ONE Championship will be heading back to Singapore on November 11 for ONE Championship: Defending Honor and the fight card will be headlined by Shinya Aoki defending the lightweight title against Eduard Folayang.
The fight booking was announced on Tuesday by ONE Championship.
“Filipino fight fans have been waiting a long time for this one. Eduard Folayang has been with ONE Championship since the beginning and has performed at an extremely high level in his last couple of bouts,” said ONE Championship CEO Victor Cui. “He is deserving of a title shot which he earned with victories over Tetsuya Yamada and Adrian Pang. The Singapore Indoor Stadium is going to erupt when fans finally get to see Folayang stand opposite Shinya Aoki inside the ONE Championship cage.”
Aoki (39-6, 1NC) is currently on a nine fight winning streak and this will be his third ONE Championship lightweight title defense. He is coming off a TKO win against Kazushi Sakuraba at Rizin Fighting Federation 1 and this will be his first fight in ONE Championship since May of 2015, which was a decision win against Koji Ando.
“I have been in the sport for many years and have fought the toughest challengers across the world, but this is the first time I will be fighting a strong Filipino warrior,” stated Aoki. “I am excited to test my skills against a fighter representing the Philippines. Eduard Folayang is a great competitor with solid all-around skills. It should be an exciting match-up.”
Folayang (16-5) has won back to back fights and is coming off a decision win against Adrian Pang at ONE Championship 45 earlier this month. He is 4-1 in his last five fights and all of those victories have come by decision.
“I am at the peak of my abilities as a fighter. All the hard work I have put into training has finally started to pay off and I am challenging the great champion Aoki,” Folayang said. “It will be an honor to share the cage with him, but I feel I have the skills to pull off an upset. I will fight for the honor of my country and the people of the Philippines who will be in my corner on fight night.”
Tickets for ONE Championship: Defending Honor will go on sale Monday, September 5 and more fight bookings will be announced by the promotion shortly.