ONE Championship™: Dynasty of Heroes

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Main event-
Hyd.-women’s atom weight title match: “Unstoppable” Angela Lee vs. Istela Nunes

Co-main event-
Hyd.-welterweight title match: “Funky” Ben Askren vs. Agilan “The Alligator” Thani

Grappling super-fight: “Tobikan Judan” Shinya Aoki vs. Garry Tonon

Undercard-
Hyd.-welterweight bout: Luis “Sapo” Santos vs. Zebaztian Kadestam
Hyd.-strawweight bout: “Kru Rong” Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke vs. Adrian Matheis
Hyd.-flyweight bout: Anatpong “Mak” Bunrad vs. Geje “Gravity” Eustaquio II
Hyd.-lightweight bout: Amir Khan vs. Rajinder “Knockout” Singh Meena
Hyd.-women’s strawweight bout: Tiffany “Soul-Crusher” Teo vs. Rebecca Heintzman-Rozewski
Hyd.-women’s atomweight bout: Rika “Tiny Doll” Ishige vs. Nita Dia
Hyd.-152-lb catchweight bout: “Rock Man” Lei Chen vs. Jeremy “Predator” Meciaz

I just wanna say I included a very in-depth bio of Askren, which took up a lot of space, but everything else is pretty modest, albeit detailed.
In ONE Championship™’s first of their 2017 bi-annual stacked Singapore cards, arguably the organization’s biggest star in Angela Lee is making the second defense of her atomweight title against Brazilian Muay Thai champion and possible lesbian Istela Nunes.
Instead of talking about that fight just yet, I wanna talk about the most interesting and controversial fight of the card. In the co-main event, one of the best welterweights in the world and a former top-5 welterweight (who only lost that ranking due to a combination of polarizing reactions to ONE’s new weigh-in protocols, some unwanted periods of inactivity due to circumstances that were beyond his control that I’ll go into later, and his recent opponents not having as much of a point value as others, despite being very good fighters) in “Funky” Ben Askren is looking to make the first official defense of his welterweight title against unheralded Malaysian welterweight opponent and former MIMMA champion in Agilan “The Alligator” Thani. Askren’s also been one of the driving forces behind the decision to have ONE Championship™ break mold and broadcast this event on FloCombat, instead of on their website. So if you want to watch it, sign up to FloCombat and check it out.

I didn’t bother including anything about Askren’s career between him semi-retiring from wrasslin’ until he joined ONE, since that took up a lot of space, it’s not really as interesting as his wrestling career and the details that’ve surrounded him since leaving Bellator, and everyone already knows it anyways.
In biographical whatevers, Ben Askren…
… was born in the mid-1980’s in the great state of Wisconsin. The real interesting thing about Askren is that he holds the distinction of being one of the greatest, most-accomplished wrestlers to ever enter into the sport of shootfighting on a serious level.
Henry Cejudo might hold the highest single-accomplishment with his Olympic gold medal, and guys like Yoel Romero and Matt Lindland with their silver medals at the Olympics, among a myriad of other wrasslin’ accomplishments, rank up there, and other guys like Daniel Cormier who‘re very accomplished despite not medaling at the Olympics, but Askren’s extremely-high grouping of accomplishments in the fine art of using your body to control other people give him a very good place in the discussion of being the best wrassler to ever take this sport seriously.
Beginning his wrestling career at the tender, sexual age of 6, Ben was put into wrasslin’ much like many children are: by their fathers. Though he didn’t take it too seriously until he started puberty (he doesn’t say that, but he says how he started taking wrestling seriously once he entered the 6th grade, so, you know, the rush of hormones entering the body at that time probably isn’t much of a coincidence), that was when things really started to turn around, and he has the added benefit of starting the sport young and having a family and group of family-friends who are wrestling-aficionados themselves to support him. They all even pooled their resources together and turned the family basement into a wrasslin’ ring and workout room just so Ben could train even more, most importantly in the off-season.
Ironically, Ben’s said that he really dislikes it when parents put their children into serious wrestling training when they’re young like that, since he not only has a kid himself, but he runs the Askren Wrestling Academy with his brother (another accomplished wrassler) and teaches the kids classes and goes to a lot of children’s tournaments, seeing the hell the kids are going through and the complete lack of enjoyment they’re getting from what is supposed to be a very enjoyable experience, jokingly equating the whole thing to child abuse. If I know this right, he doesn’t even allow kids that young to take classes at his academy, or at least doesn’t allow them to participate in tournaments. Anyways, the fact that Askren feels like that and he started wrasslin’ at 6 is just a little ironic to me.

Askren’s heritage with- and passion for the sport of wrasslin’ ended up paying dividends, as he ended up becoming a two-time state wrestling champion in Wisconsin, runner-up in the high school nationals (it’s not as prestigious of a tournament as the college nationals, just because of a lot of challenges with consolidating high schools across the country compared to colleges, but still, a good accomplishment) and a lot of other pre-college accomplishments. Getting a good scholarship to Missouri off of his wrasslin’ accomplishments-- it’s EXTREMELY likely he didn’t get a full-ride, which’s how a lot of people think scholarships work [that you get an athletic scholarship to a college means you didn’t have to take out any student loans or use any college savings or even get a part-time job to help pay for things], especially since wrestling isn’t really a full-ride kind of sport like football and basketball and baseball are-- he continued his wrestling career in Columbia at the University of Missouri, and it was there that his career really began to take off. One of the interesting things about high school wrestling is something that Ben’s talked about before: the true hallmark of a great high school wrestler is the ability to wrestler more-fully-developed people after you exit high school, and that was what Askren was able to do. He got a great accomplishment in his freshman year as he became the runner-up in the 2004 NCAA Division-1 championships and won the Big 12 tournament (a very good accomplishment.) He matched this accomplishment by becoming the runner-up in his sophomore year’s NCAA Division-1 championship tournament, and become the runner-up in that year‘s Big 12 tournament and won the gold medal at the 2005 Pan-Am games, but it was after this that Askren’s career really started to turn a point. Going undefeated in his junior and senior years in college, Askren won 87 matches in a row-- which, unless he’s been usurped, ranks as the 4th best undefeated streak in NCAA history-- and set the national record with 18 pins in a row in that time. I believe he also holds one of the highest finishing percentages in wrestling history, too-- if you don’t know what that means, you can win a wrestling match in two ways: by points or by a pin (and I think by achieving a serious point advantage before the time‘s expired, which constitutes a finish if I‘m not mistaken), and Askren had a lot of the latter in his collegiate career. During this time, Askren won, of course, two NCAA Division-1 championships and two Big 12 tournaments, won the Dan Hodge trophy for both of those years-- that’s basically code for Wrestler of the Year-- and a bunch of other wrestler of the year accolades, despite those ones not giving out trophies. I don’t think any other wrestler in this sport that wasn’t a one-off has won the Dan Hodge trophy, much less twice in a row. He ended his college career with a 153-7 record, pinning over 2/3rds of his opponents, and being one of only a handful of collegiate wrestlers to ever have gotten to the NCAA championships four years in a row.

Though he graduated, Askren wasn’t done with wrestling yet and his accomplishments with wrestling were awarded when he was given a coaching slot at the University of Missouri immediately after graduating. Spending the next few years as a coach in Columbia, Askren’s time was split between teaching wrestling and actually wrestling, and he set his sights on the next plateau: the Olympics. Competing in some international wrestling tournaments in the interim, when Askren’s time finally came in the U.S. trials, he won the two-day tournament filled with some of the best wrestlers in the entire country to take the final preparatory step in actualizing his wrestling dream: to win an Olympic gold medal.
On August 12, 2008, Ben made his Olympic wrestling debut (or not, depending on whether or not the trials qualify as the Olympics or not) and won by pinning his opponent. In his next match, though, his dreams were crushed as he lost via points to Cuban opponent Ivan Fudora.
Feeling pretty disheartened afterwards, which is understandable, Askren decided to follow another dream. Rather than spend the next four years working on his wrestling game just for another shot at winning a gold medal, he decided to pursue a career in fighting, and made his debut six months after the Olympics in February, 2009, after only training for a few months.

Askren’s wrestling career was marked by not only his accomplishments, but by his rarely-seen, idiosyncratic style of wrestling. Askren’s known for being exceptionally skilled in the style of wrestling known as “funk”. From what I understand, “funk” is a style of wrestling where the wrestler both puts himself in precarious situations in order to capitalize on his opponent’s openings which would otherwise be unavailable, and where you set up a series of chains and your style is built around your opponent countering what you do and countering their counters. I think the two gifs that explain this style best is the famous gif of Askren in college where he defends a rear-single-leg and ankle pick by dropping down and standing on his head to get an inverted leg-lace takedown. The other one is much simpler, but it’s against Dan Hornbuckle in the finals of his Bellator tournament, when Askren shoots in on a single-leg and only has hold of Dan’s ankle, and Dan stands up and tries to hop out, but Askren still holds on to the leg as they‘re standing up, and uses it and Dan‘s one-leg-edness to close the distance and get real deep on a single, then step in and turn his hips to trip Hornbuckle to the ground. You can see it here: http://cdn2.sbnation.com/imported_assets/1033393/askren2_medium.gif
Another thing about this style of wrestling is that it gives a lot of people who have a natural talent for it a great deal of skill with something called “riding”. Riding your opponent in wrestling’s a very tricky concept-- I don’t even understand it completely-- but, from what I understand, it’s about being able to control your opponent by applying pressure and using strength in positions that are outside of the traditional stem of grappling positions like full-guard, half-guard, back-control, side-control, mount, and north-south position, and without doing the conventional things to achieve this control like going chest-to-chest and getting an underhook. It’s looked down upon in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and a lot of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu teachers advise against it, saying things like how it’s a bad way of achieving control and it gives way too many openings, which’s why the ride isn’t very common and a lot of grapplers end up parroting their sentiments, but wrestlers, especially catch wrestling guys and Japanese fellas who’ve competed in Combat wrestling and guys like Askren would strongly disagree, and their accomplishments and skill in the field of grappling offer a lot of support to contradict those notions.
The reason I cut off to say this stuff is that it was all apparent in the beginning of Askren’s MMA career. The counter-counter-style takedown game, the chain-wrestling skill, the ability to exude a ridiculous amount of control from very unorthodox positions through using the rarely-seen skill that is the ride, it was all there. His first three fights are on Youtube if you don’t believe me; check ‘em out. Though he struggled with strikes from the onset, much like a lot of wrestlers who’ve joined this sport, he quickly developed a comfort with striking and with things like distancing, showing his work ethic from wrestling and his motivation to improve has carried over.

After winning 12 fights in a row, including nine in a row in Bellator en route to a championship belt, three very dominant victories in a row over very solid opponents, a victory over a top-15 opponent in Jay Hieron, showing continued improvement and promise all the while with no sign of slowing down, and holding an almost-unanimous top-5 ranking in the world, Askren, long declaring himself as the best welterweight in the world and having his dream of being the #1 fighter in the world, knew that the only place he could do that was in the UFC. So, after asking then-Bellator head Bjorn Rebney for his release, which was granted, negotiations began. I went into detail about the specifics of that whole situation, but spoilered it if you aren’t in the mood for it.
The important thing to note here, though is just how much the UFC was anti-Bellator during the 2013-14 years. They saw that Bellator was on the rise, they had taken their old spot on Spike and gotten a big boost in having a TV deal, and they did just about everything they could to make it out that Bellator was such a low-level organization filled with such low-level talent that they weren’t even worth watching. The biggest example of this was probably the way they handled Lyman Good in his entry fight in the Ultimate Fighter in early-2014. They knew that Lyman Good had a susceptibility to wrestling and, that season being at middleweight and Lyman being a welterweight, they gave him a stylistic nightmare in the get-into-the-house fight. Faced against a large middleweight with a solid amateur wrestling background, Lyman was taken down and controlled for two rounds en route to a decision loss and was evicted from the Ultimate Fighter before he even got into the house, and Dana White spent the entire fight just talking shit about Bellator and saying, “Pfft, this guy is the champion of Bellator and this is how he fights? Pfft, what an overrated organization. Just shows how much they suck.” As though this wasn’t something they planned from the beginning just to prove a Machiavellian point.
If there’s an even bigger example of just how anti-Bellator the UFC was at this point, it’s how Ben Askren’s release from Bellator was handled. Having stated for a while now that he was the best welterweight in the world, how the fighters in the UFC were terrible compared to him, how he’d make GSP his girlfriend (I believe was his exact quote), and even taking shots at Dana White, Askren had received a lot of attention and the ire of the UFC. Though he would’ve been a great signee, Askren’s demands were simple: he wanted an immediate title shot in his debut [or enough payment to make up for that should he not receive it-- that wasn‘t what was said, but that‘s almost always the unspoken aspect of contract negotiations]. And the UFC didn’t want to do this; not only because it would send out a message to other fighters that the chilling-effect-dictatorship manner of control they have over their fighters can be fought, but because agreeing to his demands would solidify his worth and it would send the message across the world that the UFC fears the most: that the fighters outside of the UFC are extremely good, with many of them at the level of the top guys in the UFC.

Because of this, negotiations went nowhere, and they ended when Dana White said that Askren’s accomplishments weren’t good enough to warrant a UFC contract and that he should “go to the WSOF if he wants to be in the UFC.” Which was ridiculous not only because Askren’s accomplishments were good enough to justify his demands-- especially since they gave Hector Lombard a gigantic contract and he wasn’t nearly as accomplished a Bellator champion as Askren was-- but because Dana White has nothing to do with the WSOF supposedly, so why is he telling him to go there to prove himself? Not even going into the stuff about how the UFC and the WSOF had a kind of pseudo-connection between their ownership that a lot of people just ignored at the time, that’s the kind of Machiavellian shit that is exactly why so many people have issue with the UFC, and why a lot of people with self-respect, like Askren, would refuse to put up with it. Regardless, the end result was Askren’s dreams of being the best welterweight in the world were crushed.
After a period of meandering, not knowing what to do with himself, Askren even considered retirement. If he’s not gonna be the best in the world, then, really, what’s he doing all this for? If he just wanted to test himself, he’d either pursue disc golf where he has a chance of being the best in the world or he’d even go back to wrestling, which’s his true passion. After receiving some offers from a lot of other promotions, he ultimately opted for the one that had the best financial promises: ONE FC (as it was called then), giving him 7 figures over the course of 6 fights, with more money being awarded with each additional victory from #1 on.

A lot of people wondered why he didn’t sign with the WSOF-- since that‘s where a lot of ranking-obsessed people wanted him to go, since he could fight Palhares, Jake Shields and Jon Fitch there (which were the only reasons they wanted him in the WSOF, to fight them), but Askren even talked about this shortly afterwards. In his own words:
“When I couldn't sign with the UFC, I think my goal of being Number 1 in the world went out the window. There's just no way of doing that at Welterweight without being in the UFC. I could go 50-0 and as long as it's outside the UFC, I'm not going to be Number 1. It's impossible. Even if I beat up Rousimar Palhares and Jon Fitch, I might move from Number 8 to Number 7? It's impossible at this point.”
That last line’s really the most interesting part of this. It shows just how little he really had to gain from going to the WSOF instead of ONE if it means he makes less money in exchange for competition with more point-value. He does it all and beats everyone that the WSOF has, and he goes from #8 to #7. Not even necessarily better opponents than he could get anywhere else (since Palhares got knocked out by an unheralded Norwegian a short while ago, showing that there‘re a lot of guys outside of the top-rankings that can hang with the guys with more point-value), just guys who give him slightly more points.

Besides that, a lot of people talked about how he could’ve finished out his contract and gone to the UFC afterwards, but… that’s not really a guarantee. Like, at all. He also could’ve been in the WSOF, finished out his contract, and the UFC still wouldn’t have signed him; that’s just as likely as him signing to the WSOF and the UFC taking him as soon as they could. It took the WSOF folding (or whatever; they‘ve had to change their format and sell so many of their assets and had to share arenas they were having title-defenses in with girl’s high school volley ball tournaments, so they might as well have folded) over three years after all of this for their champions to transition to the UFC like people were saying would’ve happened overnight had Askren joined the WSOF. Before that happened, the only champs that transitioned to the UFC were of divisions they ended up closing [like JAG and women’s strawweight and Bibulatov and flyweight], and even then it hasn’t been a clean sweep of every one of their champs and contenders. If Blagoy Ivanov, Andre Harrison and Fitch all sign to the UFC (-again for Fitch), along with most of their top contenders and some of their former champs (like Alice-Shawn-Dray and Palmer), there might be a point, but that hasn’t happened, and it took some unforeseen-three-years-ago circumstances for it to even get to that point.

Unfortunately, a lot of people either don’t know- or refuse to even acknowledge all of this stuff and take the UFC’s official version of what happened as scripture, and act like Askren was the one who was being unreasonable throughout all of this. That he should’ve signed with the WSOF anyways because rankings are all that matter (whether they’ll admit that rankings are all they care about or not.) And a lot of ‘em have such a little understanding of not only what sportsmanship is but what business is that they act like making good money outside of the UFC is a poor cousin because he’s not ranked and go like, “Eh, at least his paycheck is the silver lining to this…” Being passive-aggressive and giving backhanded compliments and shit. It’s just frustrating…

Anyways, after signing with ONE, Askren made his debut at the first of ONE’s two cards in Singapore in 2014.
He went up against 12-2 accomplished Azerbaijani wrestler/Sambist, Bakhtiyar Abbasov, who was on a 10-fight winning streak and had 11 finishes in his career. After a momentary scare when Abbasov took down Askren in the first 5 seconds of the fight, Askren reversed position and it was business as usual, transitioning, riding his opponent, and eventually getting an arm-triangle choke at the end of the first round.
Askren was given a step-up in his next fight, against ZST veteran, the inaugural ONE welterweight champion and the first Japanese opponent of Ben’s career, the 11-1-2 accomplished Karatéka with 10 knockouts, Nobutatsu Suzuki.

Beginning his career as a Karatéka, Suzuki eventually decided to give MMA a try and debuted in ZST, which has always had a penchant for attracting more idiosyncratic fighting styles than just about any other shootfighting organization in the world. After getting 9 knockout victories between 2005 and 2011, including victories over future ROAD FC title challenger Jeon Uh-Jin, scrappy slugger Yojiro Uchimura, 90-fight veteran and former Pancrase contender Osami Shibuya, and Lithuanian HERO’s veteran known for his fight with Sakuraba (during which he nearly knocked out the Japanese legend) Kestutis Smirnovas, Suzuki was matched up with the highly-decorated Japanese fighter and current UFC fighter K-Taro Nakamura at the inaugural returning-Vale Tudo Japan card in 2012. After a competitive feeling-out period, K-Taro eventually tagged Suzuki with some hard jabs and hooks off of his very powerful lead-right hand, got a takedown and transitioned to Suzuki’s back, where K-Taro sunk in one of his patented rear-chokes to finish the fight in usual K-Taro fashion.
After this, Suzuki signed with ONE and was matched up with American legend, former top-10 middleweight and Pride, UFC, Strikeforce, and Bellator veteran Phil Baroni. In probably the biggest victory of his career-- not necessarily his best victory, but Baroni’s a more well-known name than anyone else he’s fought-- Suzuki’s hard-hitting Karaté to land a hard front-kick followed by a barrage of knees and a pair of hooks to finish the American fighter.
A year later, Suzuki was matched up with the skilled, accomplished American grappler Brock Larson. Larson, entering the fight with a 37-7 record, on a four-fight winning streak, coming off a victory over Melvin Manhoef at middleweight, coming from a wrestling background and having very strong grappling skills, and holding victories over K-Taro, Shannon Ritch, John Alessio, Mike Pyle, Luke Caudillo, DeMarques Johnson, and Carlo Prater, was a good favorite going into the fight with Suzuki, especially considering this was perhaps Larson’s best chance to get what had eluded him for his entire career: a championship belt.
Suzuki rose to the challenge, however, and stuffed just about all of Larson’s takedowns, used his Karaté to cut off Larson and land a lot of front-kicks to the body from a safe distance, even dropped him at one point, and picked up a handy unanimous decision over the American to win the inaugural welterweight belt in ONE Championship™.

Unfortunately for Suzuki, his title-reign was short-lived, as, at the debut ONE card in Dubai, he had his first title-defense against Ben Askren. And Askren got a quick takedown when Suzuki lifted his leg for a feint step-in knee, and quickly got a side-ride (probably the worst position you can be in at the beginning of a fight) and landed I think about a hundred punches before the referee stepped in to give Askren a TKO victory. And the quickest victory of his career.
In another degree of unfortune-ality connected to this fight, it was at this point when Askren’s series of unfortunate circumstances began to occur.
Shortly after this fight, ONE’s next title challenger was ready in Luis “Sapo” Santos. Since he’s fighting on this card, I’ll save the details about him for then.

Being a Jūdō black belt, Sapo was able to do something during his fight with Askren that nobody else had been able to do: make his wrestling look feeble. Understanding what Funk wrestling is all about-- in that it’s about building upon chains and taking advantage of your opponents stance when they’ve countered your shot-- Sapo used his own countering style to counter a counter fighter, which’s one of the most effective things you can do against a counter fighter, and Sapo used his Jūdō to get big trips and throws on every shot that Askren attempted on him. In between that, he landed some real hard kicks to Ben‘s legs and body-- there weren’t too many of them, but they were hard enough looking to leave an imprint in your mind. Unfortunately for Ben, an inadvertent eyepoke prior to Askren completing his first takedown of the fight-- a double-leg against the cage, if my memory’s correct-- halted the bout around 3 minutes in. Askren was not pleased by this and said during his post-fight speech that not only did Sapo lie about not being able to speak English, but that he was exaggerating the eyepoke and he could’ve easily continued fighting, and he went so far as faking a language barrier to buy more time because he was afraid. And the hype surrounding the rematch had begun.

At the second 2015 Singapore card, controversy appeared as Sapo had missed weight by two pounds (ONE doesn’t have the one-pound allowance for their bouts like they have in other places) and, after a debate where officials considered whether or not they should cancel the fight or have him weigh in at 185 the next day (Asia has a history of taking weight in combat sports seriously), were advised by Askren to let him weigh in at 190. Sapo refused this-- more on that when I get to Sapo’s fight-- and the match was canceled.
This, combined with co-main event opponent Yago Bryan missing weight for his scheduled strawweight title-bout with then-champion Dejdamrong Sor Amnuaysirichoke and the death of Jianbing Yang a month later, prompted ONE to inaugurate new rules to ban dehydration. More importantly, though, unfortunately for Ben, it led to a fight cancellation and him only having one fight in 2015. He got his show purse for the fight, though, so at least he got something out of it.

In April of 2016, Ben finally got a chance to have his first official title-defense. Unfortunately, it wasn’t against rival Luis Santos, since ONE weren’t sure if he could be trusted again to make weight, so the bout went to Russian Nikolay Aleksakhin. Aleksakhin, being a powerful, fast, well-rounded fighter with real good fleet-footed boxing skills, and who’d trained with the great Fedor Emelianenko, had won his ONE debut and was rushed into a title-match with Askren. Many people felt that it was a little too early for Nikolay, as, though he’d had some good victories, didn’t really have any that made him stick out, and his debut in ONE wasn’t super emphatic (he’d taken down and methodically controlled his Mongolian opponent for three rounds before getting a submission towards the end of the fight.) But he was an available welterweight, he could always win a few and get a rematch, and he was skilled enough to be a challenge.
Things were unfortunate for Askren again, though, as Nikolay missed weight by three pounds ~6 hours before the event for the now-hydrated-welterweight bout and the fight was changed to a non-title match.
Askren ended up struggling quite a bit with his Russian opponent, as, though he was able to get a lot of takedowns and execute his famous top-control and advanced to mount several times, he was unable to project the kind of offense on top that he’d been able to in his last four victories. He’d also tried to strike with his Russian opponent a lot more, and, though it was real cool to see because Askren not only showed a very idiosyncratic striking style (using a lot of open-handed parries and throwing a lot of front-kicks to the body) and showed a lot of skill with the moves he was using, it led to a moment in the fourth round I believe where Nikolay nearly finished Askren when, if my memory’s correct, he landed a high roundhouse kick and a punch that dropped Askren and he’d spent a little bit on top trying to finish him. That strike seemed to have tired out Askren a bit, too, and the last round or so of the fight wasn’t super-clean as far as victories go.
Askren ultimately won a 5-round decision against a good opponent, but he didn’t get another title-defense and the bout hadn’t gone as he would’ve preferred.

Things went from bad to worse for Askren for the rest of 2016, as Sapo was matched up with inaugural ONE middleweight champion Igor Svirid in a hydrated-welterweight bout that had title-implications for the winner, but the extremely lackadaisical nature of the fight, with neither fighter wanting to initiate and spending almost the entire fight circling each other and waiting for the other guy to do something, along with a knee injury to Sapo-- who won by landing some hard kicks and getting some Guida-esque top-control going at the end of the fight-- led to him not getting the long-awaited rematch. ONE not being able to get a suitable welterweight opponent in the organization during the time led to Askren not having another welterweight matchup for the year, but another thing was lined up. Askren and middleweight champion Vitaly Bigdash had agreed to a fight and Askren was hoping to become ONE’s first two-divisional champion when he was offered a shot at the middleweight title in the main-event of ONE’s sophomore appearance in the country of Thailand in December, 2016. It was gonna be a very good fight. The King of Thailand died at the end of October, though, and, with the country’s military dictatorship doing wacky things, they initiated a one-month long period of mourning where all television broadcasts, sporting events and musical concerts were banned in the country. So the card in Thailand was canceled, since it wouldn’t have given them nearly enough time to promote it, and, though it was rumored to have been re-scheduled the next month in Jakarta, Bigdash ultimately declined and decided he didn’t want to fight Askren anymore, so the title-shot went to Marcin Prachnio and, after an injury to Prachnio, to Aung La N Sang. And Askren had, yet again, had a fight canceled and had only fought once in the year.

People don’t know this history, though, and think that ONE had been refusing to give Askren fights and that Askren was not only regretting his decision to sign with ONE (which he’s said he hasn’t been, it’s just that the situations have been frustrating, which’s an understandable feeling), but that he doesn’t want to fight more than once a year and he’s a hypocrite for having the bravado he has while only fighting once a year. They act like outside forces haven’t been preventing matchups like they have been. Askren’s talked it over heavily with ONE, though, and, after getting a good offer from them to re-sign for another 6 fights, he’s been assured he’s gonna get to fight much more frequently for the rest of his career (which‘s rumored to end this year, since I‘m assuming he has other things he wants to pursue), and he’s getting the first chance to do that in 2017 against former Malaysian Invasion champion and welterweight prospect Agilan Thani.
 
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Agilan “The Alligator” Thani is another fighter who turned to the martial arts because of bullying.
Being overweight throughout his childhood-- even weighing around 300 pounds at his peak when he was a teenager (and 300 pounds at, like, 5’7 and 15 years old’s much more significant than, like, Semmy Schilt’s almost-300 pounds or even Mark Hunt’s Samoan ~280)-- he had to deal with a lot of bullies, and the fact that he grew up in a one-bedroom home that he shared with his father (who had to work so much that he never really saw him) and four aunts and uncles didn’t help much. A lot of people would turn to eating away their emotions in that kind of situation. He eventually really found his passion for the martial arts, though, losing around 120 pounds training with the Subba brothers I believe and becoming a very promising martial artist, and his weight-loss story led to him becoming nationally known in Malaysia as far as combat sports stars go. Here’re some pictures of his body transformation:
https://cdn.onefc.com/wp-content/up...ani-13487393_1404740079542387_421662001_n.jpg
https://cdn.onefc.com/wp-content/up...ad-WhatsApp-Image-2017-05-17-at-10.59.10.jpeg
http://www.thefightnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Agilan-Thani.jpg
http://www4.cdn.sherdog.com/_images/pictures/20150313100928_CTT_0334.JPG
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https://cdn.onefc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Agilan-Thani-IMG_4000-1200x800.jpg
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A lot of people have insulted him cuz’ of his body, using his physique and the bits of extra fat as part of the reason he’s a bad fighter, but, you know… he was, like, 5’7 and 300 pounds. At 15. He’s had to lose a lot of weight, and you can see the extra skin and pockets of fat still hanging there, and those things take a long time to get rid of. You have to get your body fat to, like, 7-10% just to get rid of those last fat pockets that keep the little bits of skin hanging, and not only does it take a long time and a lotta work to get your body fat down that low, but it takes years of keeping the weight off for the skin to shrink back up, and even then it’s not a guarantee it’ll all shrink back up. Anyone who’s seen My 600-lb Life would know this kinda shit. You only have to look at the pictures of his physique and how he has to tuck his stomach skin into his shorts just so his six pack doesn‘t get detracted, and how he still has some breast fat despite having a lotta muscle in his pecs. Saying stuff about his appearance that’s just omitting his weight loss cuz’ he’s got some extra skin or fat pockets, it’s like “Sorry, it doesn’t matter how much weight you lose, you’re always gonna be some fat fuck.” And they don’t get why people end up turning to food again to deal with their emotions in that scenario.

After winning his pro debut, he joined the Malaysian Invasion amateur organization-- which’s quickly become one of the top fighter-rearing organizations in the world-- and continued to hone his skills, and became the 2014 Malaysian Invasion welterweight champion with a 5-0 amateur record (those last few fights were closer to professional fights than amateur fights, too-- they were, like, almost B-class Shooto fights or those 3x3 Pancrase fights) with 4 finishes.
He joined ONE shortly afterwards, and won his debut in a short-notice matchup with Reant Febriza Rainir, quickly taking down and landing a series of strikes from on top of his opponent until the referee stopped the fight just over a minute into the match. This has become a hallmark of Thani’s career, as he’s followed suit in every match he’s had: taking down his opponents and landing punches until they either give up position to make a submission feasible or until the referee steps in. He struggled against James Kouame more than any other opponent, in large part cuz’ Kouame was a lot bigger and more muscular than him, but he still won, and he kept improving after that. After going 4-0, he got a step-up in competition against underrated Filipino fighter Trestle Tan. Though Tan had a 4-5 record entering the fight, he was coming off a victory over 5-0 Indonesian-Mexican VICE writer Djatmiko Waluyo and had a 6-second knockout over 5-1 Taiwanese fighter Jeff Huang, so he was more dangerous than other 4-5 fighters would be perceived as. It was business-as-usual for Thani, though, as he outmuscled his opponent, took him down and landed strikes from on top until Tan gave up his back, leading to a rear-choke victory two minutes into the fight.
In his next fight, he got the biggest victory of his career against 6-2 Jeff Huang, who’d just avenged his loss to Trestle Tan. Though Huang was much more skilled than any of his other opponents had been and, having six victories (and probably a lot more than that in unsanctioned matches) and only two losses, one of them being avenged, he had a record that mirrored Agilan’s. Agilan really rose to the occasion, though, and dispatched of Huang like he had each of his previous opponents.

The real cool thing about Agilan is how his childhood marked by obesity and bullying has given him an unforeseen benefit in his martial arts career: a lot of physical strength. I don’t know what it is-- maybe it’s that the extra weight kids have to carry around builds a lot of extra slow-twitch muscles in the formative years that alter body-chemistry in a positive manner-- but a lot of guys who’ve had weight issues have a history of being very strong, even though they don’t always look it. Mark Hunt and Roy Nelson are two examples of it and are able to keep the strength game competitive with much more physically-impressive fighters, and Igor Vovchanchyn was known for being a very strong guy despite having a bit more of a rounded-center than other guys who’re, like, 5’9. And Thani’s inherited this, even after he’s lost so much weight. The big story of his fights has been just how much stronger he is than his opponents-- like, considering how his body looks compared to theirs, he ends up being way stronger than you’d think. Even against James Kouame, who, if you looked at him, you’d think he was the stronger guy, Agilan was the one who ended up winning a lot of the strength-vs.-strength matchups in their fight, and they weren’t really because he was just so much more skilled than him.
It was the same thing with his fight with Jeff Huang-- he really muscled around Jeff, and it wasn’t really his improving skills that were how he got his key takedowns and was able to stop Jeff from escaping. He’d just be attempting a single-leg or a body-lock trip, and it’d get to that part where you have to use your strength to get the guy to do something in those moves, and he’d just start pushing and Jeff would fight it off, eventually lose the mini-battle and get taken down. Or not be able to push him off once he‘s on his back. It was real interesting to watch, and that’s been one of the things that make this fight interesting. Thani is just so strong; he’s probably one of the few guys that‘ll be able to match Askren in strength in the slow-twitch-muscle battle. Speaking of Askren, he said himself that’s one of the things about wrestling: when it looks like a guy’s form or skill isn’t perfect but he’s still able to get takedowns, it’s usually because he’s really strong.
That’s been one of the things about Clay Guida and Yuki Shojo: they’ve both got that kind of slow-twitch, just push and push and push and push-kind of physical strength that not a lot of other fighters, even at super high levels, have, and it’s what makes them so hard to beat and keeps their fights competitive [made- in the case of the recently-retired Yuki Shojo], and Thani’s got that, and I believe it’s because he was heavy as a child. And, honestly, with a guy like Askren, stylistically speaking, something like that can be what separates the fight from being a quick finish to being a competitive, 25-minute clash that requires a lot of work to get through. Thani’s also got the kind of confidence and work-ethic that can end up leading to the kinds of short-time improvements that can ensure the latter happens, if not something better than that. Especially if Askren looks passed him like a lot of other people have; it’s when someone looks passed an opponent and doesn’t acknowledge the things they’re great at that the opponent pulls off the upset.

The fight was originally scheduled for Manila in April, but was re-scheduled a month later to Singapore to add some pump to the card and, most importantly, to attract a lot of Malaysian fans and pack the stadium even more. Geography lesson: Singapore’s right at the bottom of Malaysia. There’re, like, three or four big bridges that even connect the country with the prosperous city-state. Attracting Malaysian fans is a good thing to do.
One of the things that’ve made the fight real interesting for me is all the trash-talk that’s emerged between the two. Seriously, I’m not even gonna lie: this trash talk has gotten me pumped for this fight. It all started when Thani said he’d be willing to fight Askren for free, look at how Askren responded:

Oh shit! It’s on now! Takin’ it a little too far, aren’t you Ben?

WOOOAH! Hittin’ a little below the belt there, Ben.
But that wasn’t enough, cuz’… Thani hit back, and he did it freakin’ hard. And he primarily uses his instagram; his IG’s got a respectable 3 thousand-ish followers, so Askren didn't even get his information right!

WOOOAH! What’s Askren gonna freakin’ do now?!?!

WOOOOOOOAAAAHHH!!! Fuckin’ hash tag of the week!


Holy shit, Askren just took it to another level here. It’s for real now.

https://twitter.com/AgilanThani/status/840402079390793729

https://twitter.com/Benaskren/status/840404735270232064

https://twitter.com/AgilanThani/status/840415339850661888

https://twitter.com/Benaskren/status/841823285893578752

https://twitter.com/AgilanThani/status/841826820513271809

https://twitter.com/Benaskren/status/845080673278967808

https://twitter.com/AgilanThani/status/845082951654125569

Goddamn, this trash talk is going so fast I can’t even gather any thoughts fast enough to compartmentalize it all.
And this was a nice recent one by Benjamin:
https://twitter.com/Benaskren/status/865748164829077504
The brutality is just… brutal. Ben’s gotta be careful, here. As an Askren fan, this’s all getting’ me a little worried for him. He doesn’t wanna alienate the Southeast-Asian audiences with all this savagery.

Anyways, the fight’s gotten me interested. People have denigrated the matchup cuz’ a lot of people don’t know Agilan and go back to the same “Ben’s wasting his career, he definitely regrets not doing what Dana White said now, definitely! Not fighting ranked opponents” stuff, but I don’t think it’s that big a deal. Agilan may be untested, but he’s got a lotta promise, he’s got some skills that Askren can’t sleep on; it’ll be a victory over a skilled, underrated 7-0 fighter for Ben if he wins, and it’ll be proof that ONE does have talent, to detract from the haters who basically say that all Southeast-Asian fighters are shit, if Agilan can pull off the upset. So it’ll be interesting. It’s also rumored that Askren’s gonna retire at the end of this year (since he has other stuff he wants to do with his life), and he’s doing his best to make sure that ONE’ll give him three fights before that happens so he can end his career on a high-note, and watching one of the final episodes of his career is very titillating because of that.
I find it more interesting than the actual main event; I like women‘s fights, but it takes more than the girls being hot for me to really be able to get interested in a women‘s fight.

Speaking of which, the inaugural women’s champion in ONE in the cute 20-year old Hawaiian-Canadian-Singaporean-Korean-Chinese fighter Angela Lee started out her life in this weird incestuous martial arts tiger-parenting borderline child-abuse, creating fucking bores of children if it weren’t for the fact that they look fuckable-family circle led by her father.
Her father, pushing his martial arts insecurities and the fact that he wasn’t able to accomplish what he wanted when he was in his youth on his children, made Angela begin her martial arts training as young as possible, and did that shit where you make the kid think it’s their dream to be a fighter when you’ve been pushing it on ‘em since they were 5, then they‘re 35 and realize they‘ve never made any decisions for themselves and become alcoholics or something. Or they become horrible just boring human beings that have no real spine in their souls because their Chinese heritage has weeded out that little gene for rebellion, so they bend over to all forms of authority and don‘t take any real chances in their lives, and she deals with it like she always has by continuing her incestuous relationship with her younger brother.
Just fucking look at them.
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Look at how close their bodies are; how far down her leg he’s just resting his arm; how close their faces are as they’re smiling and laughing at whatever the fuck it is they find so funny; how even when they‘re not training they do everything together; resting her head on his cut chest like she‘s about ready to lick it. That’s boyfriend and girlfriend shit; that’s not a normal brother and sister relationship. I don’t blame ‘em for it, either, their childhood being what it is. Fuckin’ locked in their houses because friends that aren’t your family interfere with training focus, Angela just finishing her fourth read of the Flowers in the Attic series, her brother just blossoming into his manhood and beginning his puberty cycle, then sneaking into his room while he’s sleeping and unzipping his pants before she gets a mouthful of you-know-what.
Knuckles.
Then continuing that as a celebration ritual after each victory.
I might be wrong, but that’s the feeling I get from her and her family, and I wouldn‘t be surprised if that‘s what‘s going on. I’d actually like it if they ended up being in love and wanting to have little chromosome-less babies together; it’d make them human and flawed, but in a beautiful Wabi Sabi way, like a broken mirror with a flower growing out of it.

And to think: it’s all because their father taught them his own hybrid martial arts system called Hap Do Sool. It’s like a combination of ancient Pankration methods with Hapkido, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, modern hand-to-hand-combat methods, Taekwondo, and, of course, some wrasslin’ and I think some weapons training, too. It’s pretty interesting, but raising his daughter under this system’s given her a lot of skills and a very idiosyncratic, tough-to-prepare-for style that ends up being pretty well-rounded. Her younger brother Christian’s also developed under this, though his forte’s been more in the striking of it whereas hers has been in grappling.
It’s led to them beginning their professional martial arts careers with a lot more tact than people of their age would have otherwise.
Having some family connections in Singapore and recognizing her amateur credentials-- I think she was a Pankration world champion-- ONE saw an opportunity and grabbed it, immediately signing Angela and having her debut in 2014. Quickly developing in skills and showing the kind of in-fight maturity that a lot of other fighters don’t hold that early in their careers, Angela submitted her first 5 opponents in a span of just about a year, including a very nice twister submission in her fourth pro victory I believe. In her sixth fight, however, she got a gigantic step-up in competition against Japanese women’s MMA great, Jūdōka and multiple-time Shootboxing world champion Mei Yamaguchi-- who was ranked as, like, the 2nd or 3rd women’s atom weight in the world at the time-- for the inaugural ONE women‘s atom weight championship.

In what ended up being an extremely-competitive, highly-entertaining match, Angela ultimately won a split decision against her Japanese opponent, winning enough grappling exchanges to overcome Mei’s striking superiority and her own grappling dominance in the eyes of the judges. The fight was also unanimously considered to be not only to be one of the top fights considered for FOTY of 2016, but the women’s MMA 2016 FOTY. And Angela had earned a top-5 ranking, a real nice paycheck and a world title in the process, and she wasn’t even 20 years old.
About 9 months later I believe, Angela was given her first title-defense in the 5-0 Taiwanese Jūdōka Jenny Huang. Jenny, holding a similar record to Angela and of a similar age, and holding her own impressive grappling skills marked by her own rarely-seen submission victory with a gogoplata in her last fight, and not a bad-looking girl herself, was, in many ways, kind of a parallel to Angela. The parallel in grappling skills was, in particular, the most interesting aspect of the fight. Unfortunately for Jenny, her grappling skills ended up being a non-issue, as she struggled, like many Jūdōka do, with closing that uncomfortable distance between getting hit by strikes and being close enough to get a trip, and she wasn’t able to initiate any grappling exchanges with Angela, who was content to use her striking to win the fight (which was viewed as the biggest vulnerability in Angela’s game: her striking, which she’d improved upon since the Mei fight.) Though Jenny developed some comfort with striking in the second and third rounds, going from being tentative to not being afraid to brawl (which’s what some of the best Jūdōkas who’ve transitioned to shoot fighting have learned to do) in a remarkably-quick time, which was an extremely important lesson to learn, Angela’s grand accumulation of strikes had paid off by then, and she got a TKO victory a little under four minutes into the third round.

In the toughest fight of her career since Mei Yamaguchi, she’s going up against the first Brazilian of her career in Istela Nunes.

Istela Nunes…
… started out her martial arts life under the discipline of Capoeira, which she still practices today. She transitioned to, much like many other striking martial art-based people, into Muay Thai eventually, where she amassed a 52-0 record I believe, en route to two Muay Thai world championships. Unfortunately, I can’t find any information on what the titles were, since Muay Thai’s a very hard-to-find-information-on sport in the west, especially when it comes to women’s Muay Thai, but they were apparently both in Thailand, so there’s a good chance they were solid titles.
In 2014, she decided to transition from Muay Thai to MMA. After winning three fights with one no-contest in a four-month period, she got a big surge in popularity when she got a highlight-reel knockout that went a little viral on the Internet in her fourth victory, wherein she knocked out her opponent by landing three round-kicks to her head in a row. ONE nabbed her immediately afterwards, and she debuted with the organization at their inaugural Macau card four months later, in August of 2016.
Matched up with the great Mei Yamaguchi, she was a good underdog going into the fight, but she had a good stylistic chance against her opponent, being a Muay Thai champion and Yamaguchi having her primary forte being striking, with her Shootboxing championship credentials. In the very competitive and close fight, Istela’s striking skills ultimately won her the match, earning a split decision against Mei.
A lot of people were convinced that ONE would not only refuse to give Angela a fight against someone like Istela, sure that ONE would not want to give their golden girl a chance to lose a fight, but that, after her last title defense in March I believe, that she wouldn’t be fighting for the rest of the year and that Angela was gonna waste her life in the Southeast-Asian organization. They were quickly proven wrong, though, as Angela was not only given her next title-defense a mere two-and-a-half months later-- far off from their prediction of 10-14 more months-- but it was against Istela, who they were convinced Angela was being protected from.
Istela, being extremely motivated for the fight, has insulted Angela a few times, calling her overrated, insulting her resume, and saying she has no business talking about being able to beat Joanna Jeredrzejczyk, and how unintimidated she is about being an underdog and in a hostile crowd. Angela has also said that she feels Istela is her biggest challenge yet, so this’ll be a good fight. The title may very well change hands.
 
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Holding a record of 60-9-1 heading into his ONE debut and riding a streak of six straight finishes, five of them knockouts, one an impressive kneebar submission (since you don’t see those none too often), and five of them in the first round and four of the knockouts in less than a minute, Luis “Sapo” Santos was a very good signing by ONE.
Though he was known best by a lot of people for his 2-2 stint in Bellator, which saw him compete in their season 5 welterweight tournament, defeating Dan Hornbuckle in the quarterfinals before losing in the semi-finals to Ben Saunders and then losing a competitive follow-up bout (not in a tournament, though) to eventual MFC/WSOF: Canada champion and current boxer Ryan Ford, the big thing about Sapo was that he went on a significant streak of improvement in his skills after losing in the Bellator tournament, and this was only amplified after he lost to Ryan Ford. Though he was always known as a powerful kickboxer with a good, smothering top-game and some submission skills, and he kept his Bellator career competitive, he really streamlined his skills, stance and posture, his understriking form, choice-of-technique, and strategy afterwards, and focused a lot more on his strength and conditioning to make himself more explosive. These included:
- Focusing a lot more on the striking skills he’s best at, like his hooks and straights (being a southpaw, that‘s a good idea), and kicking off his back leg and throwing high roundhouse kicks (since they‘re not only typically more powerful than kicks off your lead leg, for obvious reasons, but, if you’re good with ’em, they make it a lot easier to defend against shoots because your opponent has to either defend it so they don’t get a really hard kick to the body or head, which’re finishing moves.)
- Improved the form of the strikes he throws. That’s simple, but learning how to do things like turning your hips when you kick, learning how to stay balanced when you throw kicks off your lead leg, and tightening your hooks can make all the difference sometimes.
- Widening his stance to help defend against takedowns.
-Put on more muscle to maximize his lean body mass and make his kicks more explosive despite the kick-hindering-wide-stance.
- Learned a lot more about appropriate distance to make himself consistently be in a much more effective position to land good strikes from (which’s why so many of the strikes he’s landed since his Bellator career have been real hard.)
- And he recognized that, despite being 6’1, he’s not a super-tall guy for welterweight, and he’s got pretty long dancer’s legs for his height, so using those to initiate his striking is a much more effective thing to do than initiating with punches.

This continued in his ONE debut, as he dispatched of the opponent Askren fought four-minutes quicker than his opponent did, and with continued understanding of strike-choice and body-understanding, as he recognized that, if he’s fighting a shorter opponent, with his long legs and already-hard-hitting gifts, skill with distance and leg dexterity and balance, he could land extremely hard fight-finishing knees against shorter opponents without having to be in a clinch. And he did just that, getting another highlight-reel knockout and his 7th finish in a row, and his 5th knockout in under a minute in that stretch. And he earned a title-shot against Askren at the first 2015 Manila card.

Copy/pasting the details about that fight, being a Jūdō black belt, Sapo was able to do something during his fight with Askren that nobody else had been able to do: make his wrestling look feeble. Understanding what Funk wrestling is all about-- in that it’s about building upon chains and taking advantage of your opponents stance when they’ve countered your shot-- Sapo used his own countering style to counter a counter fighter, which’s one of the most effective things you can do against a counter fighter, and Sapo used his Jūdō to get big trips and throws on every shot that Askren attempted on him. In between that, he landed some real hard kicks to Ben‘s legs and body-- there weren’t too many of them, but they were hard enough looking to leave an imprint in your mind. Unfortunately for Ben, an inadvertent eyepoke prior to Askren completing his first takedown of the fight-- a double-leg against the cage, if my memory’s correct-- halted the bout around 3 minutes in. Askren was not pleased by this and said during his post-fight speech that not only did Sapo lie about not being able to speak English, but that he was exaggerating the eyepoke and he could’ve easily continued fighting, and he went so far as faking a language barrier to buy more time because he was afraid. And the hype surrounding the rematch had begun.

Unfortunately, on the day of the weigh-ins, Sapo missed weight by two pounds and refused to make the 190-pound weight-limit the next day. I think the reason for his refusal was ultimately that he had some professional frustrations with ONE, the exact details of which aren’t really clear (apparently it was cuz’ they kept offering dates and he bought airplane tickets for each location and date, and they kept changing before they settled on Singapore, so they wasted thousands of dollars and ONE refused to help out with the costs, but… that’s not exactly an unbiased version of events, and it doesn’t really make sense to spend thousands of dollars on multiple airplane tickets when the contract for the fight in said location hadn‘t even been signed, so it‘s hard to say if that‘s exactly what it was or not), so he didn’t wanna give into another one, and he didn’t have the same kind of professional reservations against missing weight that they did, so he didn’t think the two pounds were a big enough detail to warrant a second weigh-in. So his title-shot was revoked.
Three months later I believe, Sapo was matched up with Portuguese opponent Rafael Silva, who had something like a 38-15 record going into the fight and was making his welterweight debut (he’d fought at middleweight before, but he was one of those guys who didn’t dehydrate to make the middleweight limit, so with ONE raising the weight-limits and outlawing dehydration, he could actually fight guys closer to his size), with ONE hoping he could prove he could get his weight-management under control so he could be trusted again.
After making weight, he knocked out another opponent with a gigantic knee to the body in under a minute. In his next fight, this one being his second in a row in Indonesia (it seems like ONE’s been trying to turn him into a foreign Indonesian star, which they’d benefit from since they don’t really have any Indonesian stars to help ‘em out in that region), he was matched up with inaugural middleweight champion Igor Svirid, who was another guy making his welterweight debut (Igor had only dehydrated, like, 5 or 6 pounds to make middleweight before, and, after talking about weight with his former opponent Vitaly Bigdash, who’d said he walks around at, like, 220 and dehydrates from, like, 200-205, whereas Igor dehydrates from, like, 190, so the decision-making process after that was pretty obvious.) The fight had a lot of title-implications for the winner; if Sapo won, with two wins in a row without any weight complications, with his history with Ben and with a victory over a former champion, he’d deserve a title shot, and with Svirid, having an exciting, knockout-power-based fighting style and coming off a Round-of-the-Year contender with Vitaly Bigdash and a victory over a 62-9 opponent who had previously challenged for the title, and with the amount of buzz a fight between him and Askren (a current champion and a former champion), he could deserve a title-shot just as much.

Unfortunately for them both, the actual fight ended up ruining those chances.
Sapo, who was rumored to have injured his knee either before- or during the fight after he threw his first kick, was, unlike normal, very reluctant to initiate any more than needed, so he spent the majority of the fight circling and waiting for Igor to come in. Igor, meanwhile, had developed more of a patient, countering game since the Bigdash fight, and was waiting himself for Sapo to initiate, and I think he might‘ve had a slight injury as well, but I don‘t know for sure. And both fighters were wary of the other’s knockout power, so they didn’t want to take any chances.
The result was the 15-minute circling match where I thin, like, 15-20 strikes were thrown total throughout the 15-minute contest-- that’s a little over one a minute. Sapo, using his dancer’s legs, landed a few hard kicks that, paired with some end-of-fight top-control, ultimately won him the decision. However, the fact that the fight ended up being ONE’s version of Shamrock-Severn II, combined with his injury, basically canceled out any promises of a title-shot. Kind of like how Jon Fitch’s performance against Thiago Alves in 2010 negated the promised title-shot the winner of the bout was to receive, except this fight didn’t have that kind of outright promise connected to it.

A few months ago, slight controversy appeared again in the Sapo-Askren rivalry as Ben had Ben offered a contract with Sapo for April in Manila and had signed it, saying that he doesn’t know why Sapo hadn’t signed it. Sapo’s associate Jason Chambers-- former ONE commentator-- denied this and said that no contract had been offered. And the rumor that Sapo was still recovering from his injury were around. So nobody really knows what happened, except that Ben wants the fight and is waiting on Sapo’s end for the deal to be completed.
More questions appeared afterwards regarding Sapo since he‘s well enough to fight on the same card that Askren‘s currently fighting on. There’s a good chance it was just a coincidence-- he wasn’t well enough to fight in April but was to fight in May, and ONE rescheduled the Thani-Askren fight for May just to capitalize on the Malaysian crowds the fight would draw and since the contracts had already been signed. But, regardless, it’s going to be a real uncomfortable position for Sapo if he doesn’t agree to fight Askren should he defeat his next opponent, PXC champion Zebaztian Kadestam.

Zebaztian Kadestam…
… is a 26-year old (might be 27) Swedish fighter training out of Ole Laursen’s gym in the Philippines. That’s probably why ONE signed him; they much prefer to go after local fighters when they can, whether they be citizens or foreign expats.
Beginning his martial arts career in earnest in Muay Thai, he moved to Southeast-Asia to further his training and, after having a number of Muay Thai matches, he transitioned to shootfighting in 2011. His Muay Thai skills and, most importantly, his knockout power have transitioned directly in his MMA career, and he’s amassed 6 knockouts in his 8 victories, including two in under 15 seconds. After winning four fights in a row (all finishes), including a victory over former welterweight ranker and King of the Cage champion Ronald Jhun, he lost a decision against a man named Shawn Maynard. Unfortunately, there’s no video I can find of that fight and Maynard hasn’t fought since then (and doesn’t have any information aside from his 1-1 record), so it’s hard to say what happened, but I’d assume he was more skilled than his record would suggest and had a style that was tough for Zebaztian to deal with, which’s usually the case with those kinds of situations.
He rebounded in style, though, getting a head-kick knockout victory over then-20-8 Ross Ebanez, and following that up by winning the PXC title against Josh Calvo, defending that title with a knockout over Kim Han-Seul (who‘s currently on a four-fight winning streak with a pair of nice victories over former King of Pancrase and UFC veteran Takenori Sato and PXC lightweight champion Frank Camacho, and is in the mix to challenge for the PXC title if Zebaztian stays in ONE and can‘t defend it.) He struggled yet again after that in a return fight in Sweden (his first MMA fight in his home country, interestingly), against Norwegian opponent Hakon Foss. After a close first round where both fighters had their moments on the feet, they split the second and third rounds with grappling control and Zebaztian ultimately lost a close, competitive split decision. He rebounded with arguably the biggest victory of his career last April, though, when he defended his PXC title for the second time with an 11-second knockout over Finnish CAGE champion Glenn Sparv. He also won a WBC Muay Thai title during this time, which’s a good accomplishment in the world of kickboxing.
In his last fight just a month ago, he got submitted in the second round in his sophomore appearance in Sweden.

Two things I find most interesting about him are his style and his body. On the latter, he just has a nice physique; a big back, nice arms, a somewhat-wide center (but not in a fat way, but, like, a strong way) and abs that are defined but are concave and look a little like a David Finch drawing, none of all that too big to be off-putting. Aesthetically, the way it all is is just nice to me, like looking at Arnold‘s body in the 70‘s, or those pictures of those pretty actresses faces from the 30’s and 40’s. Too bad there aren’t any good photos of it.
While the most well-known thing about his style is his knockout power, it’s his actual style that interests me the most. Coming from a striking background, his striking is the biggest attribute of his style, but it’s the way he does it that’s most interesting. He fights kind of like a combination of Yodsanklai Fairtex, Douglas Lima and Jake Lamotta. He’s an aggressive guy who throws a lot of kicks and straights and hooks, much like Fairtex, and he has very powerful round kicks to the legs that he loves to throw, like Lima, but it’s his distancing like Lamotta’s that’s interesting. Lamotta was known for the “bully” style, where he’d always keep himself in- or near punching distance and would move forward to pressure his opponent, not just physically but psychologically, and you don’t see that much in shootfighting because of the threat of a counter-takedown. But Zebaztian fights very similar to that; he moves forward, keeps himself very close to striking distance most of the time, and lands big shots that really damages his opponents when they land. It’s really fun to watch.
A late replacement for Vuyisile Colossa, Zebaztian will be looking to get the biggest victory of his career against Sapo Santos. Not only would this be a huge victory for him, but it would probably get him an immediate title shot against the Askren-Thani winner, which would be great for his career for obvious reasons. So, despite coming off a loss and taking the fight on fairly short notice, don’t look passed him, cuz’ he’s got skills and is very dangerous, and has a very good chance of pulling off the upset. He also doesn’t seem like the kinda guy that will be afraid of Sapo’s power, either, so there’s a good chance this fight will be consistently entertaining or even end in a finish, which will be a nice return to normal for Sapo.






I just copy/pasted most of this from the last time I wrote about Aoki, since I think that was a pretty good summation of his career.
An accomplished Jūdōka in his native Japan (if you're an a_ok_i fan and haven't checked out his Jūdō highlight-reel, that'd be a really fun thing to burn 3 or 6 or 7 minutes to-- however long it is), he made his pro debut in 2003 in the welterweight division in DEEP after being a cop didn't turn out to be as fulfilling as he thought it'd be, and his knack for flying submissions and unconventional Jūdō throws (or not unconventional as not-basic) that he'd accrued through his years in Jūdō was apparent, as he'd quickly become a fairly-popular fighter. He was, unfortunately, knocked out soon afterwards by Jutaro Nakao-- although, to Aoki's credit, Nakao was one of the best welterweights in the world at the time, he's still a very underrated guy and he was a lot bigger than Aoki, all of which makes for a very big test for a fighter who was 3-0 and not even a year removed from their pro debut.
Aoki later moved to pro Shooto, where he went 6-1, the loss being against welterweight great Hayato Sakurai, and securing victories over fighters like then-20-6 Keith Wisnewski, eventual Shooto champion Kuniyoshi Hironaka (who held a victory over Nick Diaz going into the fight with Aoki), former-top-15 lightweight George Sotiropolous, and Shooto title-winning and -defending efforts against one of the greatest Shootists of the 00's and stud Jūdōka, Akira Kikuchi, off of which Aoki was unanimously brought into the welterweight top-10. He also spent this time fighting in Pride towards the organization's end, going 5-0 with victories over then-22-1 Jason Black, then-7-1 Clay French, Olympic Jūdō silver medalist Jung Bu-Kyung, and, most notably, a gogoplata submission over the great Joachim Hansen.
Afterwards, Aoki moved on to DREAM, where his greatest accomplishments were done. He gained victories over then-top-3 lightweight JZ Cavalcante (who, in his prime, was a very different- and dangerous fighter compared to now), HERO's veteran and Olympic Greco-Roman silver medalist Katsuhiko Nagata (who was coming off a very good victory over Cage Force Grand Prix champion Artur Oumakhanov), and Caol Uno en route to the finals of the DREAM lightweight Grand Prix against tournament alternate Joachim Hansen. Hansen got a big upset by rocking Aoki with an accidental punch to the neck and later finishing him. After going on a three fight winning streak, which included arguably his greatest victory against Eddie Alvarez (the original finalist in the DREAM Grand Prix) and the famous "Hello Japan" submission, Aoki rematched Sakurai, losing via KO in 30-seconds. He rebounded with another three-fight winning streak, including victories over former-Shooto champion and former-#1 lightweight Vitor Shaolin, avenging the loss to Hansen with an armbar and winning the DREAM lightweight title in the process, and defeating Sengoku champion and then-top-10 lightweight Mizuto Hirota with a hammerlock followed-up by the famous middle-finger incident [although, that's a much more benign gesture in Japan than it is in America, which a lot of people don't get], all of which led Aoki to a near-unanimous ranking in the pound-for-pound top-10 and as the world's #2-ranked lightweight. Some people even momentarily had him ranked #1 after BJ Penn got upset by Frankie Edgar.
Aoki then lost against Gilbert Melendez in a very underwhelming performance on Aoki's part, losing his #1/2 ranking, but bounced back with a first-round submission over then-top-10 lightweight great Tatsuya Kawajiri, which began a run that saw him get victories over fighters like former-top-5 lightweight Marcus Aurelio, former-WEC champion Rob Mccullough, then-16-1 Lyle Beerbohm, and a victory over former-top-10 Sengoku champion- and then-top-~20 lightweight Satoru Kitaoka. This streak ended when Aoki rematched Eddie Alvarez in Bellator, when he got TKOd in the first-round after uncharacteristically trying to box with Eddie.

After the Alvarez fight, Aoki signed with ONE and debuted against then-10-1 Frenchmen Arnaud Lepont, getting a first-round submission. He ended 2012 by finishing then-28-5 Antonio Mckee, and won the ONE (then-FC) lightweight championship with a second-round submission over the inaugural champion Kotetsu Boku a few months later. He experimented with a fight at featherweight, won, moved back up to lightweight, fought on the 2013 Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye New Year's Eve show, and made the first defense of his ONE lightweight title against former-top-20 lightweight Kamal Shalorus in 2014, who a lot of Aoki's detractors were convinced would beat Aoki because, to them, Aoki was so one-dimensional that he wouldn't be able to take down an accomplished wrassler like Shalorus, inevitably getting out-struck en route to a decision loss. Of course, that didn't happen, as Aoki took down the Iranian wrestler and submitted him in the first-round.
He later fought on the 2014 NYE show, and made the second defense of his lightweight title in 2015 against former Legend FC champion, very strong Jūdōka with a fun almost-exclusively-follows-the-basics-but-is-very-good-at-them boxing style, Koji Ando-- who was on a 5-fight winning streak, 2-0 in ONE, and holds victories over Narantungalag Jadambaa, Zoro Moreira, then-10-0 Brazilian Rafael Nunes, and, later, Roger Huerta. He had an exhibition bout at an IGF show in 2015 against a heavyweight (I can't remember the name), and he last fought at the inaugural RIZIN show in 2015 against Japanese great Kazushi Sakuraba, double-legging the older Sakuraba [another guy Aoki's detractors were convinced he wouldn't be able to take down, even as passed-his-prime as he was] and getting the closest thing to a legitimate TKO victory as he's had in his career so far, ground 'n pounding Sakuraba for the majority of their 7-ish-minute bout until the corner threw in the towel.

Unfortunately, though he was a big favorite going into the fight, Aoki got knocked out in the opening minute of the third round by his Filipino opponent. After winning the first round (ONE doesn’t score round-by-round, but it’s still a factor of the fight worth mentioning) by initiating a clinch right away (I think it was with his right-hook-to-a-double-leg initiation that he uses a lot-- he used it to take down Ando, Sakuraba, Shalorus, and a lot of other guys over the last few years) and taking down Folayang with one of his infamous clinch takedowns-- I don’t know enough about Jūdō to know the terms, nor care enough, but he got underhooks and stepped his right leg between Folayang’s and tripped him over, so, you know… whatever that’s called. After that, it was typical Aoki, as he kept Eduard on the ground, advanced position, and eventually took his back and spent about two minutes working for a rear-choke. Eduard was able to surprise everyone, though, as his Filipino scrappiness kept him calm and let him escape Aoki’s back control in the last 10 seconds of the round. Then things turned bad for Shinya.
Though I think he got another takedown in the second round and landed some nice, sharp kicks, as is usual for Aoki, Eduard assaulted Aoki’s body with punches and kicks, quickly gassing out the tall, lanky 5’11 (almost 6’0) lightweight, and, at the start of the third round, Aoki tried another one of his right-hook-to-double-leg shoots, but Folayang had a plan. He waited for it and timed out a really hard flying knee of his left leg to Aoki’s face, hurting him, and stood over Aoki against the fence landing an assault of punches for about 30 seconds until the referee stepped in. Aoki was pretty bummed after this.

Since losing his title, while it’s not a fight, he’s looking to test his grappling skills and rebound against accomplished Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner Garry Tonon.


Garry Tonon…
… is viewed as one of the most dangerous submission grapplers competing in the sport of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu today, due to his great skill with the painful, damaging subset of skills that are leg-based submissions, having not only secured 41 of his 55 Jiu-Jitsu wins via submission, but 24 of those 41 submissions through various leglocks.
A three-time Mundials champion at the blue and brown belt level (twice), along with a four-time Pan-American IBJJF champion and two-time runner-up at the Pan-Ams, Tonon’s passion for Jiu-Jitsu led him to quickly progress in skill and in belt ranking, going from blue belt to black belt in a span of only 6 years.
An interesting thing about Tonon is that this isn’t his first time facing a shoot fighter in a grappling match. Not only does he have a victory over Aoki’s former training partner and muscle-bound Japanese leglock machine Satoru Kitaoka, but he’s defeated Beneil Dariush, Marcin Held, Javier Vasquez, Karen Darabedyan, Eddie Cummings, one of the original Japanese leglock masters in Masakazu Imanari (by leglock, no less), Ralek Gracie, and Gilbert Burns. That’s not even going into the amount of Jiu-Jitsu-primary people he’s beaten that I don’t know the names of.
Considered by a lot of people to be a favorite going into this match with Aoki, this’s a match that’s gotten a lot of people who have knowledge of grappling very interested. Will Aoki pull off the upset??? Will Tonon get arguably the biggest victory of his career, since it’ll be in front of a bigger crowd than he’s ever performed in front of and will be watched by more people have ever watched one of his matches before???

This thing Garry put on his Instagram was also cool.

 
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Three promo videos for Askrens fight from the ONE facebook page (for some reason they stopped using youtube). Can't wait! Askren seems to be bringing the cockiness back that has been gone for far too long.





 
Lol whats your problem with Angela's dad?
 
More like he's hindering his hot daughter's (and son's) prospects in the sport by not letting them go to a real fight camp
 
Look at how close their bodies are; how far down her leg he’s just resting his arm; how close their faces are as they’re smiling and laughing at whatever the fuck it is they find so funny; how even when they‘re not training they do everything together; resting her head on his cut chest like she‘s about ready to lick it. That’s boyfriend and girlfriend shit; that’s not a normal brother and sister relationship. I don’t blame ‘em for it, either, their childhood being what it is. Fuckin’ locked in their houses because friends that aren’t your family interfere with training focus, Angela just finishing her fourth read of the Flowers in the Attic series, her brother just blossoming into his manhood and beginning his puberty cycle, then sneaking into his room while he’s sleeping and unzipping his pants before she gets a mouthful of you-know-what.
Knuckles.
Then continuing that as a celebration ritual after each victory.
I might be wrong, but that’s the feeling I get from her and her family, and I wouldn‘t be surprised if that‘s what‘s going on. I’d actually like it if they ended up being in love and wanting to have little chromosome-less babies together; it’d make them human and flawed, but in a beautiful Wabi Sabi way, like a broken mirror with a flower growing out of it.
You ok bro?


Good thread as always though, thanks for continuing to post these.

I'll be at the fights yet again, looking forward to it immensely.
I opted to buy tickets for this rather than the UFC event (still might though) so hopefully the show is as fun as usual :)
 
More like he's hindering his hot daughter's (and son's) prospects in the sport by not letting them go to a real fight camp
How is EVOLVE MMA not an elite fight camp? She goes there like every 2 weeks...and when she not there, shes training early morning until the last class of the day at her gym. She cross trains with a lot of people who visits her gym as well. I took a trial class there and Kailin Curran, Rachel Ostovich and her brother (he fights as well but I forgot his name) went there to cross train. Same type of stuff Max Halloway does.

Angela and Christian get better and maybe them going off to a place thats out of their comfort level could be a detriment. Sage Northcutt training at Tristar.
 
To call in sick or not call in sick... I wish Singapore cards were on Saturdays
 
How is EVOLVE MMA not an elite fight camp? She goes there like every 2 weeks...and when she not there, shes training early morning until the last class of the day at her gym.
She goes there for 2 weeks before every fight, not every 2 weeks
 
Here at the event.
The production level has upgraded since past years...looks almost pride level now
 
Can anyone here hook me up with a s t r e a m?
 
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