ONE FC War of the Lions This is the third ONE FC event and the second held at the Indoor Stadium in Singapore
This event was a vast improvement on the first even in terms of organisation and in quality of fights.
The arena was again partly partitioned off giving a capacity of around 7000 and the arena I would say was 97% full, there were empty seats in the arena and that is sad. What will it take to get those remaining 3500 people to come out and fill this really nice stadium and then the roof can be really raised by the noise of the fans.
It’s funny on the way to the stadium I wasn’t very excited, maybe due to an overdose of MMA recently or maybe because the f&^*%£g abysmal organiation at the F1 GP event at Sepang last week almost finished off my hunger for live sporting events. But hell, this is Singapore, easy access to the Stadium via the MRT, straight into the stadium no trouble and down to our nice and roomy seats. Sepang could not even get you in to a massive race circuit in decent time, especially with the super shitty transport infrastructure.
Anyway back to the event ONE FC War of the Lions.
The show started almost on time and moved along at a grand old pace.
There is absolutely no point in me talking too much about the fights and the results they will be all over the net by now and if you were a real fan you probably watched the event live on YouTube.
But here’s my thoughts on some of the points in the event.
Firstly Lenne Hardt, Sorry I still don’t get the crazy Pride lady, can’t stand that noise and if you were depending upon here to name the fighters you would have no idea. I know the Asians love her, but I have no idea why. ONE FC does not have to follow, it has to innovate. Mark Richmond does a perfectly good job. Although personally I think the twosome who did the recent Malaysian Fighting Championship would do a better job or of course the number one MC in Asia, Jonathan Nutt over at DARE, but he’s hardly ONE FC material, too much of an individual.
The undercard was much more exciting than I expected even though all but one of the fights finished in the first round.
I have to confess I was pleased to see Yodsanan Sityodtong lose, in his last showing at ONE FC he fought a hopelessly outclassed Daniel Mashamaite to record an easy win when Mashamaite did a suspiciously Bob Tap Sapp esque dive to the ground.
Jiang Long Yun did not read his part in the script and shut the Evolve fans up early. I have to state right here and now the whole Evolve connection with ONE FC is over the top. The fighters come to the cage with half the crowd in tow, it’s wrong and unnecessary. Why does the Evolve team seem to have 30-40 people in that area when most other fighters teams had 3 or 4? And of course a massive part of the audience is made up of Evolve shirt wearing fans which mean all Evolve fighters start with a real ‘home’ advantage. Nothing against Sityodtong, I just want to see the little guy win.
I am always drawn to the under dog, the smaller guy and so therefore I was pleased to see first blood go to the ‘away’ team.
Maybe Jian Long Yun should get another fight at a ONE FC event in the near future, how about a rematch with CFC fighter Kian “Karange” Pham, that would be a great match-up, they last met at Martial Combat.
Major Overall Vs Quek Kim Hock was the only fight on the undercard to make round two and I have to say that although he lost Overall has no reason to be ashamed. He took the fight at really short notice, I saw him at DARE a couple of weeks ago and he had no idea he would be fighting. He had little time to prepare but put on a great show, ultimately coming up short but I am sure he will be back. He certainly deserves a second chance when he is fully prepared.
Nicole Chua soon put smiles on the Evolve fans faces again as she took out a disappointing Jeet Toshi, I was expecting much more from a 7 time Muay Thai champion.
Kevin Belingon was well and truly defeated by Imanari who during the introductory video said he would win with some form of leg lock. And then he did, just like that, Even though Belingon must have known it was coming he was unable to stop it, as Imanari faked beautifully to get the leg and then it was just a matter of time. I have to say, I want to see Imanari again at ONE FC, he looks to be a real puzzle that is going to be very hard for many fighters to solve.
The Main Card started with a match-up that I described before the event thus
Chee (3-3) Aha and this is where it all falls down for ONE FC, like various fights at the last event we start to scrape the barrel for some talent to please local fans with no real record at higher level – and the ONE FC website report on this fighter that claims “Chee’s ability to trade punches with the best in the game is well-known” is frankly ridiculous he has never been anywhere near the best in the game, he is a low level fighter reminiscent of those fighters who stunk up the Undercard at ONE FC’s last event.
Ng (4-1-0) Brit Ng is a superb young fighter and he won’t have any trouble with Chee.”
And of course I was right, this fight took less than the minute I told the people sat next to me it would take. It’s a shame for Chee he was badly advised, he has a future in MMA but should build up to fighting at this level, this will damage his career, he needs to build a decent winning record at the smaller events around Asia before trying to take on people of Ng's level.
It’s a shame Eddie Ng is a talented guy and deserves to fight better people than this, this makes him look like the bad guy, but he can only fight the people ONE FC put in front of him.
The next fight Yoshyuki Nakanishi Vs Melvin Manhoef was looking to be a cracking fight, Manhoef had come to fight and put on a show and they were both doing a great job. Sadly both fighters sustained fairly serious leg cuts, Manhoefs was probably five inches long and an inch wide, it was gruesome and fair play to him, he did not want to stop, he wanted to fight. A rematch please these two guys looked like they were going to have a great battle.
The fight of the night on my card: Laursen Vs Folayang was spoilt by a terrible split decision win to Laursen who looked like he had been beaten in the face with a frying pan. I have NO doubt that Folayang was a clear winner, clear! The crowds reaction when the result was announced would seem to show that a majority of the crowd felt the way I did, Sadly Jason Chambers is NO Joe Rogan and when talking to Laursen after the fight he never mentioned the fact that the crowd did not agree with him being the winner. From there it was fairly obvious that an immediate re-match would be offered. I am sure it wasn’t planned but it certainly felt like it had been afterwards. Folayang deserves a rematch he was robbed totally and completely.
So there you have it those were my main points. So what’s my overall feeling of the event?
It was excellent, yes there were some issues, there always will be at these type of events but considering this was only event number three, I think Victor Cui and his band of merry men and women have done a spectacular job. I left the event very pumped and looking forward to the next one in Kuala Lumpur, count me in! I just hope we can get rid of those final few mismatches and then ONE FC really will be well on the way to becoming Asia’s Most prestigious MMA Organisation.
but here’s the bottom line:
I was home in Johor Bahru just 1 hour 15 minutes after the event finished using public transport. It took me that long to leave the Sepang F1 Circuit and one hell of a lot longer to get anywhere. Thank good for Singapore.
And thank you to Victor Cui, I’m starting to believe!
