being matched up with explosive Brazilian fighter Leandro Ataides.
Bigdash made his debut with ONE with a solid 7-0 record in 2015 in a round-of-the-year contender against Igor Svirid. After getting knocked down three times in the first round in a very exciting fight, Bigdash rocked Svirid himself and locked in an extremely-tight rear-choke to end the round. At the start of the next round, Bigdash quickly Rocked Svirid again when he countered Svirid's forward offense by quickly moving into the clinch, getting a very loose shoulder-plumm and landing a hard knee to the face, then KO'd him with a follow-up right-straight upon exiting the clinch. Svirid's heart, striking, grappling, and power were all on display in that fight.
His first title-defense was delayed for a while due to some injuries he suffered, as a back injury (if my memory's correct) delayed his fight with Aleksei Butorin during the first half of 2016. He was scheduled to fight Marcin Prachnio last January, but, unfortunately, a staph infection nixed those plans, and the surging Aung La N Sang-- who was 4-0 in ONE and had upset (the tapology community had him as a 90+% favorite) title-contender Aleksei Butorin 5 months prior-- was brought in on short-notice, his love handles visible. The comparative fight preparation was on display in the fight, as Bigdash was in the best shape of his entire life and Aung La was in probably the worst shape of any of his fights (he was still in good shape, just, you know...) Though the fight was competitive for the first two rounds, Bigdash ultimately ended up handily winning the final three rounds when he realized he could pretty easily take down and GSP-elbow it up on Aung, and he won a unanimous decision. A part of the reason Aung accepted the fight was so he could get an immediate rematch with a full training camp should he lose.
The difference in camp preparation ended up making the difference, as, while in the first fight, the striking moments were very competitive with Bigdash edging Aung with his kicks, Aung rocked Bigdash pretty badly in the first round and Aung was the one who was pretty firmly (though competitively) outstriking Bigdash throughout the entire fight, with Bigdash's best moments being the grappling exchanges. In a very competitive fight, with Aung's striking being scored against Bigdash's grappling, Aung ultimately won the very close fight and upset the Russian.
Training out of both Tiger Muay Thai and Akhmat Fight Club, Bigdash will definitely be looking to secure another title-fight and will be extremely motivated to defeat Leandro Ataides.
A gigantic favorite to win the inaugural ONE middleweight belt, Leandro was touted as another EVOLVE fighter who was given a bunch of favorable matchups and was gonna easily dispatch of Igor Svirid, who nobody'd ever heard of. Then, ironically, when Svirid-- holding an official 11-1 record I believe-- upset Leandro when he KO'd him with one of his patented upward-jabs (punching upward gives you more power than punching straight or downward does-- tiny striking tip), then those detractors double-backed and acted like Igor was always some high-level prospect that everyone who was anyone knew about and was clearly always gonna give some overrated EVOLVE fighter problems. This kind of thought by this group of people, unfortunately, damaged Leandro's career more than it could've had he just lost, and it's taken a while to recover. Follow-up losses to Aleksei Butorin (a knockout) and Marcin Prachnio (an extremely-competitive and close split decision-- and in ONE, a fight going to a split decision really shows how close it was more than just about anywhere else in the world) hurt this even more. However, Leandro-- a high-level Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt-- has spent the last 12 months rebounding very well, as he's won two fights in a row impressively, showing much-improved striking, the deficit that led to those three losses in a row. He got a very nice highlight-reel flying-knee knockout against stout powerhouse Egyptian Mohamed Ali-- his athleticism on full display as he jumped a long ways to land the knee-- and won a competitive decision against the tall Polish middleweight grappler Michal Pasternack last August.
If he can defeat Bigdash-- a former champion-- he'll not only get another long-awaited shot at a ONE title, but he'll have indirectly avenged a loss (Bigdash beat Svirid, who beat himself, so beating Bigdash would be the closest thing to beating Svirid that he can get at this point.) So he'll be EXTREMELY motivated in this fight.
Yusup Saadulaev has been one of the top bantamweight contenders in ONE ever since he joined the organization. Unfortunately for him, the key fights he's been involved with in the organization have not gone his way. He's kinda like the UFC's Jussier Formiga in that way.
A very strong Sambo champion, Yusup joined ONE after knocking out the most exciting fighter ever in Japanese star Hideo Tokoro with a 30-second suplex in the alternate bout for the DREAM bantamweight Grand Prix (they both lost their quarterfinal fights.) He showed a lot of sportsmanship in that slam, though, as he landed a couple of punches on Tokoro to ensure his victory, but then stopped and looked at the referee as if to say, "is this really not enough?" then, when the referee hadn't done anything yet, he landed just one more light punch to signal the end of the fight.
Yusup was immediately entered in the ONE bantamweight Grand Prix afterwards, and, though he was a gigantic favorite, he got KO'd by the scrappy Team Lakay veteran and current top bantamweight contender Kevin Belingon when Kevin got on top of Yusup and utilized his deceptive top-control and devastating ground-and-pound to earn a 1st-round stoppage. In Yusup's follow-up fight, this one against high-level Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt and former Mundials champion Leandro Issa, who'd just contended for the inaugural ONE bantamweight title, Yusup lost a decision. He won his next two fights in ONE, against former American-circuit bantamweight contender Ryan "The Lion" Diaz (who was a very good fighter in the mid-00s, holding submission victories over Ryan Ackerman-- who was coming off a victory over Miguel Torres, the first guy to ever defeat him until Brian Bowles came along-- and Thierry Quinneville, with his losses being against some of the best bantamweights, featherweights and lightweights in the world) and Shooto Brazil champion and future ONE flyweight world champion and exposive high-level Jiu-Jitsu black belt Adriano Moraes (who was a pretty good-sized bantamweight, too.) Winning another fight in 'Berkut, Yusup was on a very impressive three-fight winning streak and looked at as the next contender for Bibiano Fernandes' bantamweight title when he was matched up with former top-3 bantamweight and Shooto world champion Koetsu Okazaki. In a very competitive, back-and-forth fight, Yusup's physical strength and Sambo skills were on full display as he took down the Japanese fighter and landed some very nice ground strikes as he manhandled him, and Okazaki's grappling skills and hard-hitting fast straight punches damaged Yusup. In the second round, Okazaki's heart and striking pulled through as he'd landed enough strikes and had defended enough of the grappling to tire out Yusup and he earned a TKO victory towards the end of the 2nd round.
Yusup's in another situation like that again, since he's won four fights in a row-- including two in ONE, the last one being a highlight-reel rear-choke against Austuralian BRACE champion where he used his ridiculous physical strength to crush Lucas' head forward like a can-opener to force the stoppage even more-- and is in title contention again as he's up against Japanese legend and leglock master Masakazu Imanari.
Imanari, who signed with ONE early on in their career, was once unanimously ranked as a top-5 featherweight. A leglock master who holds more leglock submissions than anyone else in this sport's history, Imanari's talent with them and his ability to lock them in fast is something to behold. The inaugural DEEP featherweight champion, Imanari won that title by winning the DEEP featherweight tournament and submitting high-level Jiu-Jitsu practitioner Fabio Mello, accomplished wrestler, future WEC champion and top featherweight in the world Mike Brown, and former King of Pancrase, top-10 featherweight and top-5 bantamweight Yoshiro Maeda in succession. He also holds victories over underrated British great Danny Batten, Hatsu Hioki tormentor Kim Jong-Man (it's not really fair to call him a "tormentor" since it was a close fight, but he beat him so you know), Hiroyuki Abe, DJ.taiki, Masahiro Oishi, and Nam Phan.
One of the top fighters to enter the DREAM featherweight Grand Prix, Imanari defeated top-5 bantamweight Atsushi Yamamoto in his opening round but was upset by Mundials world champion and current ONE bantamweight champion Bibiano Fernandes in the quarterfinals. After winning several fights in DEEP again, including several defenses of his bantamweight title, Imanari was entered in the DREAM Japan bantamweight Grand Prix and defeated Keisuke Fujiwara and former top-5 bantamweight Kenji Osawa en route to the finals, where he lost against Hideo Tokoro. He then beat Abel Cullum in the quarterfinal of the bantamweight grand prix, but lost against American bantamweight great Antonio Banuelos in the semis. He joined ONE afterwards and submitted the then-undefeated Kevin Belingon pretty quickly, but lost his next fight against Leandro Issa.
Toying around with flyweight shortly afterwards with not-great results, going 0-2 against former-top-15 flyweight Yuki Motoya and former-top-15- current top-3 strawweight Haruo Ochi, he moved back up to featherweight. Though he's in his early-40s now and is considered by a lot of people to be a shell of his former self, Imanari's held it together pretty well and is surpassing expectations, and he's currently on a three-fight winning streak and impressively upset Tatsunao Nagakura to win the DEEP featherweight title last year. A lifelong martial artist, if Imanari can beat Yusup Saadulaev, he could find himself challenging the Bibiano Fernandes-Martin Nguyen winner for the bantamweight title next year, should he decide to stay with ONE.
What an exciting time we live in.
In a matchup of strawweight prospects looking to become contenders, physically-fit former Wushu world champion Rene Catalan is looking to win his fourth fight in a row at strawweight against the third Chinese opponent of his MMA career against powerful Chinese fighter Peng Xue Wen.
Catalan, one of the top members of the Catalan Fighting Systems school, went 0-2 (1) to start out his MMA career in ONE, interestingly both of those losses coming against future ONE world strawweight champions and EVOLVE fighters Alex Silva and Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke. Refusing to give up after this rough start, though, he earned his first professional victory after dropping down to strawweight and later got a couple of nice upsets over the winner of the ONE Indonesia strawweight tournament in Adrian Matheis and the runner-up in the ONE Changsa flyweight tournament Bu Huo You Ga. Having won three fights in a row and showing much more skills and experience than his record suggests and the kind of fitness that belies his late-30's age, Catalan is looking to become a strawweight contender and he'll get a chance to secure a battle against one of the higher-level fighters in the division should be defeat Peng Xue Wen.
A Chinese national Greco-Roman wrestling champion, ONE nabbed them up a really good prospect right away for their strawweight division. Making his debut with ONE just a couple months ago, Peng's wrestling skills showed right away, as he got a quick double-leg on his Kun Khmer-practicing Cambodian opponent, advanced to mount and tried to land a lot of strikes. The Cambodian Phat Soda scrambled and reversed the position, though, and Peng showed some of that history wrestler's vulnerability by being put on his back for a good minute straight and having some strikes fall onto him, but Peng persevered, stood up, quickly shifted to a reverse bear-hug, landed a suplex that probably finished his opponent right then, but in less than a second took his opponent's back and locked in a tight rear-choke to end the fight. Though he's only officially 1-1, just the fact that he won a fight with a suplex shows that he has a lot of promise and can definitely become a high-level fighter in the future.
He apparently fought in China last week, but the result of that fight hasn't come out yet.
Bigdash made his debut with ONE with a solid 7-0 record in 2015 in a round-of-the-year contender against Igor Svirid. After getting knocked down three times in the first round in a very exciting fight, Bigdash rocked Svirid himself and locked in an extremely-tight rear-choke to end the round. At the start of the next round, Bigdash quickly Rocked Svirid again when he countered Svirid's forward offense by quickly moving into the clinch, getting a very loose shoulder-plumm and landing a hard knee to the face, then KO'd him with a follow-up right-straight upon exiting the clinch. Svirid's heart, striking, grappling, and power were all on display in that fight.
His first title-defense was delayed for a while due to some injuries he suffered, as a back injury (if my memory's correct) delayed his fight with Aleksei Butorin during the first half of 2016. He was scheduled to fight Marcin Prachnio last January, but, unfortunately, a staph infection nixed those plans, and the surging Aung La N Sang-- who was 4-0 in ONE and had upset (the tapology community had him as a 90+% favorite) title-contender Aleksei Butorin 5 months prior-- was brought in on short-notice, his love handles visible. The comparative fight preparation was on display in the fight, as Bigdash was in the best shape of his entire life and Aung La was in probably the worst shape of any of his fights (he was still in good shape, just, you know...) Though the fight was competitive for the first two rounds, Bigdash ultimately ended up handily winning the final three rounds when he realized he could pretty easily take down and GSP-elbow it up on Aung, and he won a unanimous decision. A part of the reason Aung accepted the fight was so he could get an immediate rematch with a full training camp should he lose.
The difference in camp preparation ended up making the difference, as, while in the first fight, the striking moments were very competitive with Bigdash edging Aung with his kicks, Aung rocked Bigdash pretty badly in the first round and Aung was the one who was pretty firmly (though competitively) outstriking Bigdash throughout the entire fight, with Bigdash's best moments being the grappling exchanges. In a very competitive fight, with Aung's striking being scored against Bigdash's grappling, Aung ultimately won the very close fight and upset the Russian.
Training out of both Tiger Muay Thai and Akhmat Fight Club, Bigdash will definitely be looking to secure another title-fight and will be extremely motivated to defeat Leandro Ataides.
A gigantic favorite to win the inaugural ONE middleweight belt, Leandro was touted as another EVOLVE fighter who was given a bunch of favorable matchups and was gonna easily dispatch of Igor Svirid, who nobody'd ever heard of. Then, ironically, when Svirid-- holding an official 11-1 record I believe-- upset Leandro when he KO'd him with one of his patented upward-jabs (punching upward gives you more power than punching straight or downward does-- tiny striking tip), then those detractors double-backed and acted like Igor was always some high-level prospect that everyone who was anyone knew about and was clearly always gonna give some overrated EVOLVE fighter problems. This kind of thought by this group of people, unfortunately, damaged Leandro's career more than it could've had he just lost, and it's taken a while to recover. Follow-up losses to Aleksei Butorin (a knockout) and Marcin Prachnio (an extremely-competitive and close split decision-- and in ONE, a fight going to a split decision really shows how close it was more than just about anywhere else in the world) hurt this even more. However, Leandro-- a high-level Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt-- has spent the last 12 months rebounding very well, as he's won two fights in a row impressively, showing much-improved striking, the deficit that led to those three losses in a row. He got a very nice highlight-reel flying-knee knockout against stout powerhouse Egyptian Mohamed Ali-- his athleticism on full display as he jumped a long ways to land the knee-- and won a competitive decision against the tall Polish middleweight grappler Michal Pasternack last August.
If he can defeat Bigdash-- a former champion-- he'll not only get another long-awaited shot at a ONE title, but he'll have indirectly avenged a loss (Bigdash beat Svirid, who beat himself, so beating Bigdash would be the closest thing to beating Svirid that he can get at this point.) So he'll be EXTREMELY motivated in this fight.
Yusup Saadulaev has been one of the top bantamweight contenders in ONE ever since he joined the organization. Unfortunately for him, the key fights he's been involved with in the organization have not gone his way. He's kinda like the UFC's Jussier Formiga in that way.
A very strong Sambo champion, Yusup joined ONE after knocking out the most exciting fighter ever in Japanese star Hideo Tokoro with a 30-second suplex in the alternate bout for the DREAM bantamweight Grand Prix (they both lost their quarterfinal fights.) He showed a lot of sportsmanship in that slam, though, as he landed a couple of punches on Tokoro to ensure his victory, but then stopped and looked at the referee as if to say, "is this really not enough?" then, when the referee hadn't done anything yet, he landed just one more light punch to signal the end of the fight.
Yusup was immediately entered in the ONE bantamweight Grand Prix afterwards, and, though he was a gigantic favorite, he got KO'd by the scrappy Team Lakay veteran and current top bantamweight contender Kevin Belingon when Kevin got on top of Yusup and utilized his deceptive top-control and devastating ground-and-pound to earn a 1st-round stoppage. In Yusup's follow-up fight, this one against high-level Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt and former Mundials champion Leandro Issa, who'd just contended for the inaugural ONE bantamweight title, Yusup lost a decision. He won his next two fights in ONE, against former American-circuit bantamweight contender Ryan "The Lion" Diaz (who was a very good fighter in the mid-00s, holding submission victories over Ryan Ackerman-- who was coming off a victory over Miguel Torres, the first guy to ever defeat him until Brian Bowles came along-- and Thierry Quinneville, with his losses being against some of the best bantamweights, featherweights and lightweights in the world) and Shooto Brazil champion and future ONE flyweight world champion and exposive high-level Jiu-Jitsu black belt Adriano Moraes (who was a pretty good-sized bantamweight, too.) Winning another fight in 'Berkut, Yusup was on a very impressive three-fight winning streak and looked at as the next contender for Bibiano Fernandes' bantamweight title when he was matched up with former top-3 bantamweight and Shooto world champion Koetsu Okazaki. In a very competitive, back-and-forth fight, Yusup's physical strength and Sambo skills were on full display as he took down the Japanese fighter and landed some very nice ground strikes as he manhandled him, and Okazaki's grappling skills and hard-hitting fast straight punches damaged Yusup. In the second round, Okazaki's heart and striking pulled through as he'd landed enough strikes and had defended enough of the grappling to tire out Yusup and he earned a TKO victory towards the end of the 2nd round.
Yusup's in another situation like that again, since he's won four fights in a row-- including two in ONE, the last one being a highlight-reel rear-choke against Austuralian BRACE champion where he used his ridiculous physical strength to crush Lucas' head forward like a can-opener to force the stoppage even more-- and is in title contention again as he's up against Japanese legend and leglock master Masakazu Imanari.
Imanari, who signed with ONE early on in their career, was once unanimously ranked as a top-5 featherweight. A leglock master who holds more leglock submissions than anyone else in this sport's history, Imanari's talent with them and his ability to lock them in fast is something to behold. The inaugural DEEP featherweight champion, Imanari won that title by winning the DEEP featherweight tournament and submitting high-level Jiu-Jitsu practitioner Fabio Mello, accomplished wrestler, future WEC champion and top featherweight in the world Mike Brown, and former King of Pancrase, top-10 featherweight and top-5 bantamweight Yoshiro Maeda in succession. He also holds victories over underrated British great Danny Batten, Hatsu Hioki tormentor Kim Jong-Man (it's not really fair to call him a "tormentor" since it was a close fight, but he beat him so you know), Hiroyuki Abe, DJ.taiki, Masahiro Oishi, and Nam Phan.
One of the top fighters to enter the DREAM featherweight Grand Prix, Imanari defeated top-5 bantamweight Atsushi Yamamoto in his opening round but was upset by Mundials world champion and current ONE bantamweight champion Bibiano Fernandes in the quarterfinals. After winning several fights in DEEP again, including several defenses of his bantamweight title, Imanari was entered in the DREAM Japan bantamweight Grand Prix and defeated Keisuke Fujiwara and former top-5 bantamweight Kenji Osawa en route to the finals, where he lost against Hideo Tokoro. He then beat Abel Cullum in the quarterfinal of the bantamweight grand prix, but lost against American bantamweight great Antonio Banuelos in the semis. He joined ONE afterwards and submitted the then-undefeated Kevin Belingon pretty quickly, but lost his next fight against Leandro Issa.
Toying around with flyweight shortly afterwards with not-great results, going 0-2 against former-top-15 flyweight Yuki Motoya and former-top-15- current top-3 strawweight Haruo Ochi, he moved back up to featherweight. Though he's in his early-40s now and is considered by a lot of people to be a shell of his former self, Imanari's held it together pretty well and is surpassing expectations, and he's currently on a three-fight winning streak and impressively upset Tatsunao Nagakura to win the DEEP featherweight title last year. A lifelong martial artist, if Imanari can beat Yusup Saadulaev, he could find himself challenging the Bibiano Fernandes-Martin Nguyen winner for the bantamweight title next year, should he decide to stay with ONE.
What an exciting time we live in.
In a matchup of strawweight prospects looking to become contenders, physically-fit former Wushu world champion Rene Catalan is looking to win his fourth fight in a row at strawweight against the third Chinese opponent of his MMA career against powerful Chinese fighter Peng Xue Wen.
Catalan, one of the top members of the Catalan Fighting Systems school, went 0-2 (1) to start out his MMA career in ONE, interestingly both of those losses coming against future ONE world strawweight champions and EVOLVE fighters Alex Silva and Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke. Refusing to give up after this rough start, though, he earned his first professional victory after dropping down to strawweight and later got a couple of nice upsets over the winner of the ONE Indonesia strawweight tournament in Adrian Matheis and the runner-up in the ONE Changsa flyweight tournament Bu Huo You Ga. Having won three fights in a row and showing much more skills and experience than his record suggests and the kind of fitness that belies his late-30's age, Catalan is looking to become a strawweight contender and he'll get a chance to secure a battle against one of the higher-level fighters in the division should be defeat Peng Xue Wen.
A Chinese national Greco-Roman wrestling champion, ONE nabbed them up a really good prospect right away for their strawweight division. Making his debut with ONE just a couple months ago, Peng's wrestling skills showed right away, as he got a quick double-leg on his Kun Khmer-practicing Cambodian opponent, advanced to mount and tried to land a lot of strikes. The Cambodian Phat Soda scrambled and reversed the position, though, and Peng showed some of that history wrestler's vulnerability by being put on his back for a good minute straight and having some strikes fall onto him, but Peng persevered, stood up, quickly shifted to a reverse bear-hug, landed a suplex that probably finished his opponent right then, but in less than a second took his opponent's back and locked in a tight rear-choke to end the fight. Though he's only officially 1-1, just the fact that he won a fight with a suplex shows that he has a lot of promise and can definitely become a high-level fighter in the future.
He apparently fought in China last week, but the result of that fight hasn't come out yet.
I'll see if I can't get around to doing the other fights later. I'll wait to do anything on Gafurov until his opponent's announced.
