Early this morning ONE FC put on its eighth live event from Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang Singapore. ONE FC 8: Kings and Championship, featured a lightweight championship bout between Shinya “Tobikan Judan” Aoki and Kotetsu Boku. The event also featured a co-main event of former UFC fighter Brock Larson and former Strikeforce fighter and UFC hopeful Melvin Manhoef.
In the nights main event, Aoki utterly dominated Boku in every single aspect of the fight en route to winning the organizations lightweight title.
In the opening moments of the first round, Aoki wasted no time bringing Boku to the mat and trying to submit him with a variety of different chokes. Boku did a great job of defending throughout the five-minutes but was clearly out matched but Aoki’s aggresive style and frantic pace.
In the second round, Aoki once again opened with a quick take-down and grabbed Boku’s back almost immediately. After some more work by Aoki he eventually slipped in the rear naked choke and finished Boku at the 4:04 mark of the second round. With the victory, Aoki adds the One FC lightweight championship to his trophy case and improves his record to 33-6 (1).
In the nights co-main, Larson and Manhoef surprised the entire world by fighting a full three-rounds which had Larson winning by unanimous decision. A fight that many of which expected fireworks instead got mostly stop-and-go striking by Manhoef and a flurry of takedowns by Larson.
The first round opened with Manhoef landing a solid head-kick which he followed up with an immediate chasing of Larson around the cage until Larson pulled Manhoef down. From there neither fighter was really able to secure any advantage until the bell rang for round two.
The second round was much the same as the first with the exception of a very late armbar submission attempt by Larson which nearly finished Manhoef. If there was more time on the clock (only 10-seconds) there would have be no choice for the UFC hopeful Manhoef to tap.
The final round was all Larson as he just threw takedown-after-takedown at Manhoef. Clearly, Manhoef was tired at this point and Larson made it known to the judges that he was winning the round and taking the unanimous decision victory from them. The victory for Larson pushes his MMA record to 37-7. The loss for Manhoef clearly puts his UFC hopes in jeopardy.
Main Bouts:
Shinya Aoki defeated Kotetsu Boku by Submission (Rear Naked Choke) 2:01, R2
Brock Larson defeated Melvin Manhoef by Unanimous Decision, R3
Masakatsu Ueda defeated Jens Pulver by Submission (D’Arce Choke) at 3:52, R2
Kevin Belingon defeated Thanh Vu by TKO (Strikes) at 1:00, R2
Eddie Ng defeated. Arnaud Lepont by Submission (Armbar) at 4:45, R2
Leandro Issa defeated Yusup Saddulaev by Unanimous Decision, R3
Alex Silva defeated Rene Catalan by Submission (Armbar) at 4:34, R1
Bashir Ahmad defeated Shannon Wiratchai by Unanimous Decision, R3
Preliminary Bouts:
Jake Butler defeated Swain Cangco by TKO (Strikes) at 2:52, R1
Chen Yun Ting defeated Ronald Low by TKO (Strikes) at 3:58, R1