This Saturday on March 26th, the highly anticipated and advertised ONE Championship: X will broadcast with a highly stacked card at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. The event is being headlined with Stamp Fairtex’s first atomweight title defense against current strawweight champion, Angela Lee. The event will also be co-headlined by a special rules match between ONE Muay Thai Flyweight champion, Rodtang Jitmuangnon, and former ONE and UFC flyweight champion, Demetrius “Mighty Mouse” Johnson. The promotion is pulling out a lot of its other big stars like Shinya Aoki, Adriano Moraes, Nicky Holkzen and six title fights in total throughout the whole card.
Stamp Fairtex vs Angela Lee
Stamp Fairtex will make her first title defense after winning ONE’s atomweight title in a Grand Prix tournament that included Meng Bo, Alyona Rassohyna, Julie Mezabarba and Jenelyn Olsim. Stamp submitted ace wrestler, Ritu Phogat, with an armbar in the second round to secure the title. Stamp was once a double champion in the promotion holding the Super Series kickboxing and Muay Thai titles at atomweight.
The woman trying to take her title will be one of the favorite figures in the promotion in Angela Lee. This will be Lee’s first fight in over year after recently becoming a mother. Her most recent fight was her title defense against Xiong Jing Nan at ONE Championship Century Part 1. Lee made that title defense after moving up to strawweight to unsuccessfully challenge Jing Nan herself for that title. On paper, this seems to be a classic striker vs grappler matchup with Stamp’s Muay Thai background and Lee’s accomplishments in jiujitsu and wrestling in Hawaii. However, there is a hint of unpredictability with both fighters having TKO’s and submissions for n their records.
Rodtang vs Mighty Mouse
It’s been a really long time since the MMA community has seen a modified rules fight. In many ways it looked as if the sport had moved on from such things in the past like the match between Judo Gene LeBell and Milo Savage.
Or a match like Muhammed Ali and Antonio Inoki.
Some would even put Randy Couture and James Toney in that list.
What makes the mixed rules fight between Demetrius “Mighty Mouse” Johnson and Rodtang less of a freak show match is the fact that both fighters are to be taken very seriously. Rodtang is probably one of the scariest Muay Thai competitors out there. The ONE Muay Thai champion has been known to walk down opponents, walk past strikes and deliver damage at a grinding pace. Meanwhile, Johnson carries a legendary record since moving to Flyweight in the UFC back in 2012. He famously captured the flyweight title and held it until his second fight with Henry Cejudo, afterward moving to ONE FC. From there Johnson made a tear through Flyweight and won the title. He lost to current title holder, Adriano Moraes.
According to onefc.com, the rules will trade off between rounds. The first and second round will be under Muay Thai rules. While the second and fourth round will be under ONE’s mixed martial arts rules. The intrigue of this fight is that it sticks out even more as a “striker vs grappler” with a Muay Thai superstar fighting against the fighter with a wrestling base and who still holds the UFC record for most title defenses. Of course it’s not to say Johnson is not a good striker. He’s proved proficiency time and time again in the cage. But Johnson has never stood toe-to-toe with anyone of Rodtang’s prowess. Similar for Rodtang, competing against someone with the overall grappling skills like Mighty Mouse. Although, it’s said through the grapevine that Rodtang isn’t a stranger to the jiujitsu game himself. Once again, the question becomes who can survive each other’s overwhelming skill set. Rodtang’s most recent loss was outside of ONE Championship against Kaonar P.K. SaenchaiMuayThaiGym, back in 2019. Johnson’s most recent loss was his most recent fight against the current Flyweight champ, Adriano Moraes, via a vicious knee and ground-and-pound.
Moreas vs Wakamatsu
Speaking of Adriano Moraes, he will make his first title defense against perennial contender, Yuya Wakamatsu. Despite being on the roster for quite a while now, Moraes’ ascent to the title seemed to move slowly with fighting once a year since 2017. Despite this, he has a lot to show for it and joins a surge of fighters out of Brazil that are making themselves known in ONE FC such as Fabricio Andrade and current atomweight Muay Thai champ Allycia Hellen Rodrigues. Moraes sent shock waves throughout the MMA community when he defeated Demetrius “Mighty Mouse” Johnson, something that no one has done at Flyweight in the UFC and ONE championship up to that point (although debatable depending on a person’s opinion about DJ’s first fight with Ian McCall).
Japanese contender, Yuya “Little Piranha” Wakamatsu has been steadily working his way back up the ranks after his losses to Danny Kingad and Mighty Mouse to accumulate a five-fight winning streak. Wakamatsu holds TKO/KO victories over Geje Eustaquio and Kyu Sum Kim as well as a win over submission ace, Reese McLauren. Capturing the ONE Flyweight title would be an excellent notch on a busy career that only dates back to 2015.
Shinya Aoki vs Yoshiro Akiyama
In a matchup that seems tailor-made for the super old school PRIDE fans, Aoki finally faces off against Akiyama. It almost seems unnecessary to talk about the fight history of both of these gentlemen. Shinya Aoki was made famous with his career in PRIDE FC and being one of the first submission aces in MMA to utilize rubberguard. Yoshihiro “Sexyama” is a fighter with a judo base and has a career that stems back to DREAM and was fighting in the UFC back when many non PPV events were on Spike TV. His resume includes fighters such as: Chris Leben, Melvin Maneoff, Michael Bisping, Vítor Belfort and Jake Shields.
Shinya Aoki called out Akiyama in what looked like a pro wrestling style verbal exchange after Aoki’s grappling match with Shutaro Debana went to a draw. The event itself was a ONE event titled Road to ONE: 5th Sexyama Edition that featured Akiyama as part of the ringside commentary team. Although seemingly scripted, the exchange between Akiyama and Aoki did its job. But then again, Aoki is a man that still has strong ties with the Japanese wrestling scene. Either way, the grappling aces will finally meet each other under mixed martial arts rules.
Akiyama’s most recent outing was in February of 2020 when he scored a highlight reel knockout against a charging Sherif Mohamed. Meanwhile, Aoki’s last outing in MMA was against Eduard Folayang in April of 2021 on one of ONE Championship’s TNT cards. Aoki finished Folayang with an armbar in the first round.
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Other fights on the ONE X card are as follows:
Eduard Folayang vs John Wayne Parr (Muay Thai)
Chingiz Allozof vs S. Sitsongpeenong (Kickboxing)
Superbon vs Marat Grigorian (Kickboxing)
Hitomi Akimoto vs Capitan Petchyindee Academy
Andre Galvao vs Reiner de Ridder (Submission Grappling)
Seo Hee Ham vs Denice Zamboanga
Itsuki Hirata vs Jihin Radzuan
Nong-O vs Alaverdi Ramaznov (Muay Thai)
Nicky Holzken vs Islam Murtazeov
Jae Woong Kim vs Tang Kai
Lito Adiwang vs Jeremy Miado
Amir Khan vs Ryogo Takahashi
Ji Won Kang vs Paul Elliott
Senzo Ikeda vs Ryuto Sawada
Mei Yamaguchi vs Danielle Kelly (Submission Grappling))
Alyse Anderson vs Asha Roka
The early card will premiere on Pay-Per-View on Saturday at 12 am Central time with the main card premiering at 7am.