ONE Championship is making another triumphant return to Singapore in a big way, featuring not one, but two world title fights this November.
ONE: DEFENDING HONOR is set for the Singapore Indoor Stadium on 11 November, and was earlier announced to be headlined by a Lightweight World Championship bout between ONE titleholder Shinya “Tobikan Judan” Aoki and the Philippines’ Eduard “Landslide” Folayang.
Joining Aoki and Folayang at the top of the card are ONE Featherweight World Champion Marat “Cobra” Gafurov and former champion Narantungalag “Tunga” Jadambaa, who will be facing off in a highly-anticipated rematch for the belt in the co-main event.
Undefeated ONE Featherweight World Champion Gafurov (14-0-0) lifted the title from Jadambaa (12-4-0) last November, winning via fourth-round submission in a hard-fought affair. Jadambaa did not make it easy for Gafurov, resulting in a memorable contest worthy of an encore.
After solid stoppage victories over Kotetsu Boku and Eric Kelly, Jadambaa has now earned the opportunity to regain his ONE Featherweight World Championship against the same man who took the belt from him.
Gafurov has kept busy in the meantime, successfully defending his title once against Japanese champion Kazunori Yokota in Bangkok’s ONE: KINGDOM OF CHAMPIONS this past May with a second-round rear naked choke. It was Gafurov’s fifth-straight victory via his signature submission.
Also announced to be on the card were four bouts featuring ONE star athletes. Singapore crowd favourites Amir Khan and Eddie Ng of Evolve MMA will be facing top contenders Samir Mrabet and Adrian Pang respectively, while former ONE Lightweight World Champion Kotetsu Boku takes on rising prospect Timofey Nastyukhin, who is coming off a ONE record-setting six-second knockout win.
Making a notable ONE debut is Michelle Nicolini, an eight-time black belt world champion in Brazilian jiu-jitsu who is making her first appearance under the Evolve Fight Team banner. Nicolini owns a 2-1 professional mixed martial arts record and is a member of the IBJJF Hall of Fame. She’ll be taking on Egypt’s Mona Samir.
