Preview: One Championship 'Kingdom of Heroes'

Shinya Aoki (41-8-0 1NC) vs. Ev Ting (15-4-0), Lightweights

The lightweight title eliminator between former ONE lightweight champion Shinya Aoki and Malaysian born Kiwi Ev Ting is a fight whose outcome will have an immediate and possibly lasting impact on both men’s future career trajectories. The winner will go on to compete for the title in Tokyo next March while the loser will have a mountain to climb to re-establish themselves as a title contender. This fight will be Aoki’s fifty-first professional MMA bout since starting out in the sport in 2003, and the 35-year-old submission specialist comes into this fight on the back of two dominant first-round wins.

In May at ONE: Unstoppable Dreams, Aoki scored a submission victory over Russian grappler Rasul Yakhyaev which he then followed up with a brutal TKO win over Thailand’s Shannon Wiratchai in July. In both bouts Aoki’s legendary ground game came to the fore and there appeared to be little either Yakhyaev or Wiratchai could do to avoid the takedown which from the outset they knew was coming. Aoki lost the lightweight title at the end of 2016 to Eduard Folayang and the chance for the veteran to get an opportunity to regain it on home soil at ONE’s Japan debut adds an extra note of interest to an already intriguing encounter.

Before this bout was announced, Ting was hoping he had done enough to earn a title shot and was somewhat disappointed to be told he had to have one more win before he could compete for the strap. Ting is on a three-fight winning streak and is undefeated since his loss to then-champion Folayang in their 2017 title clash. Ting is a well-rounded fighter who is starting to come into his prime; the 29-year-old’s previous two bouts saw him defeat Koji Ando and Ariel Sexton, two fighters with exceptional grappling skills. Ting’s all around ability means that he is unlikely to go the way of Yakhyaev and Wiratchai. Aoki’s stand up game is not at the level of Tings, and if Ting can avoid the early takedown and force Aoki out of his comfort zone, he could find himself booking a trip to Tokyo.

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