ONE FC 3 – War of the Lions – Singapore Indoor Stadium

ONE FC 3 – War of the Lions – Singapore Indoor Stadium

Published on March 6, 2012 by The Coffee Boy in ONEFC

Rundown Edition — ONE FC 3: War of the Lions

Well people, today, I (The Editor) get to introduce you to my secret weapon in my own battle to become the biggest MMA website covering the Asia Pacific area it’s our new contributor and he is a much nicer person than me.

Below is his first article for MMAnewsAsia.com – Ladies and Gentlemen, Please rise for The Coffee Boy!

At long last, after weeks (and for some, months) of eager waiting, rumors, and speculation, One Fighting Championship has finally released the full fight card for its 3rd event to be held at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, 31^st of March. It certainly took them long enough and one may find it odd that the “UFC of Asia”, as some have called it, would take this long to put together the card, but more on that later. So, if you haven’t already found out about the card, here you go:

1) Felipe Onomoto vs Zorobabel Moreira (Main Event)

2) Tatsuya Kawajiri vs (To be announced later this week)

3) Eduard Folayang vs Ole Laursen

4) Yuya Shirai vs Fabricio Monteiro

5) Melvin Manhoef vs Yoshiyuki Nakanishi

6) Jian Kai Chee vs Eddie Ng

7) Mazakazu Imanari vs Kevin Belingon

8) Jeet Toshi vs Nicole Chua

9) Quek Kim Hock vs Juan Wen Jie

10) Jiang Long Yun vs Yodsanan Sityodtong

11) Danny Van Bergen vs Richie Whitson

Personally, I was absolutely stoked when I finally read the list of fights announced.

There are a bunch of recipes for pure action-packed fights.

The main event pits Zorobabel Moreira (5-1-0) against Felipe Onomoto (6-1-1), and one can only imagine the fireworks bound to happen in the cage. Moreira is coming off of a solid win over The Ultimate Fighter alum Andy Wang, winning via TKO (knees to the body and punches), after dominating most of the fight working the flashy Muay Thai-type strikes and solid clinch work. Enomoto is coming off a win over Ole Laursen via rear-naked choke after a back-and-forth battle.

Other exciting fighters to watch out for include Tatsuya Kawajiri (Pride FC and Shooto vet),Eddie Ng (IBJJF White Belt Gold Medalist), Eduard Folayang (URCC Champion), and American prospect fighting out of Team Quest (Chael Sonnen, Dan Henderson, etc) Richie Whitson. Also, this card feature ONE FC’s first women’s MMA bout, pitting Jeet Toshi, a 7-time kickboxing champion against Nicole Chua, an amateur World Muay Thai Games Bronze medalist.

This is the 3^rd ONE FC event is putting together, and quite honestly is probably their most stacked card thus far. They put on a good show back in 2011, where Eduard Folayang fought a hard fight against A Sol Kwon in an exciting match, and last month they had a decent event with a decent crowd showing up. While they haven’t exactly been drawing the numbers they probably had expected (an estimated 6000+ showed up to the first event, filling up only a little over half of the stadiums capacity), they certainly have been in the news weekly, dropping mind-blowing news about its network of promotions and gyms, its new ties to DREAM, and the 10-year deal they struck with ESPN Star Sports.

However, there are still some questions and doubts fans have as of late, one being the sudden disappearance of new signee Renato Sobral (UFC, Strikeforce vet) from this months card. Speculation arose among fans that Sobral had severed ties with the company as news of his next fight arose, happening at Impact MMA against former hockey player Steve Bosse. We here at MMA News Asia are pleased to reveal though, that Sobral is, according to Victor Cuicommenting on a post on his Facebook page, still with the company and that he is supposed to fight at their next event.

Another question many fans have on their minds has to do with this relatively late announcement of the full fight card. While ONE FC had for the last month or so been promoting this event, revealing several fighters who were to make an appearance, they were already telling people to buy tickets expecting them to be pleased with whatever the matchups were! It is a little odd that the “UFC of Asia” would wait this long to reveal the matchups.Victor Cui, again according to a post on his Facebook page, offered what might be a hint at why it took this long to put the fights together:

“Great fight cards are easy to make when fighters are willing to fight. Unfortunately, many fighters prefer to talk and duck. Thank you to all the fighters who made this awesome fight card happen for ONE FC: War of the Lions!”

Whatever the reason may be, at the very least they have finally pulled through and have put together what has the makings for a solid event. Stay tuned to find out whom will be matched up against Tatsuya Kawajiri, and for in-depth looks and predictions of several of the fights happening at the end of this month.